SightReader has five places you can practise, and they do different jobs. This is a short guide to what each one is for, which ones move you up a level on their own, and how to build ten minutes a day out of them.
The short version
Two parts of SightReader level you up automatically.
Grades unlocks the next level each time you pass one. Work through it in order and you never pick the difficulty yourself; it ramps for you.
Rated exercises keep a sight-reading rating, a bit like a chess rating. Play one and your rating moves depending on how you did, and the next exercise is pitched at wherever your rating has got to. It keeps finding your edge as you improve.
The rest of it, the library and the note and scale drills, is yours to pick from. Nothing there is keeping your place, and nothing is waiting to be finished.
That is the useful thing to know at the start. Some of SightReader is a course, and some of it is a cupboard you open when you want something in particular.
What each part is for
Grades: your spine
Nine graded tracks, Initial through Grade 8, plus a standalone Notation Practice set. Each grade holds progressive levels written to the ABRSM sight-reading parameters: the keys, time signatures, hand positions and lengths the syllabus sets at each stage. Levels unlock as you pass them, and finishing a grade earns a certificate.
If you are working towards an exam, start here. If you are not, start here anyway. It is the one part of SightReader that answers “what should I play next?” without you having to decide.
Not sure where to begin? The placement check takes about three minutes and needs no account. Whatever it tells you, consider starting a grade lower. Sight reading always lags the repertoire you can learn over weeks, and reading music that is slightly too easy is the most reliable way to get better at it. Reading music that is slightly too hard mostly teaches you to stop.
Exercises: your volume
Freshly generated pieces at your level. Nothing here has been played by anyone before, which is the whole point: you cannot sight read the same thing twice, and a piece you half remember is testing your memory rather than your reading.
Play them rated and the level looks after itself, as above. Free accounts get five rated attempts a day, plus three ordinary ones, which is more than the routine below actually asks for.
Once you are settled into a grade, this is where most of your practice minutes should go.
Library: real music
Over 4,000 pieces of real repertoire, plus anything you upload yourself. Two ways to use it:
- To drill something specific. Tap Refine and filter by what is in the music: triplets, staccato, dotted rhythms, a key you keep fumbling. If you know your weak spot, you can practise it directly.
- To enjoy yourself. Some days you want to read something real rather than train. That is a good enough reason, and it still counts.
If you are just starting out, the Schäfer studies are a gentle place to begin. Fifty short exercises that ramp very gradually, free on every plan.
Notes and Scales: warm-ups
These two are the ones most often mistaken for courses. They are warm-ups.
Notes puts one note on the stave at a time until you know them without working them out. If you still count up from middle C, two minutes of this before you play anything else will do more for your reading this month than any amount of repertoire.
Scales covers all 24 keys with arpeggios and fingering. Most of what you sight read is scale shapes in disguise, so a minute in the key of whatever you are about to play is never wasted.
Neither has an end. Do a little, then get on with the reading.
A routine that works
Ten minutes a day, most days. That really does beat an hour at the weekend, for reasons that have nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with how the brain files skills. I have written about the research behind that if you want the detail.
- Two minutes: warm up. A note drill, or a scale in the key you are about to read.
- Five minutes: the reading itself. One grade level, or a rated exercise or two. Play it straight through, once, without stopping. If your fingers fall apart in bar three, keep going anyway. Recovering your place mid-piece is the skill; stopping to fix it is the habit that ruins sight reading.
- Three minutes: something real. Anything from the library you fancy.
Then close the lid. Tomorrow, do the same with different music.
Two things worth not doing
Do not replay a piece to push the stars up. It is tempting, because the score goes up and that feels like progress. But the second read is memory rather than sight reading, and the number you are improving stops measuring the thing you care about. Play it once, take the score you got, move on.
Do not try to do a bit of each section every day. Five surfaces in ten minutes is five minutes of navigating and five minutes of practice. Pick your spine, Grades or rated Exercises, and let the rest be occasional.
What is free, and what is not
The free plan covers this routine comfortably: unlimited note and scale drills, the first five levels of every grade from Initial to Grade 5, five rated exercises a day plus three ordinary ones, and 54 free study pieces including the whole Schäfer book.
Pro (£5 a month) opens the remaining grade levels, Grades 6 to 8 in full, the rest of the 4,000-piece library, and a curated five-piece session waiting for you each day on the Today page.
If you are on the free plan and you follow the routine above, you will not run out of material for a good while.
If you get stuck
Write in. If a part of SightReader does not explain itself, that is worth knowing about, and it is usually something we can fix.
