As a guitar player, the secret to make me stop playing is giving me sheet music. This video is helping me a lot!!

1. Rhythmic divisions - The trick is to get fast at finding the division points in each measure. - Train your eyes to look for the large beats. [...] You can sort of eyeball where the midpoint is, for example, for each measure. 2. Interval faces - The trick is to pay attention to the lines and spaces. >> If two notes are both on lines or both on spaces, then those are odd number intervals (1, 3, 5, 7, 9...). >> If two notes are one on a line and one on a space, then those are even number intervals (2, 4, 6, 8, 10...). - Once you master this, you can really monkey-branch from note to note. If you have a starting point, you can read the notes by intervals. - This is particular useful when you have a lot of ledger lines. >> If a note is on a high ledger line, you can make an educated guess of what note it is by thinking in terms of odd or even intervals from your reference note. >> You can also think backwards: Your reference note can be several notes ahead of the one you're trying to guess. 3. Tiering - An important extension on the topic of intervals is to layer your reading: if a phrase of music has two layers (some notes much lower, some notes much higher), divide your reference notes, one for each layer. - The important thing is that, by monkey-branching and tiering, you're combining different types of information: absolute information (your knowledge of what a note is upon first glance) and relative information (using reference notes and intervals). 4. Key signatures - For sharps, look at the last sharp to the right: that will be a half step below your major key signature. - For flats, look at the second to last flat to the right: that will be your major key signature. 5. Clumping - Clumping is looking at a larger pool of notes and information instead of reading note by note. - Some common ways to clump notes together are to recognize scales, intervals and chords.

Also if you want to improve your sight reading... try composing! It will give you a new perspective!

As a kid I thought pianists just read the music and they just play it perfectly. I did not know they practiced a lot to achieve perfection.

Piano teacher here. That's almost exactly how I teach reading music. Of course I do it differently at the very start, when students just learn what keys to press when, but I always point out: follow the notation for reference. The number of notes each key stroke, the values, melody contour. I also teach tricky 16th note jazz/funk/latin phrases as "words". One doesn't read each single letter, but recognizes patterns and translates these into sounds. Excellent video as always!

OMG! This video was so incredibly helpful. I’ve studied piano for years and never learned these reading techniques. There is a difference between being encouraged to read more, to actually being shown HOW to read better. Thank you! You are brilliant!!!

I studied music at university level and no one ever taught me any of your tricks! This is life changing!

As a violinist I’m always amazed by how great pianists sight-reading skills are. There are tips and this skill takes time to be practiced - we only have 1 staff usually… no excuse if even pianists (2+ staffs) can do it!

A lot of these I have been doing naturally but sort of forced myself to stop because I thought it wasn’t the “proper” way to sight read. Thanks for giving these a name and letting me know this is even what the pros do!

As one who easily get intimidated at the thought of reading music, this was absolutely brilliant. Thanks for the tips Nahre! Now to be less lazy and get to reading more 😅

Bach is extremely good for training your sight-reading skills, because (basically) everything he writes contains extremely complex counterpoint. I know sight-reading fugues and contrapuntal stuff may seem very intimidating (and it is), but I can promise that playing through stuff like the WTC and the two-part/three-part inventions are good ways to improve your sight-reading skills (as well as your technique and musicality) significantly. It trains your mind to process all of these different lines at the same time, which extends to all sorts of other music you might want to play.

I’m a lifelong pianist but always have trouble the first time I look at sheet music. These are great tips!

Fantastic tips! Reading music is very intimidating for beginners, it's much better if you start using these techniques right away... wish I had been taught these when I was a kid, because I haaaated reading music, and didn't get very far. Because of that, I've been playing only by ear since then. But for the last 5 days I've been actually sitting down and just doing it, and employing techniques like these, and it's very fun and rewarding.

As a professional classical violinist, this is exactly how I read! Sometimes we have to play old editions that looks almost hand written. It makes the interval spacing not perfectly consistent which makes reading a lot harder haha

I always had a blast doing sight reading as a kid when learning (maybe because I didn't love practicing so used it as a crutch to do well enough at lessons). I didn't realize I had internalized a lot of these ideas and never gave them names. So even for an experienced player, it's really neat to see this laid out. Great work!

For a struggling intermediate adult learner, Nahre's skill, ability, her patience and well-thought-out; ingeniously presented explanations are a blessing beyond compare. I love each video and wish her all the success she deserves.❤

I found myself doing things like this years ago when I was taking various music lessons with piano, clarinet, and saxophone.... I ended up getting the idea that because I wasn't playing the notes from a base of absolute knowledge, that my playing was "bad" and/or "inferior". I think I actually have strong musical instincts and this video you made helped me revisit those damaging assumptions I allowed to choke out my willingness to practice and play music. Thank you very, very much for making and sharing this video. You've earned a subscriber, a like, and have made a happier person as a product of your efforts. :)

For anyone interested, her book is great. update : holy molly, why do i have all these likes ?

Wish I’d had a teacher like you when I was 9 years old! Oh well, never too late to learn now. Thank you for this brilliant video.

As a guitarist, this is the most helpful video for sheet music reading ive come across. I feel like sight reading is actually possible now with practise

🙏🏼 When I play from sheet music, even when I get it right, I very often get stuck on a bar, and am having trouble moving on to the next. I'll reference this video from now on. Thank you!

This was FASCINATING. SUBSCRIBED. After watching this, I realize my school training in music decades ago only taught me to PARSE music notation. One NOTE at a time, one PITCH at a time. This explanation describes how people can fluently READ music notation to quickly understand what is required to play it without essentially trying to memorize what was manually (painfully) parsed. As an example, the idea of conditioning your brain to realize any two notes both appearing in a "space" are GOING to be odd intervals while two notes -- one on space, one on line -- are GOING to be an even interval makes a first scan so much more informative. Odd / strange that I've never seen anyone explain these techniques.

I got your book. Not only because I’ve been playing for 3 years now and still suck at sight reading, but also because I think you’re a great teacher. Cheers.

This was great for me as a teacher. I do all these things, but it's hard to remember I'm doing them when I'm teaching students. It's always good to be reminded of what I'm actually doing so I can teach it to my students.

This is the best collection of good sight reading tips that I've seen online. There are surprisingly few resources providing useful tools for this part of the musical process which so many of us find frustrating and daunting! 🎵🎶🎵

Another method of determining interval notes is there is a pattern for all lines or all spaces which is F,A,C,E,G,B,D and then it repeats. So on the treble clef the first line is an E note. then all the staff lines going up would be G,B,D, and F would be the top line. And you can continue with notes that are above the top line F which would go A,C,E,G for each note with a line through it. Spaces would be done in the same fashion. Pretty slick way to figure out notes above the normal staff lines.

What she said was just the first step after visually checking a sheet of music. After playing and reading music for a long time, I found out which finger should play what note is more important. Most of the sheet muiscs have fingering which sometimes do not fit with someone's hand size. However most of the time sheet musics do not have fingering and i have play many times to find out which fingers work better. Pianists are lucky that there is one for each key. But sometimes you have to figured out which hand is better to play a note. The bad thing is we have 10 fingers and we can be expected to play 10 notes simultaneously! e.g Chopin's Prelude #20. For string instruments, you have to add which strings you should hit and which bow direction you should use. These are what you cannot find in any books.

Thank you SO much! As an oboe major in college who has switched to harp later in life, I am so used to reading horizontally, and thinking vertically is a challenge. I used your reference note tip when I had to read (a single line) in tenor clef for my piano proficiency exam, but your tips on finding the beats, tiers, and "same or different" intervals is immediately helpful! This is a video I'll be returning to this video again and again!

Thanks for the gentle and kind teaching method. You truly understand your customer (us beginners)

I am a music teacher and I like to watch your videos to pick up some new tricks. This video was succinct, and I thank you. I'd like to add from my 25 years of teaching piano that it is important to sightread every day, or at least to recognize that if you don't, your language skills in music land will deteriorate. If you spend most all the time you practice working on tough pieces or your repertoire your reading will suffer. The same is true of improvisation - do a little every practice. Thanks again for your insights!

your videos are really really awesome; as a self-taught piano player that never really got too good at reading sheet music, this is really inspiring me to dive into it and practice more!!! thank you so much!!

For large intervals above the staff with a lot of lines I imagine another staff stacked on top of the normal one, where the first line above the staff (A) is the top line on the bass clef, kind of hard to describe but once you get it in your head it’s completely second nature to read large jumps above the staff

And to extend the idea even further, make sure to practice each strategy individually and incorporate it as a natural part of your sightreading. The whole point is to break down complex information into smaller, digestible pieces. If you try to learn all these strategies at once, you're likely to just get flustered. This is a skill that doesn't just apply to music either, but lots of areas of life. It's kind of like forming new habits. If you try to start a whole bunch of new habits all at once, you're not going to make much progress. But if you focus on one thing at a time, you can make incremental improvement, and eventually it will become second nature. The more 'second nature' tools you have in your musical arsenal, the better a musician you will be.

Tip no2 just let me speechless! I you made my ability to read intervals 10 times easier THANK YOU

Thanks for the generosity and clarity that you use to teach everything, Nahre!! A hug from Brazil!!

This is brilliant, the looking back thing and layering, so obvious now but never seen it explained so clearly. Thanks for these insights Nahre, will be buying your book for sure.

Thank you Nahre!!! your contributions are appreciated by many.❤

The space + line breakdown is great to hear someone talk about. Such a simple + effective explanation.

Wow, I've done many of these kinda implicitly but it really helps to articulate them. The interval faces tip, however, blew my mind! So good, such high quality, thoughtful content, as always

Awesome! Improv has been my thing for many years (playing by ear), and I appreciate this greatly as I have not paid much attention to reading music, but now I am needing to.

One of the best videos I’ve seen on sight reading! Thanks Nahre, love your channel!

Hi Nahre, just wanted to ask if you could make a video on how you maintain your instruments, could be on how you clean your keys or good practices on an acoustic instrument, etc. since I’ve seen you play on both digital and acoustic pianos. This would be very beneficial to know from your perspective. Having said that, your videos are the best. Keep them coming! 😊🤍

As a really slow reader (Even after learning various Chopin pieces like Ballade No. 1 and Liszt's Liebestraum, still counting "every good boy does fine" and FACE), I think your #3 tip will revolutionize things for me. I can't believe something as simple as that is so... enlightening. Thank you very much! I do wonder why this is so difficult in the first place. Because I've been a guitarist longer than I've been a pianist, and I only play from tab (tablature) for guitar and I do that INSTANTLY. Like ZERO lag for me from reading into playing. Yes, tab really shows you the one spot to play a note, but so does standard notation for piano. That one note in notation will only correspond to one key on the piano, unlike notation for guitar, which can be interpreted at multiple locations on a guitar. Really weird.

That makes so mich sense, thank you for clearing so much

I had never heard of the concept of tiering, but it totally makes sense! Will try to incorporate this into my sight reading efforts. Thank you for sharing this, Nahre! You're awesome!

that "like=odd, different=even" insight, so useful!

Just bought your book I am super excited. I love the way you teach in your videos. I have always wanted to learn to read music (I play by ear) and I hope it can be the thing to finally teach me!

this video could not have been made in a better timing! like for the past few weeks I've just been having strokes trying to read sheet so this is quite literally a lifesaver

As someone who always seems to get dyslexic at reading music some of your tips are brilliant at keeping my mind on the task. Bought your book. Now to print it out!

This is the most useful thing I've found about sight reading. Usually most videos and teachers just tell you to read ahead and practice a lot, but this video is incredibly detailed and useful, thank you very much!!

Absolutely love such content. Thank you Nahre!

This is fantastic! I love the way you format stuff. Very clear and very approachable.

As a musician that struggles with reading music at first sight, I value these hacks. Thanks!

This is such a fantastic video! So many of these techniques are just ingrained into my sightreading over the years. Having you explain them like this is going to really help my teaching and express these concepts to my students!

This is a timely video for me, as I have been working on piano for a few months. Sight reading is very slow for me at this time, and it is great to hear your well articulated guidance for improving this essential skill. Thanks for posting!

Very useful and well-produced! As a side note, getting stronger glasses doesn’t mitigate lean-and-squint.

One of your most informative lessons, Nahre. Very helpful. I'm thrilled to hear you play just a bit of Gershwin as well! What a treat!

Thank you for making this! So great that you are able to crystallise decades of insights into a short video that we get to benefit from. Really valuable stuff, subscribed.

This is enlightening, Nahre! It helps me with not only my piano sight reading, but also helps me with my drum chart reading and writing! Thank you!!

One of the most helpful piano videos I ever saw huge thank you for making that freely viewable video 👏👍

Wow I really appreciate how you show your mistakes. Really genuine stuff here that’s awesome!

I'm a big fan of how you organize ideas and think about music, so I just buy your book without any hesitation! So exited to check it out!

I'm a hobbyist musician at best, struggling to get into note reading at all.. this was exactly the breakdown of the process/sneaky shortcut to understanding that I was looking for, thank you!

I started out playing totally by ear with guitar and learning theory using the number system and understanding intervals building chords based off shapes. However, 2 years ago I started learning classical piano and I started with sheet music and it has been the greatest connection to music that has happened in my life. I'm glad I started out by ear and then learn to read music. It's really the best of both worlds. Videos like this are incredibly helpful. Thank you

Excellent and helpful advice! As always, I am in awe of your musical skill.

this is the most helpful video on sight reading that i’ve ever watched in my life. Thank you infinitely, Nahre

This is so helpful!!! I literally thought everyone was saying the names of every note in their heads to read and was discouraged that as I was practicing I was naturally doing intervals and patterns. This is confidence building for me. Anchor notes and intervals. Love it love it.

Showing this to my students. You have such a way of condensing and simplifying information!!

Thank you Nahre! This is a game changer. You're an amazing teacher!

Perfect. I was trying to come up with the line theory myself for a while. You've cleared up many of my questions in one video.

Up until now, I've done my best to avoid the anxiety and stress that I've always associated with sight reading. The way you approach it and break it down here has me reassessing my earlier doubts. Perhaps it is time to give it another go.

Your channel is such a great find! Very relatable topics, much appreciated. Thank you!

Nahre, your musical choices for this video have inspired me as a sight reader - I began piano at 43 and can now sight read pretty decently. I've never heard these pieces before but they're very beautiful. Though I truly enjoy sight-reading at my current level (3), I'm now very inspired to sight-read at your level !! "Hmmmm . . . what magic spell shall I cast this afternoon? Gershwin!" 🧙✨What an amazing skill to have 😄👍

I love your work Nahre😊 Concepts and approaches to music become lucid. As simple as a pearl is profound. The work you put in prods me to keep reaching. 🙏

Amazing content for being truly straight forward and very informative in a manner only Nahre can deliver!

Thanks! The tips I was desperately looking for!

Great info! Focusing on lines and spaces is so important.

You're so clever! And experienced. Thanks so much!

Thanks! I know some of these ideas, but your video reinforced it and motivated me to go back and practice some structured reading!

Nahre - can't thank you enough for your videos. The kind of information you present is so effective and so hard to find. Thanks for sharing your hard-earned knowledge!

As a (mostly) guitar player, I do mostly intervallic and key signature reading. I also hear the melody internally, and use that to aid my reading. It also helps that I've been writing and transcribing rhythms for years. If you can write it, you can read it. 😊

This is so damn cool and mind blowing✨ Beginner sight reader here, and you just made my piano experience much more fun as I applied your tips into practice over the past few days. Thank you so much!🥺

Oh Amazing Nareh! Sight reading has always been my weekpoint! I will try those advices! Love your videos so much❤ you are awesome!

FINALLY someone has explained how to do it! Just lean in and squint. Music teachers have been overcomplicating it for hundreds of years. Priceless. And I can't stop laughing. Thanks, Nahre.

Wow this is amazing, thank you so much or the great tips 🙌🏼 I found relief in the fact that i already do some of this stuff but also found refreshing the things that I am not yet doing when reading

Great video! i'm a piano teacher and i've been unconsciously teaching students these types of score reading techniques. it's interesting to see them systematized like this!

Hi Nahre! Thank you for the video 💖

Great stuff, thanks once again. I read through Classical material, slowly and clumsily, but some things have become easier. Also, when i was in a rut, i picked up some real easy sheet music, big notes, more space. I do the same with languages - i'm learning Spanish, i read childrens books... ✌

This is really helpful. Thank you for this information

Great information! I’ve always struggled to remember ( self taught & new player at 54). This video helps! Many thanks from Miami

This was such a great lesson on a topic I've been intimidated to dive into for a long time. The visuals you added were really helpful for understanding the lesson. Thank you!!!

This is so easy to digest but feels very comprehensive, makes me feel very excited to grab some sheet music and go at it!

Thank you. I enjoy your content and personal insight that you share. ❤

Thank you for this video! As a child, I was always an “intuitive” player, and my teachers seemed to think I didn’t need to learn the fundamentals of theory. That ended up hurting me in the long run - I had to drop out of being a piano major because I got to college and realized I knew nothing about theory. I felt so embarrassed around all of these people who had been trained in theory for 10 years. So buying your book was an easy decision. I can’t wait to dive in. Thank you!

Listening to your Wonderland album while reading your“Elements of Music” fills this cool rainy day with warmth and contentment. Thanks for the joy you share 😊

Thanx Nahre for a most useful tutorial on sightreading....perhaps the best one I've come across to date!!. Keep up your great work!!!

This is a great summary of what I try to teach my students once they have gained confidence in co-ordinating their hands to play simple melodies!

Pure gold. Excellent systematic advice…

Thank you that helps a lot, I always struggled to quickly read above A5, and below A3

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!