Pros And Cons Of Sight Reading – Should You Sight-Read First?

The traditional method of learning piano often begins with sight reading. Yet, it requires much effort and laborious work.

That’s why most novice piano learners get bored and drop out.

So, is sight reading still the best way to learn piano for beginners?

To answer that question thoroughly, today, our guest Neil from sublimelody.com brings us the pros and cons of sight reading approach and advice on sight reading for beginners.

Let’s get started first from the pros of sight reading.

Pros Of Sight Reading

• Developing fast reading and analytic skills, which can be really useful in academic learning (school, college, and university)
  • Piano sheet music uses the Grandstaff, which consists of 2 staves. Experienced pianists can look at the Grandstaff and play the piano at the same time. So, they often have a wide range of vision, which means they can easily read 2 or 3 lines at the same time.
  • A complex piece requires the student to divide it into super smaller pieces, analyze the detail, technique, and practice with super slow speed.
• Developing patience and discipline:
  • The students first have to read and remember all the notes and rhythm of a small piece first, then they use proper technique to bring the sound into reality. After that, they have to repeat that melody many times, until it meets the criteria of sheet music.
• Understanding deeply all the details of the piece:
  • Sight readers need to learn at least 3 things: the pitch, the rhythm, and the dynamics. And by understanding all the details of a piece, they can play the piece by the language of the composer. It also shows the respect for the composer.
• Playing without looking at the fingers:
  • Sight readers tend to not look at the keyboard because their eyes are on the sheet music
• Knowing how to write music and can become a composer

As you can see, these pros are so desirable but what are their prices?

Cons Of Sight Reading

• Putting a lot of time and effort:
  • Learning by sight reading is like learning how to read. It requires lots of active learning activities in the beginning stage.
• Limiting improvisation skill:
  • I saw many pianists perform a classical piece smoothly: no mistake, right notes, right fingers, perfect timing, sophisticated dynamics. However, when I ask them: “If you could play an ABC song?”, “Do you have its sheet music?” replied the pianists.
    That case is very common since the pianists’ brain is wired with the sight reading method. They have no idea on how to play a song by ear or improvise on a melody.
    Moreover, they can’t play a piece if it has no sheet music.
• Limiting memorizing skill:
  • Sight readers tend to be lazy to memorize the melody of the sheet music. Since if they forget some notes, they just need to pull out the sheet music.

Too much of one thing can adversely create an unbalanced musician.

Now you’ve got the pros and cons of sight reading.

Let’s talk about the strategy to learn piano for beginners.

The Natural Learning Process Of An Infant And The Piano Learning Strategy For Beginners

How do infants learn to speak?

Well, they learn by hearing and listening to words, speeches with lots and lots of repetitions, and at least 8 hours or more a day.

Gradually, they absorb all the necessary words for daily communication.

It’s the very first success of all people in language learning.

It’s also the natural learning process.

The natural learning process focuses heavily on input, not output!

In the example above, the input is listening, and the output is speaking.

As you can see, the child puts a lot of input, then the output comes naturally.

The question may come to your mind now is: sight reading is input or output?

Well, neither of them.

Learning sight reading is learning a new way to gather input!

Precisely, to learn sight reading is to develop a new device to accumulate input in a more effective and thorough way.

It’s hard for us because our brain isn’t familiar with it. It requires the functions of the left brain, which involves logical thinking and analytic activity.

That’s why I created a visual guide on how to read piano notes and keys. It helps beginners learn the basic music theory much easier and faster.

Below is the summary infographic for the guide. You can click here to learn more deeply about how to read piano notes and keys.

[Infographic, link: https://sublimelody.com/how-to-read-piano-notes-and-keys-infographic/]

Besides, our natural way to gather input is listening or learning by ear. That’s why most beginners often feel learning by ear are easier, more comfortable, and interesting.

So, the strategy for beginners here is to set 90% time of a practice session on ear training and 10% on sight reading. This especially useful for kids.

The ratio is different for adults: 70% ear training and 30% sight reading since adults can learn the complex things much faster.

And when the students become better, reduce the ratio into 40/60 or 50/50.

Hope now you have a more thorough view on sight reading and how to approach learning music more effectively.