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Develop your memory a little and learn to read 1 or 2 measures ahead of where you are playing - essentially playing from memory what you just read. If possible, quickly look at your part entirely before you have to play it.

You might want to consider taking some piano lessons. You cannot play piano note by note--you must develop "whole measure" sight reading skills just to get by.

Piano will also do wonders for your vertical musical thought processes.

FWIW.

Find things to sightread and do it every day. The more you do it, the better you will become.

I missed making the all-state band in Texas because I screwed up sightreading. I now have no fear. If I can play it at all, I can probably sightread it pretty well.

"A Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances" by Eloise Ristad



It has a nice, very short section on sight reading. It also addresses some perceptual issues that may be a bigger, deeper root of some people's sight reading problems.



Read it with a very open mind, it is "different" but is a very good resource for any musician.

it is also necessary to know your intervals - COLD. Learn to sing them, play them on your instrument and on the piano. Learn to recognize them on the page. All sight reading is, is being able to play from the 1st note of a piece to the 2nd note in the proper pitches, tuning, color and rhythm. Then from that note to the next, etc., etc. It ain't hardm, it just takes some practice. Get the Arban book out and work on the interval studies - it's a great start.

Roger

Let me offer some additional insight into sight reading.

Given plenty of time most people can read the music in front of them and get through it.

Time is the key factor. In sight reading you don't have time to process, you have to get through the music, make noise when you're supposed too, stay in the key, and don't play in the rests.

I have worked with my students to improve sight reading by using the following methods.

1.) Turn on metronome, open book, look at key/time, play.

The most important thing to do is NOT TO STOP but to keep trying and getting what you can.

2.) Slow down metronome a few clicks, repeat step number 1

3,) See step number 2 until you play it through mostly.

Why does this work???

Forcing yourself to stay with the metronome puts some pressure on you, replicating what it would be like in the band.

When reading, you can not stop. You have to get through it without causing the rest of the group to crash.

Now we move to the second part of the method, rhythm recognition.

1.) Move stand far enough that you can see the notes, barely. Just so you can't see exactly what note it is, but rather the shape of the musical line.

2.) Turn on metronome, and go for it.

3.) Move closer an inch or so, and see step 2

WHY does this work??

This forces you to concentrate on the line and rhythm without worrying about the exact notes.

If you have a 16th note run with 8 notes starting on Eb in the staff, all you need to know is the key and when to end.

I'm not saying to fake it, I'm saying to follow the line and keep the music going. Too many people fall apart trying to read each note and play it.

JUST PLAY THE LINE. If you miss a note it won't matter nearly as much as if you slow down, stumble, play in a rest, etc.

I have used the above methods to help many students improve their reading. The final method is to apply what you have learned to real world playing.

Get a small group together and practice this together.

I hope this helps, I apologize for it's length but it was important to explain not only the method but it's madness.

JKD

Read everything musical you can get your hands on. If you can't read treble clef, learn how. Play through a church hymnal. Buy pop tunes at the second-hand store and play the songs completely through. Memorize every major and minor scale (you really don't have to do many more scales than that, except for a chromatic scale.) And always use a metronome!

Sightread as much as you can. Grab an etude book and work your way backwards, a few everyday.

Look at the key signature to determine key, check for modulation. Look for tricky rhythms, notes that are difficult, time signature changes, the normal stuff that can throw you off.

Everybody thinks different. You just have to go keep on doing it until you find what works for you.

I found that my sight reading dramatically improved when I started studying scores, and improved even more when I started scoring my own charts. Looking deep into the music while seeing it in front of my eyes led me to a better understanding of rhythmic interpretation, which for me was much more difficult to get right than the correct pitches.

All those years of teaching and conducting Jr. High School band and orchestra certainly didn't hurt Tommy Johnson's sight reading skills.

I agree with everyone who says to sightread everyday. I also teach my students the STARR System which seems to work. It stands for;
key Signature
Time signature
Articulation
Rhythm
Range

Check these things before you play and it helps to get yourself in the right mind set before you play. With Range, find your lowest and highest note. This way you will know what range you will have to stay within. Sometimes you find out that you are only playing within 1 octave.
Hope this helps.

Dennis "who sightreads better sometimes than he plays after a couple of rehearsals" Pollard

Greg wrote:I think this is a great system. I think it is also used in the "Standard of Excellence Band Method". The only place that I stray from what you have pointed out is that I use the last "R" to stand for Repeats or DC/DS signs.

Too bad there's not a "W" in the system for "What kind of idiot wrote this thing?" or "Who the h*ll would want to listen to this?"

Levity aside, another thing that might help is to tackle music that's much more difficult than you're comfortable with. Learning to take the music apart, work out difficult sections and deal with your feelings of frustration can be very beneficial when it comes to playing the everyday stuff--even if you never manage to master the really tough stuff.