1. Background

Today I decided to become a good piano sight-reader. Although I'm already a jazz piano player, with a 4-6 gigs per month, my sight-reading is lousy. Really lousy. I'll bet that most seven-year-olds who have had a year of lessons read music better than I.

My plan is to get the best advice on how to improve my sight-reading skills, and then devote 2+ hours per day to sight-reading practice -- for at least one year.

If you are in the same situation, you may be asking yourself what's required to reach this goal, and how long it will take. You're also scouring the web looking for tips on how to jump-start your sight-reading. Well, I'm writing this blog for you. OK, also to show how clever I am, but mostly for you.

[IMPORTANT: before you begin -- click here to read my report and advice from the end of the year.]

Why I Want to be a Good Sight-Reader

I've found that I don't need to be a good sight-reader to play small-combo jazz; the jazz "charts," instead of being standard music with every note written out, consist of single note melody lines and chords. However:

1. Once in a while I might might need to read standard music to play with, for example, a big band.
   
   
2. I don't feel like I'm a real piano player if I can't read music well.
   
   
3. I'd be embarrassed if someone said "Hey, Al plays piano, let's have him accompany us with this Christmas carol music!"
   
   
4. Occasionally I use some educational material (for example, transcriptions, sample intros or endings), and it would be convenient to be able to read it quickly.
   
   
5. I like the process of acquiring a new skill.

My Musical Background

For you to evaluate whether your experience in learning to sight-read will match mine, you need to know a little about my musical background. So, here's a boring look at my history.

As a young kid I played piano by ear, but never took formal lessons. At age 9 I took up trombone, and studied it seriously until the final year of high school, when a scheduling conflict between chemistry and band ended my studies. I also took lessons in guitar, and played in a rock band.

But I pretty much did nothing with music from college until 1987 (age 34), when my interest in jazz was rekindled.

I took formal piano lessons for a year or two, worked hard, and learned a lot, but the sight-reading just wasn't happening.

In 1992 (age 38) I picked up the trombone again, and got serious about jazz trombone. My sight-reading was better on trombone than piano (hey, only one note at a time!), but I still needed to polish it up for big band playing. I played jazz trombone seriously until 2005 (age 52), performing with a number of large and small groups.

In 2005, I was having some problems with my shoulder, caused by too much trombone playing, so it was time to switch back to piano. This time I concentrated on jazz, and didn't work much on sight-reading. That is, my playing consisted of playing the chord changes, with improvisation in the right hand. That has worked well, and I now lead a jazz quartet (Sax, drums, bass, and piano), and also play in duos (Sax & piano or piano & bass) and trios.

This last November, I reread A Soprano on her Head, and it inspired me to give sight-reading another chance.

Yay, that's the end of the long boring history. Now to find out whether I can learn to sight-read!