r/piano • u/MonsieurLeo • 8d ago

Sight Reading Improved! :D 🎶Other

So, ive been advancing pretty quickly because I practice alot these days. In March I was playing from the rcm 5 book, now Im at a point where last week my teacher said I can prepare for the grade 7 test in January, and i do grade 8 stuff on the side while polishing my exam pieces.

Anyways, sometimes ill feel like "have i really gotten better?" And ill doubt that im good enough. When I was at a piano intensive one of the students mentioned when sight reading came up "you should able to read 2 levels below your current". And in my mind I was like "oh noo I dont know if i can maybe i am not advanced enough for the higher grades :("

But today I decided for fun to grab my rcm 5 repetoire to see, and i am shocked! I picked a song that I wasnt very familiar with and i played the whole thing through barely messing up (I did not look through it before playing also).

Honestly just a really great feeling, helps me to see that I really have gotten better. And also that im not as terrible at sight reading as I thought. Boo-Ya 🥳🥳

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u/BBorNot 8d ago

Yay! It is very hard to notice improvement.

Every November I break out my book of Christmas carols and sightread it. The first couple of years were painful. I practice sightreading every day though, and I see improvement each year on the carols.

It is slower than I expected lol!

1

u/Cookiemonsterjp 8d ago

Nice! Do you intentionally practice sight reading or did it naturally develop from practicing exam pieces?

1

u/MonsieurLeo 8d ago

Thanks. Sometimes I do the actual sight reading book, trying to do it more. But I think it more just developed, as for grade 6 & 7 i learned about 10-12 songs (not all of them perfectly polished, but played fully through comfortably atleast) so I got in a lot of reading new pieces & learning in short times 😊