Sight Reading - Part 1

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin here at virtualsheetmusic.com with a video for you today, the importance of sight-reading. Sight-reading; being able to take a musical composition you've never seen before and read it, play it at sight. Boy, what a great thing that is to be able to do. I remember as a child, growing up, I developed my piano playing but my sight-reading was quite miserable for a long time until much later. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great?" I'd see people who could sight-read well like my father who could seemingly sight-read anything beautifully the first time."

Well, why is sight reading so important? You know, there are a number of reasons. Number one, as you study an instrument, you get to study certain pieces which you will work on very hard on a performance level, perhaps you'll memorize them. These are very limited number of pieces you can learn in the course of a year or even over a lifetime. Yet, you want to be able to play a lot of music to familiarize yourself to even know what you want to learn.

Instead of just listening to recordings, wouldn't it be great if you could just sit down and get a sense of a piece? Well that's exactly what sight-reading enables you to do. The good news is the more of it you do, the better you get at it. So I strongly encourage you to sight-read through as much music as you can so you develop your reading. If you start with music on a more elementary level and do it every day, you'll find that your reading level will grow over time.

Now there are other benefits to sight-reading. Sight-reading is absolutely essential for playing with other musicians. You might want to get together informally. Perhaps if you get together informally reading with other musicians, it not only is enjoyable to explore new music. But if you like what you're doing, maybe you'll decide to do a venture, a concert together, things like that. There are endless possibilities for collaborative music in all sorts of groups from duos, trios, quartets, and up to orchestras and choirs and all the rest of it. Sight-reading is great for that as well.

Now, what else is sight-reading important for? Well, when you're learning a piece of music, if you can sight-read through the piece a few times, you can get familiar enough with it that you know the trouble spots or spots that you really need to pay attention to so you can earmark your practice to certain key areas, maximizing your effectiveness in your practice. So there are many benefits to sight-reading; to reiterate, to familiarize yourself with a large amount of music. You couldn't possibly learn all of those pieces. Secondly, to play with other musicians informally so you can develop a relationship and see what it's like playing with other musicians. Lastly, to optimize your practice so that you know what's ahead in the piece you're currently learning.

Thanks for joining me. Robert Estrin here at virtualsheetmusic.com.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---