Successful sight reading involves the interaction of many factors. Basic elements of music reading are explained in the "Sight Reading Check List" on the front inside cover. This workbook goes beyond these basics and will increase and awareness of many significant concepts which help make reading music more efficient, accurate and fluent. Many of these concepts are also very helpful when memorizing.
Sight reading skills can be developed by learning how to look for groups of notes, rather than reading individual notes. These note groups include intervals, block chords, broken chord patterns, melodic patterns, accompaniment patterns, rhythmic patterns, phrases, scale segments and arpeggio figures.
The emphasis here is on eye training with coordinated development of the sense of touch. There is also opportunity for ear training. This book helps the student to visually identify note groups in musical excerpts. Each lesson includes a keyboard assignment to provide note reading experience, and to train the sense of touch.
There is no substitute for the experience of reading and playing a large variety of music. It is intended that the concepts presented here be integrated with all future reading and learning of music. This will help students to focus their efforts at improving their sight reading.
For additional help, these Schaum books are recommended: Scale Speller, Arpeggio Speller, Interval Speller, Chord Speller, and Syncopation Workbook.
