Sight-reading? Who Needs It

'Sadly many of our pupils are poor readers. Often the reason is that they do very little reading, and as most people do not enjoy doing something they are not good at they do even less. So we have to break this vicious circle and provide them with a structured course which will allow them to make good progress in reading.' Christine Brown

Sight-reading angst is something that does not go away. Christine Brown's words appeared in her excellent Playing at Sight, originally published in the early1960s, but newly reprinted by Faber last year. Some would say that things are worse now than ever before – simply because good sight-reading skills are no longer as important for musicians as they once were: In our 'high-tech' age of websites, downloads, YouTube videos and iPods, the instant accessibility of excellent recordings is taken for granted. If young pianists today want to find out what a Chopin Nocturne sounds like, chances are they won't sight read it. It's so much easier to search for performances on YouTube!

So do we need good sight reading in our lives anymore? Obviously for those aspiring to a professional career phenomenal sight reading can be a godsend. Among other things, it means that you can take on work at short notice when colleagues fall ill and you're required to play unfamiliar dots straight off the page. The real reason why musicians needs to be good at reading, however, is because music is language – and if you can't easily read it you're never going to understand it properly. From personal experience, I find that composers are nearly always fabulous readers. In the musical garden, they are always dirtying their hands in the soil. I recommend that all pianists do the same. Good sight reading comes easily to those who are used to manipulating dots and dashes on manuscript paper. It is by far the most effective way of learning how to assimilate and understand logic, patterns and progressions of every kind.

To be a good sight reader means to be a good musician, and there is not one aspect of musicianship that can't help musical reading. Theoretical knowledge is obviously crucial, as so much facility and accuracy in reading comes from the ability to anticipate what's about the happen on the page. Technical facility is also crucial, since there is no time for hesitations and stumbles and you read. Closely bound up with this is the need to not look at your hands whilst you're reading. Pianists who look down tend to have stiff and angles necks, which in turn leads to bent backs and even to medical conditions. I argue, therefore, that good posture is vital if you are really serious about improving your sight reading. 'Never look at your hands' is a good imperative to keep in mind at all times, and I have even covered students' hands with car rugs as they play, precisely to stop them from looking.

But good reading goes even deeper. It's essential to have excellent short-term memory skills. Your eyes should constantly move along the page as you read so it's vital to remember accidentals, the pulse, dynamics, pedal markings and so on as you play. And of course in most practical situations you will find that you have at least half a minute to look over what you're about to play for the first time; time spent memorising during that vital 30-second period will not be wasted if you can remember vital elements crucial to the piece before you start to play.

The hardest thing about sight reading is the fact that you have so many different things to do at once. You have no time to consider the pitches alone of each clef; your eyes need to be able to take in both at once. Rhythm needs to be logical and stable – and of course rhythm tends to be treated by most aspiring players as less important than pitch. Yet the reverse is unquestionably true for all listeners! You also have t try and remember what key you are in, to 'interpret' as you go, and to capture dynamics, articulation and pedalling too. Multi-tasking skills indeed! Moreover, you need a lot of insensitivity, because you can't afford to stop to correct anything – ever. This is often too much for intensely musical, sensitive students to take, and they often end up disliking sight-reading solely because this.

So what is the solution? Most people find sight reading hell and prefer to remain bad at it, no matter how often its pointed out that the whole note-learning process ultimately becomes faster and more effective when their reading skills are good. The way forward could be to treat exercises as musical games – fun on the same level as crossword puzzles. Humour and a sense of the ridiculous won't go amiss either as you soldier on. From personal experience in my own family, I have recently been thrilled to see Matthew and Callum, my seven- and nine-year-old sons, move from complete hatred of sight reading too a position where they genuinely enjoy doing their Christine Brown exercises each day. It has taken us three months as a family to move forward to this position of inspired hope. We've got there because we've stuck with it, had a jolly good laugh about how hard it all is, written down on the music the date each exercise was completed (often with comments along the lines of 'very hard', 'easy' or 'odd'), and also tried clapping, singing and making up words up for exercises. Analytical discussions prior to each 'execution' – on intervals, key signatures, scales and ledger lines – have also helped. And it has also been fascinating to see Matthew in particular continue each exercise as an embryonic improvisation, finishing with a V-I cadence, all done in mock seriousness, and usually with giggles at the end.