Quicker Note Reading

[Sanny]

Does anyone have any tips on how to improve note reading. Such as without having to count the lines and spaces. I can read ok, but it takes about 30 seconds just to read 5 notes. I want to improve it for better playing without pausing to read the notes.
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[The Y_man]

Same here - I absolutely struggle with sight reading.

I usually have to hear the song, then look at the sheet, and train the fingers....

The Y-man

 

[DickR]

Hi Sunny,

Line counting? Did you knew that the reason that sheet-music-notation has only 5 lines is that one can see 5 lines without counting.
If it is 6 or more, yes than you have to count.
Little sideline but maybe nice to know.

I guess it is a matter of discipline and training yourself reading music like you do at school when you learn to read the alphabet.
On the other hand, it's like the Y-Man says, when I like a song and hear it a few times I play it by ear. Sometimes I use the sheetmusic if I don't know the song to well.
I am lucky in that way, others can't play anything if they don't have the sheetmusic in front of them.

DickR

 

[DickR]

Sorry Sanny I mispelled your name. Maybe I should learn to read better!!!

 

[Sanny]

Hi Sunny,

Line counting? Did you knew that the reason that sheet-music-notation has only 5 lines is that one can see 5 lines without counting.
If it is 6 or more, yes than you have to count.
Little sideline but maybe nice to know.

I guess it is a matter of discipline and training yourself reading music like you do at school when you learn to read the alphabet.
On the other hand, it's like the Y-Man says, when I like a song and hear it a few times I play it by ear. Sometimes I use the sheetmusic if I don't know the song to well.
I am lucky in that way, others can't play anything if they don't have the sheetmusic in front of them.

DickR

Everything I play has more than five lines. I remember the little tricks I learned baack when I started but it involves counting lines.I spend hours trying to memorize it and then I do but then the next day I forget.....

 

[The Y_man]

Everything I play has more than five lines. .....

Man, your music manuscript must be pretty different!

The Y-man

 

[DickR]

Everything I play has more than five lines. I remember the little tricks I learned baack when I started but it involves counting lines.I spend hours trying to memorize it and then I do but then the next day I forget.....

???? Are we talking about normal sheetmusic Sanny or do you mean something else???
Normal (todays) sheetmusic has 5 lines with dots on it, no more!
Sure, for left and right hand instrument notation like for a piano or keyboard you will have two bars of 5 lines each for each hand.
Even when you mean a orchestral 'partiture' with many instruments, for every instrument the notation is on 5 lines only. OK with some very short 'help'lines if the note is higher or lower than within these lines.

 

[The Y_man]

I guess I don't have too much trouble reading the notes per se - BUT I do have aproblem with timing. Got a shocking sense of timing so all quavers, semis, demis end up with the same length..... Hence my need to listen to a piece to correlate each note with it's length....

The Y-man

 

[DickR]

I guess I don't have too much trouble reading the notes per se - BUT I do have aproblem with timing. Got a shocking sense of timing so all quavers, semis, demis end up with the same length..... Hence my need to listen to a piece to correlate each note with it's length....

The Y-man

Haha, who cares if you play alone and for your own pleasure. Different though when you play in a band or with a singer who can read the music very well. They might trow things at you. DIVE

 

[Sanny]

???? Are we talking about normal sheetmusic Sanny or do you mean something else???
Normal (todays) sheetmusic has 5 lines with dots on it, no more!
Sure, for left and right hand instrument notation like for a piano or keyboard you will have two bars of 5 lines each for each hand.
Even when you mean a orchestral 'partiture' with many instruments, for every instrument the notation is on 5 lines only. OK with some very short 'help'lines if the note is higher or lower than within these lines.

Regardless, how would one go about teaching this to oneself?

 

[The Y_man]

Haha, who cares if you play alone and for your own pleasure. Different though when you play in a band or with a singer who can read the music very well. They might trow things at you. DIVE

Yeah - I hit troubles because I play at church to back the hymns (small congregation - only one keyboard to provide backing). If I don't know the particular hymn, it's kinda bad... (keyboard following the singers....not so good... )

Whilst they don't throw things at me, I'm sure they don't appreciate singing to the wrong chord and wrong notes....

I'm lucky because my mrs steps in - she can sight read

The Y-man

 

[DickR]

Regardless, how would one go about teaching this to oneself?

If you know the value of the dots etc the only answer is training!
I teach my pupils in the beginning to count out loud the messurements. (Good for training the timing as well Y-Man )
However it is not easy to teach yourself music. You don't become a topstar a good singer or an top athlete by just waitng till it happens. If you take music serious and want to learn to play it as a pro it is hard work and you have to study at least a few hours per day and a good teacher/trainer is of great value. Most of us just play for fun at home but a performer doesn't go far with only 3 chords and one finger for the melody.
BTW talking about chords. On psrtutorial.com is a series of very good lessons learning chords.
Amen, I would say. have fun playing, that's the most important thing.

 

[DickR]

Yeah - I hit troubles because I play at church to back the hymns (small congregation - only one keyboard to provide backing). If I don't know the particular hymn, it's kinda bad... (keyboard following the singers....not so good... )

Whilst they don't throw things at me, I'm sure they don't appreciate singing to the wrong chord and wrong notes....

I'm lucky because my mrs steps in - she can sight read

The Y-man

Write the correct chords down on a piece of paper like C - A - Emin etc. You don't have to read the dots at the same time. If you know and can play the melody of course that is.
I do that sometimes as a reminder and it works great.

 

[The Y_man]

Write the correct chords down on a piece of paper like C - A - Emin etc. You don't have to read the dots at the same time. If you know and can play the melody of course that is.
I do that sometimes as a reminder and it works great.

Yep - my version of sheet music is 1 melody note and chords above - real beginner style (and I still stuff it up )

The Y-man

 

[Pharmtech]

There are several sight reading applications available that work like flash cards...
I've got one on my laptop and IPOD, and fiddle with them when time allows. They've helped...

 

[ootini]

I've been playing the Piano since I was six and to be honest, I've never found any "trick" or method that speeds sight reading up, other than practicing. When I first started playing I'd count lines and spaces etc, but eventually you don't need to, you just recognize the note as you see it. Seriously, nothing will help other than playing and practicing over and over again.

 

[ootini]

Writing the chords on to the manuscript is a quick way of firing through a song, guitar chord boxes help in this way, but you have to understand by doing this, you'll never be playing the piece "properly" you're just improvising in the right chord sequence. Most songs written on or for keyboards/pianos have a proper bass line or left hand accompaniment, just hitting block chords will sound about right, but won't actually BE right.

 

[YeahDoIt]

You might make some flash cards, carry them around with you. Practice with the cards when you have time.