learn to sight read

I really need to learn to do this! Im a good tenor sax player, and I can play difficult songs…but not without hearing them first, or having someone clap the notes. Its really pathetic and its hindering my playing. I can name the notes and play them, but I dont understand rhythms because I was never taught. Im working on learning time signatures with my music teacher, which is helping.

I’ve always found sight reading for the piano/keyboard extremely difficult (I also play the violin but can sight read violin music without any problems – thought I couldn’t name most of the notes, I just know where my fingers are supposed to go). I gave up learning piano after I got grade 2 as a teenager, partly because I wasn’t inspired by the material or method of learning, but a big part of it was that my sight reading was terrible and just not improving.

Now I’ve returned to learning the keyboard I feel like I’ve cracked the first half of the problem – I’m only learning pieces that I’ve completely fallen in love with so that I’m inspired to keep at it and play it beautifully whatever the difficulty level. So it would help me enormously if I could sight read, or at least be able to read the music a bit faster. Learning pieces I love has already helped a lot with my recognition of some notes, but there’s a LOT of work to be done! My plan is to aim only for gradual ongoing improvement, so I’ll only judge my progress by comparing me to – myself. Hopefully I’ll notice I can read things faster than I could 1 month ago etc.

i now have twobooks on keyboard sight reading. just need to keep plugging a little time into them each day. the bass clef is starting to become more instantly legible to me.

i really need to learn how to sight read by monday!!!

i want to know the keyboard well enough that i can sit down with a reasonably complicated piece of music and play it reasonably well at a reasonable tempo. music will open to me so much more when i reach that stage.

this won’t happen anymore. the only chance i’ll have at my new school to play piano is a grand piano in the dormitory, but i hate people listening, so it will be rare that i actually play it.

this seems incredibly hard to me. i have trouble sight reading even the most basic melodies and such. anyone have any tips for this?

i started playing the flute in 5th grade and stopped after 6th… i could read the notes from low a-high c… then i started taking piano lessons and i cant read the low notes under a or the high notes over g…so sad

Folks;

I really want to do this.. I am not a good music reader to start with so I have a basic problem as well.

One thing that I find potentially a good method of learning is to reading music while listening.

Is there any computer software that anybody knows that can help build this skill?

An extension of my want to learn to play the piano and guitar, my first hurdle is not being able to read music fullstop, let alone at sight level.

But it’s nice to have something to work towards, and I find it increadably impressive so there’s no harm in having it in my list. Even if it’s potentailly the hardest one on it.