The ability to play at sight is an immensely valuable skill that enables and accelerates the process of learning new repertoire. It’s often neglected, though, and if it is untended for too long there will inevitably come a point where one’s reading ability becomes too weak to register effectively against increasingly complex notation. Progress will slow, and when the burden of reading outweighs the joy of the music-making, the outlook is bleak.
There are essentially three types of sight-reading books on the market to help ward off this predicament: The first type contains pieces that are homogenised in terms of their difficulty to a specified standard. The second type provides exercises and instruction to work on the nuts and bolts of the reading process. And the third type features progressive difficulty, gradually adding musical features to facilitate digestion. Each type of book has its place depending on an individual’s needs.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
The first type of book – music to practise reading at sight – is exemplified by and These are available from Initial to Grade 8, whilst provides samples of diploma-level tests. These are not instructional books, but(available from Initial to Grade 8) where the goal is to learn a piece every week, thereby increasing the strength of sight-reading muscles through greater exercise. The theory is sound, although success depends on the compliance of the student, who may not wish to spend a whole week preparing such pieces. Plenty of music, along with a spoonful of guidance, is provided in In the first half of each book, the pieces are prefaced by introductory notes that discuss Time, Rhythm, and Key, encouraging mental preparation of the music. In the second half, there are no such annotations. It helps that many of the pieces sound good, although the level of difficulty is harder than expected in places. At Grade 6, for example, almost all the pieces in the second half are a full page. adopts a similar approach in the higher grades, highlighting aspects of the music to observe. Again, the calibration of difficulty seems high; although the presentation is dated the advice given is apt and the musical choices are attractive.
