Complete Guide to Sight Reading Music

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Contents
0:00 - Introduction
0:54 - Part 1: What it is and why you should do it
2:38 - Reading Music is Like Reading Language
7:00 - Appropriate Material
8:14 - The Sight Reading Factory
10:44 - Part 2 - Intermediate Tips
11:00 - Tip 2 - Know Your Notes and Fingerings
13:05 - Tip 3 - Understand Rhythm Fundamentals
16:32 - Tip 4 - Always Be Counting
19:22 - Tip 5 - Inspect the Piece
21:02 - Tip 6 - Find the Hardest Part
22:00 - Part 3 - Tip 7 - Subdivide Rhythms
24:08 - Tip 8 - Learn Your Scales
25:34 - Tip 9 - Use Your Pencil
28:43 - Tip 10 - Don't Get Lost(and how to recover)
30:48 - Tip 11 - Listen
32:04 - Tip 12 - Stay in "Performance Mode"
33:32 - Tip 13 - Look Ahead
34:50 - Tip 14 - Prioritize Details
36:59 - Tip 15 - How to Survive Mixed Meter
38:19 - Tip 16 - Composition and Transcription
39:00 - Tip 17 - Identify Your Weaknesses
40:00 - Tip 18 - Learn Movable Do Solfege
41:38 - Tip 19 - Learn Music Theory
42:28 - Tip 20 - Practice Technique
43:02 - Tip 21 - Practice Sight Reading *Everything*
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[MorriganNoel]

I’m a pro that knows all these tips, but seeing them put together like this is SO helpful for my teaching! Sometimes when we know these things intrinsically, we can forget what order to present them to student. Thank you!

[MoodyKat]

Four years on piano and just started learning sheet music thanks for the video

[Mister_non]

Wish I had this video in high school but glad I do now! Thank you!

[fe_player]

You should make a book about this series so everyone could recognize you. Also, became a really big fan of your channel since the last two years, and it really helped my career as a violinist and a pianist. (I'm subscribed to your channel.) So glad that I found this channel.

[BigA]

The best comprehensive study on sight reading I've seen.

[aryolala]

This is really informative. Wow. I'm so grateful I found you!!!

[debrafshoemaker]

This is already one of my favorite channels. 😊

[XXmattXX]

Wish i found this at the start of my self-taught, adult begginer piano journey. Oh well, hopefully i’ll be able to share it with an enthusiastic beginner one day

[valle]

been in my local youth choir for 2 years and the pencil is a lifesaver. started with knowledge about sheet music but still cant sight read, but marking whatever I missed in practice made it so that I would remember it instead of reading It wrong on showtime

[charliegordan]

Amazing resource, thank you Mr.Harrison

[lshwadchuck]

Thanks. I didn't even finish this video before getting SRF. After half an hour at the bottom level, I love it already! I've spent four years doing simple piano fluency exercises around the circle of fifths, developing my inner rhythm and playing no pieces, so I think I can really benefit from this with my high tolerance for simplicity.

[MarcLuc-pcby]

Am still watching Better than tiring slap bass lessons on bass! As a bassist it helps!

[YaelEylatTanaka]

You're a great teacher, Brad! Very clear and to the point. I haven't seen any videos on your site addressing chords, specifically why a 7th chord is built on the dominant. I simply can't understand that concept: "Built on the dominant."

[emiliabreaks]

I‘m working on becoming a better bass player because I make lots of mistakes all the time even though I write them down. I just can’t manage to read and play at the same time. I always avoided notes, but I feel like now it’s time to tackle that first before proceeding to sight reading. This video helped a lot, let’s act on it. Thank you 🎉

[oscah_whisky]

I haven't even gotten past the 5 minute mark, and I'm excited. I am a "professional" musician, and I absolutely SUCK at sight reading... Like, it's really bad. I've defs lost at least one gig 'cause my reading is so bad...😐

[shivakumarnarayanan]

Hey thanks a lot for the comprehensive video! I have a question about the moveable do/solfege part of it - the system of music that i learnt when i was young (indian carnatic) relies entirely on moveable do solfege (but with different names instead of do re mi..) and since this has been deeply ingrained in my head, i only ever make sense of music using scale degrees and whenever i listen to music i only hear the scale degrees. Now that im learning to sight read the piano (after around 4 years of playing), im confused as to whether i should identify absolute note names like A B C, etc (since the absolute note names make no sense / add no value to me trying to play the music) or whether i can get by only using scale degrees and intervals ? Will this at some point cause problems when i reach more advanced levels? Or is it okay to do it this way? And also im assuming knowing the scale degrees would mean having to memorize 7x the number of notes?

[Jennyshalfmusic]

I've been using sight reading factory and its great. I've gone up to B and Db major so now looking at the dreaded F#/Gb. Do you have to learn to sight read both or does only 1 come up?

[GMSlash]

Would you say it's okay to sometimes leave the counting behind to try and figure out certain fingerings and tricky parts?

[bradmiller]

I'm not sure when sight reading became this but 20 years ago sight reading was taught to people who can't read music. It requires you to be given the key then you just use your do re mis.

Sight reading is not reading music. Reading is reading.


Infuriating that it's been hyped up to be this big grand bullshit. No. If you can read music then you can read music. It's not some INCREDIBLE thing that someone can play a piece the first time they read it. THEY LEARNED TO READ THEY PUT THE WORK

[marco-rocl]

It's all fun and games until you need to sightread as a pianist