A reader recently asked:
It goes without saying that sight-reading is an important skill to have as a musician. You sight-read new pieces in your rehearsals, you need it when you sub for a big band, and it's a dreaded part of the audition process. It is by no means the most important skill to have as a musician, but if you want to be a "working" musician, it is something that you definitely need.
This is a great question, but it's also one that often gets answered with the vague, apathetic answers that you mentioned. Telling someone to just sight-read more, no matter how well-intentioned, is not going to help them improve.
Sight-reading, like many other techniques that we develop as musicians, is a skill, a skill that can be learned and continually improved upon. Rather than putting yourself in a room and trying to blindly improve your sight-reading chops by doing it over and over again, look at the specific elements involved in this skill and work on developing them.
Read more: http://jazzadvice.com/5-steps-to-mastering-sight-reading/
At my college, to get into the lab bands you have to be a really great sight-reader. What are some ways to become a great reader besides just saying read whatever you can. I am decent at sight-reading, but I want to take it to that next level. How do I go about doing this?
It goes without saying that sight-reading is an important skill to have as a musician. You sight-read new pieces in your rehearsals, you need it when you sub for a big band, and it's a dreaded part of the audition process. It is by no means the most important skill to have as a musician, but if you want to be a "working" musician, it is something that you definitely need.
This is a great question, but it's also one that often gets answered with the vague, apathetic answers that you mentioned. Telling someone to just sight-read more, no matter how well-intentioned, is not going to help them improve.
Sight-reading, like many other techniques that we develop as musicians, is a skill, a skill that can be learned and continually improved upon. Rather than putting yourself in a room and trying to blindly improve your sight-reading chops by doing it over and over again, look at the specific elements involved in this skill and work on developing them.
Read more: http://jazzadvice.com/5-steps-to-mastering-sight-reading/