Tips and Tricks to Help You Gain an Edge at Sight Reading and Instantly Make You Better Than You Really Are!

Okay so… sight reading. It’s not common for guitar players to learn to sight read. If you are pretty good at reading music scores and want to know a few tricks that will help you seem better than you are then this article is for you.

If you want to learn to be excellent at sight reading, then these tips and tricks will help you to stay one step ahead as well. Also, they are invaluable to you if you do a lot of sight reading.

How to quickly improve your sight reading
in the short term

Going through a piece before you start

Before plunging straight into playing, check through the piece of music. What is the key signature? Are there any unexpected changes that come up? Any challenging passages or specific chords you may need to figure out and make a mental note of before playing?

Are there any areas where you may be adding
phrasing elements or required to add any? Are there any sections that need
tricky fingering on the fretboard or barre chords?

Spot patterns in the piece you are about to play

Look for any patterns that repeatedly come
up. Whether it’s a full passage or specific phrases. Spotting these patterns
beforehand will help you prepare yourself so that when you do come up to those
similar passages, you can be more confident and even add more expression and
phrasing into your playing as well.

Setting your timing

When you’ve checked through a piece, you
can set your timing to the most difficult passage in the song piece.

Otherwise, it can be easy to go straight into it and start too fast and stumble when it gets to the more difficult part. If you set your timing right, you should make fewer mistakes (hopefully none), and seem a lot calmer and more composed.

Do not stop

When you play, don’t pause if you get
something wrong. You need to keep going. Emphasizing again why it’s essential
that you count. Even if you miss a couple of notes, come back in when you
should at the right point of the passage. Keeping the rhythm is important when
you are playing with other people.

Sing it in your head

If there is a central melodic part of the
piece, try to sing it in your head, so you can hear the music before you play
it. If you are good at ear training, this alone will help you tremendously. As
long as you know your intervals and you should be able to sound up the music
roughly in your head.

I hope these few points will help you keep a few steps ahead when it comes to sight reading. Even if you do alot of sight reading, I think these points are still beneficial. Particularly when you are doing sight reading in front of people. Being confident about sight reading in front of people under pressure can be a very different experience to sight reading at home.

Learning guitar might not be easy, but it helps when you have the best guitar tuition possible. Guitar Tuition East London providing top guitar lessons in East London is there to provide an experience in guitar learning that will not only have you making lots of progress but so you feel confident with your guitar playing. Especially when it comes to playing with and in front of people.