How well can you sight read? (1 Viewer)

[evilelmo_2005]

I am virtually musically dyslexic, myself. I cannot learn anything purely by reading the score; I have to hear it, and then either learn it using both hearing and the sheet music, or just using the score as a rough guide and picking out most stuff by ear.

Therefore, if someone puts previously unseen sheet music in front of me and asks me to play it straight away, I am basically completely hopeless

(On the other hand, I have almost-perfect pitch, and can pick stuff out by ear pretty easily.)

Curious to hear what other people say!

I want ur perfect pitch, gimme ur perfect pitch plz

 

[Baremy]

For me i have perfect pitch on the guitar but sight reading is quite new to me as i've learnt by ear for my entire life.

However since i've been starting piano i can sight read quite easily. how very abnormal

 

[Xuboy]

i am soooooooooo bad :\ its not even funny :\
but only on piano...its a piece of cake to sight read 1 line on trumpet

 

[RBKSoulja]

im ok. its basically sorting out the rhythm and the notes but after that im fine lol.

for all those music 2 people out there (if they are listening) more importantly how is your sight singing? mine's shocking. i sound like a dying cat with sinus. ewww.

my sight singings just average, but my HSC one was shit easy hahahaha at least 4/5

That is the biggest bs i have ever heard.
Sight reading is nothing natural. I used to be sheeet.
The trick is to basically sight read LOTS every day. Usually i just sight read like 2 grade 3 books in and hour and the next day half of a grade 4 and etc. i just get all my previous grade pieces and open them and just sight read the pieces. that is all there is to it. It's all in the memory of seeing the note and being able to immediately play what you see, and with practise that comes along.

ur right, i used to be shocking at sightreading, i started sightreading bach's 371 chorales, doing a page or so everyday. now i can easily play a grade 7 piece. but yeah i also did a lot of accompanying work for my school, like with concerts and other ppls HSC exams (obviously not this year tho haha)

some ppl say u can learn perfect pitch?? i find relative pitch works fine for me, i can pick out notes and chords and play a popular song in a few seconds. my dads perfect pitch tho >< and the genes havent passed on (if its a natural thing) FML

 

[isabelle101]

i absolutely love sight reading!!!!!!!!!!!! (im pretty good at it)
i have no idea what i'd do if i couldn't just pick up a song and play it...

yeh but i so wish i had perfect pitch - its something i really suck at...
oh well, still working on it i suppose!

 

[Angelyte]

Seriously ppl, perfect pitch is not that great... :S
my friends always tell me off about how i have advantage blah, blah... but really, it's not that great. It's annoying when it comes to transposing and you lose you're ability to relative pitch, which my teacher puts great emphasis on.
If I get a transposing melodic dictation... i'm screwed.
and i can never play a transposing instrument in my life :S

 

[kyokaku92]

As a pianist, I can sight read from 1-4 grade, afterwards I'm hopeless. I hated the 8th grade sight reading AMEB exam :angry:

 

[GUSSSSSSSSSSSSS]

my sight reading for piano and violin is average, i dun really struggle that much with it =S however when it comes to pipe organ FUCK ME I SUCK HUGE TIME!!!!!! lol 3 lines at once is just too much for my brain lol, but as with all things just have to work hard at it and with time it will improve xD xD

oh and sight singing, well i didn do music2 so i dun know the standard of the sample they give u, but im USELESS at it lol, i listen to deathmetal and as a result that's how i sing LOL

 

[honsaw]

I can sight read about grade 4 violin, since its only the treble clef.. but on the piano i find it soo hard to play both hands together. I was wondering if you sight reading skills are bad but you play good at technique and your pieces are you able to achieve grade A ?

 

[ilikebeeef]

WHAT I WANT IS PERFECT PITCH! HOW DO U GET PERFECT PITCH? THOSE PEOPLE WITH PERFECT PITCH TEACH ME HOW OBTAIN THAT SKILL plz. I want perfect pitch, I have perfect pitch for my right hand for the piano since it's the melody but I can't get the left hand right. I want to know how to listen to a piece and play it by both hand just from listening not just my right hand

sorry for my long reply

It's about learning to associate the "sound" of a note with its name I guess. Try to "learn" what the Middle C sounds like for starters for example.

I honestly don't know how I got perfect pitch. I "discovered" that I had perfect pitch after my cello teacher told me what it was. But I don't think I had perfect pitch when I played piano before I learnt cello, probably because piano was about putting your fingers on the right keys, whereas cello involved a great deal of listening.

Seriously ppl, perfect pitch is not that great... :S
my friends always tell me off about how i have advantage blah, blah... but really, it's not that great. It's annoying when it comes to transposing and you lose you're ability to relative pitch, which my teacher puts great emphasis on.
If I get a transposing melodic dictation... i'm screwed.
and i can never play a transposing instrument in my life :S

OMG yes it was so frustrating when my Year 9 music teacher played a different starting note to what he said it was and we had to write the whole melody down. I had to listen to it in terms of intervals rather than actually what notes I heard.

Anyways, I can sight read piano up to 6th grade well (without touching the keyboard in advance). For the grades after that, it's kinda hard for me to not make mistakes lol. For cello... haha, I can't sight read tenor clef well. I can sight sing, this would be where I use my "perfect pitch".