Improve Your Sight-Reading! Piano, Level 3: A Progressive, Interactive Approach to Sight-Readi

This program will improve your sight-reading slowly and thoroughly over time. The included guidelines help make the learning process very complete.

I like these books. They have many good short exercises for sight reading. Why did I deduct a star? It might be a bit unfair, but I have a few old four-star books (four star in the sense of brand, not rating), and the examples they have are more thought out in a musical sense (simplified compositions from actual pieces). The short segments in this book aren't very fun musically most of the time. I mean, they're not horrible but they are a bit weird. On the other hand, that could be a good thing. The slightly jarring quality of this pieces means that they are a bit harder to sight read, so I suppose that's a good thing. One other negative is that I wish some of the pieces were longer. Even with simple music, it helps to have a few 3-line pieces to try. In the end I recommend them because it's a really good supply of sight-reading exercises.

Este es un muy buen libro de lecturas a primera vista. Las dos claves tocan cosas diferentes, es decir, que no están octavas, sino que llevan notas y ritmos distintos. Es recomendable para quien ya sabe leer en las armaduras de do, sol, fa, re, la y si bemol. Incluye ritmos con corcheas y sus contratiempos y negra con puntillo. Lo recomiendo ampliamente.

Muy buen libro para continuar practicando y aprendiendo la lectura musical, lo recomiendo.

I'm a pianist at the intermediate level, but my sightreading skills are well below par. This book arrived today, I completed the first three exercises and used Harris's method on an arrangment of a Haydn piece from the Haydn-Shaum book (Book I). Much to my delight, I was able to play through the piece correctly and musically despite never having played it before. Harris has you clap the rhythm, make a note of key and time signatures, as well as scan the piece to make a note of finger changes - these are based on finger changes made while playing scales. This kind of prep prior to playing a piece ensures that one sight reads fluently and well. The exercises are musical and incorporate rhythms and finger changes (dotted quarter notes followed by eighth notes etc.) that one would encounter in any piece of music. The rhythm moves from treble to bass clef so both hands are given equal importance. I strongly recommend Harris's books (they are graded, so start at whatever level you're comfortable sight-reading) to anyone who wishes to improve their sight-reading skills, and wants to play a piece musically and fluently from a score at first sight!