10 tips for learning and teaching sightreading

The Wohlfahrt etudes served a valuable pedagogical purpose for me in addition to training my technique and musicianship. Whenever [Roland] Vamos assigned a new one, he would put it on the music stand and have me play it through two or three times to develop my sightreading skills.

The metronome would be set to a tempo slightly faster than was comfortable, and I had to keep going regardless of any mistakes I might make. Only after this sightreading practice did I learn the notes slowly and carefully on my own, paying close attention to the rhythmic relationships between notes of different lengths and checking all of the accidentals for accuracy.

Using etudes to improve my sightreading was really beneficial. While I was more or less familiar with most pieces of concert repertoire from recordings or the class performances of fellow students, the etudes were always new to me. They weren’t in my ear, so I had to learn to rely on my eyes. During my student years, being a good sightreader helped me to get studio and concert work, and to do well in orchestral auditions.

Today those same sightreading skills help to speed up the process of learning new repertoire and mean that when I have the chance to join in chamber music readings, I enjoy them even more.

Rachel Barton Pine, violinist, The Strad September 2011