How to Sight-read by Paul Harris - Helpful Tips, New Book and App

Sight-reading has never been something I feel is my musical superpower so I am always eager to find more tips on developing this skill.

Today I was so excited to watch a piano webinar hosted by the Curious Piano Teachers featuring Paul Harris to learn some new ideas regarding this topic. I also hoped to pick up some practical tips to help my piano students sight-read with fluency and confidence too. 

9 Tips About How To Sight-Read by Paul Harris

I love the 9 tips that he shared that he delves into more deeply in his new book "How to Sight Read" and look forward to reading it. I asked permission to share the 9 basic tips (from my webinar notes). 

I decided to note some specific action items that his list sparked in my mind about how to help my piano students sight-read with fluency and confidence. It's easy to feel inspired at a workshop, but unless I take action quickly, that boost of energy becomes lost in my piano notebook pretty quickly😉. 

 I hope I can put these tips into practice right away. The bold headings below are the topics Paul expounds on in his book.

1- Know the Musical Ingredients

Before starting a new piece play a quick game of "I Spy" as students locate terms and signs in their music as fast as they can. Saying the following prompts can refresh their memory, help you determine which musical ingredients they are aware of and make patterns and expressive markings more salient so they are more likely to play them accurately.

I spy a symbol that means hold the note longer. (fermata)

I spy the shortest type of articulation (staccatissimo)

I spy 4 different dynamic markings. Can you color them in 10 seconds?

2- Hear it in Your Head (Audiation)

Play solfa ear training games like Scale Stops or Intervals in Motion more often at group lessons. Sing solfa patterns together as the students play scales or music that includes repetitive solfa chunks. 

Enrolling my son in Let's Play music and repeatedly singing "Do is Home" and solfa chord patterns ("Do-Mi-So, Do-Fa-La, etc.) with him actually improved my own audiation skills significantly so that I can more easily play pop songs by ear and choose the appropriate harmony.

3-Increase Brain Processing Speed and Patterns

Include Paul Harris's new Sight Reading App into my Piano Lab Assignments and track my own progress using the Brain Processing Speed Exercises.

Before playing new music ask students to label the form and familiar patterns like sequences, arpeggios, scales, primary chords, etc.  in their pieces. The skill of chunking music in groupings rather than individual notes will speed up their ability to play it.

4-Increase Peripheral Vision

Try the Peripheral Vision Exercises in Paul Harris's new Sight Reading App  and add them into my Piano Lab Assignments.  

Experiment using a moving paper to cover the music of sightreading measures for students before they play it forcing them to look ahead in the music.

5-Talk it Through

Review my workshop notes about music mapping and create a short activity plan to implement this with students for a group activity.

6- Gain Key Awareness

Explore scales and improvisation with the MusicClock app or BenSound backing tracks at least once a month.

7-Understand Subdivision of Rhythms

Explain rhythms using comparisons rather than absolute values. For example, "a dotted quarter note= 3 eighth notes" instead of "eighth notes are half a beat." Beat values change based on the time signature, but the note comparison relationships remain the same. 

Invite students to try augmentation or diminution of a musical phrase to solidify rhythm relationships and explore the Rhythm section of the Sight Reading App.

8-Gain Instinctive Fingering and Location Awareness

Ask students to teach scale-fingering families to their peers at group lessons to solidify their own awareness of the patterns.

9- Include Improvisation

Invite students to improvise using elements from their current pieces more often or explore Create First improvisations by Forrest Kinney.