For a lot of us, the biggest hurdle in music isn’t working long hours on a difficult piece, preparing for lessons, or auditioning for a small group of critical strangers. It’s the fear of sight-reading. To sight-read, you must read and perform a piece of music previously unseen and unrehearsed. This can reveal weaknesses in pitch and rhythm, and even if we know a lot, it can still trip us up. It’s not just a problem for students; many good professional musicians are poor sight-readers.

The fear and loathing of sight-reading isn’t necessary, says Leslie Adams Wimsatt, a studio teacher and former orchestra director who has been a sight-reading judge at a lot of orchestra and band festivals and competitions. “The goal in sight-reading,” she says, “is to aim for the main ideas—getting an outline of the piece, understanding how it’s organized, and what the major supporting details are.

‘It’s one big puzzle. It’s better than a video game!’

—Leslie Adams Wimsatt

“You’re given a complex set of interrelationships in music, and your job is to figure it out. It’s one big puzzle. It’s better than a video game!”

Wimsatt breaks sight-reading skills into three parts: what you already know, how fast you can process information, and the strength of your motor skills.

Know It All

Ask a teacher or read a book on the subject, and you’re likely to learn a trick or two that will help you remember what to pay attention to when you start sight-reading a piece.

For example, there’s the mnemonic device “TRaK,” a reminder to start by looking at the time signature, rhythm, and key. But in order to use a memory nudge like that, you have to have all the basics down-how to count consistently, which notes belong in that key, and how those pitches on the page translate to positions on your strings.

Think Fast

Wimsatt suggests working on the speed at which you can process information. “That involves a lot of fun things,” she says, “like reading ahead in the music, reading and thinking in terms of patterns and phrases rather than individual notes, using mental pictures of what the pitches are going to sound like, looking at how far apart the notes are, and imagining what that might sound like ahead of time. Does the melody walk along in steps, or are there leaps in it?”

She also adds that it’s important to practice pieces without stopping. If you stop somewhere along the way, go back to the beginning. Pick a priority, like trying to get all the fingerings and pitches, or trying to play for the rhythms. But don’t try to do both.

“Don’t focus on details; focus on the big picture,” she says. “You’re just trying to get to the notes however you can. Wrong notes and omitted notes are largely inevitable.”

Practice scales and arpeggios daily, faithfully, so your motor skills are operating at their optimal level.

Get Physical

The third important element in sight-reading is the strength of your motor skills, your physical technique. “Practice scales and arpeggios daily, faithfully, so your motor skills are operating at their optimal level,” Wimsatt says. “You develop a really strong tactile sense when you play those patterns because of your muscle memory, and that gives you one less thing to think about when you’re sight-reading.”

Work on sight-reading every time you practice or play. Wimsatt suggests taking whatever piece you’re currently practicing, and playing different bits and pieces of it to make it seem unfamiliar, and more like sight-reading.

Play every other measure. Play the piece backwards. Play only the first measure of each line. Play the first measure of the first line, the second measure of the second line, the third measure of the third line, and so on. Make sight-reading part of your weekly lesson and daily practice assignment and soon it will be a breeze!

—JAMES REEL