I’ve always been an excellent sight-reader.

I don’t remember ever really being “taught” how to do it.  I was taught how to solfege, I was taught to recognize intervals both aurally and visually, and a lifetime of music lessons had certainly taught me how to read, feel, and execute rhythms - but I was never actually taught how to sight-read.

I don't say this to make myself out to be some kind of unicorn. I didn't just wake up one day and instinctively know how to sight-read. It's a skill that was developed over time - but not because anyone ever sat down with me and said, "THIS is how you sight-read."

In fact, I think very few musicians - even ones who have been through accredited conservatory programs - are really taught how to sight-read.  At least, they are not taught how to do it in a way that would guarantee their success in real-world, professional settings where results and execution actually matter for something beyond a grade in aural skills class.  

I know this, because in my work as a professional singer and choral musician, I’ve spent most of my life being one of the better sight-readers in the room - including rehearsals and gigs with dozens of other singers with training and experience commensurate to my own.

If you’ve ever worked in a context where the ensemble is small, the rehearsal time limited, and the music difficult, you know that a room full of good sight-readers can be relied upon to synthesize the basics elements of the music quickly, so that you can then progress to the next layer of artistic and interpretive decisions that will lend meaning to the music and cohesion to the ensemble.  

You probably also know that bad or mediocre sight-reading holds this whole process back and wastes precious rehearsal time.

I see a lot of debates about how to teach sight-reading to young musicians, or whether it really needs to be taught at all.  Certainly, there are some musical career paths where an artist wouldn’t need to sight-read very much, if at all.  But if you embark on a path like mine, doing a lot of work that sounds like what I just described, you’ll quickly find out how essential a skill it is - and how behind you will be if you don’t have it.

I’d like to see a shift in the way this skill is taught to young musicians, in a way that would help bridge the gap between solfege-ing your way through exercises in aural skills class and actually being able to read music successfully in real-life, professional situations.  

Why the current model is flawed

Everyone seems to have their own preferred method when it comes to teaching sight-reading, and many are

fond of pontificating about why their method is the best.  Solfege, numbers, intervals - everyone’s got their favorite system.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of those systems.  I have my preference, of course, which I will talk more about later, but I can see the merit in any of these methods.

The problem is that students in music school are often only taught one way to read music, and that way is usually moveable do solfege.  They’re taught to assign syllables to diatonic scale degrees, and then taught a handful of other syllables for when things get a little chromatic.

This method loses its usefulness pretty quickly, once you start sight-reading actual music.  In real-world situations, not only are you often not able to sing on solfege syllables (instead, you’re singing whatever text is provided in the music), but real music - of virtually any era - modulates a lot, rendering solfege more of an encumbrance than a help.  I mean, can you imagine trying to solfege your way through something like Bach’s B Minor Mass, through phrase after phrase that changes key area with every bar?  I don’t know about you, but that would fry my brain.  

In fact, when it comes to sight-reading real music in the professional world, any one system is going to have its limitations.  Whether it’s numbers or solfege or intervals - you need more than just one way of looking at music if you’re going to be a successful real-world sight-reader.

What It Actually Takes to Be a Good Sight-reader

If you want to be a good sight-reader, you need to develop not just one or two ways of reading music, but a whole arsenal of skills to draw upon that will help you synthesize with speed.

There are a couple reasons for this.  The first is that real-world music is highly varied.  No one single system or method is going to work for everything you will ever sight-read - especially if your chosen system is wedded to the diatonic scale somehow.  Solfege and numbers will not help you if the music isn’t tonal.

The second is that, when you’re sight-reading, you’re multitasking, so you want to make things as easy as possible for your brain.  You want to reduce your mental load as much as you can.  And being constantly preoccupied with what solfege syllable or number matches each pitch is, objectively, too much work for your brain - especially when you’ve got a whole host of other things to contend with.  You will need additional skills and tools to draw on so that you don’t become hopelessly mentally fatigued.

Remember, the whole point is not just to execute accurately - it’s to synthesize your part within a musical context.  You should use whatever tools and skills you have that are going to help you to do that in each moment, rather than just sticking with one system the whole time.

Ellen’s Ninja Sight-Reading Tips

For those who are curious as to how I sight-read without using solfege, and/or if you just want some insight as to how my brain works, here are just a few of the tools I use and elements I look for to help me synthesize whatever I’m reading.

(Note that these super-cool ninja tips presuppose that you have a working knowledge of modes, keys, and functional harmony.  I do not expect all of this to be useful for beginner or younger students who are looking at sheet music for the first time, and am not saying we should ditch systems like solfege altogether.  Just wanted to get that out of the way so all the solfege die-hards don’t come at me. 😉)

When It Comes to Pitches…

Key signature (or mode, or key area).  The sooner you burn this information into your brain, the better,

because it will provide you with the tonal framework (if one exists) for everything else.  Knowing what key, mode, or key area you are in is crucial to good sight-reading.

Intervals.  I read principally by interval, but always informed by the key signature (if there is one), or general key area.  Sometimes you do have to read intervals in a vacuum, but it’s always better (read: less mental work) if you can do it in the context of a mode or key area.  

Harmonic structures.  Sometimes it’s more helpful to think in terms of what role your part is playing in the harmonic context.  Things like, “I have the root of an F major chord here” or “this is a Piccardy third” can be helpful synthesizing tools.

Conventions of style (if there are any).  Singing a lot of Bach?  Then you know when he’s approaching a cadence.  (Usually.  Sometimes he tricks you.)  Renaissance polyphony?  Look for counterpoint between voices and crucial cadential moments.  Handel?  He loves his sequences, especially for Messiah-style melismas.  If you can visually recognize common conventions of style for the music you’re singing, this allows your brain to process things in chunks, which saves some mental energy.

(As a side note, I didn’t realize how much I relied on conventions of style when I sight-read until I started singing with an ensemble that only sang new music.  Most of it wasn’t tonal and there were no conventions of style, really, unless you count excessive use of ⅞.  But this is why you need more than one way of reading - because you’re inevitably going to encounter music where your MO isn’t going to cut it.)

Reading vertically.  When you’re singing in a choir, you’re lucky, because you’ve often got the whole score right in front of you.  You can see everyone’s part.  Take advantage of that.  Look at what clues or hints you might draw from other voice parts to help you do the thing.

What About Rhythms?

Downbeats, downbeats, downbeats.  If all else fails, just focus on making it to the next downbeat in time.  You can figure out the stuff between them as you go.  Whatever you do, just keep singing, and don’t get lost.

Count.  This probably sounds like a “well, duh” piece of advice - but it’s important.  You need to take personal responsibility for the beat and tempo at all times.  Watch the conductor, yes, but also make sure you’re actively counting, especially when you’re NOT singing.  Don’t rely on your neighbor, because they might mess up.  

Cutoffs.  Put the cutoffs in the right place when you are reading.  This includes final consonants, which, most of the time, occur on the beat after the end of the full note value.  This is choral singing 101, but you’d be surprised how many singers don’t do this consistently.  

(Yes, there are a handful of situations where you would place cutoffs differently.  Use common sense or just do what your conductor tells you in those cases.)

Initial consonants before the beat.  In order for the tempo not to drag, you need to place the vowel on the beat, not the first consonant.  Consonant clusters like “spr,” “str,” “cr,” or “cl,” etc. take time to spit out, and need to precede the beat so that we hear the vowel in time.  Otherwise, things start to feel behind.

Other Pro Tips

Prioritize notes and rhythms over text.  If you’re not sure how to pronounce something, don’t worry about it at

first.  You have bigger fish to fry on that first read-through.  You’ll get it the next time.  

Start being musical as soon as possible.  In some cases, this will actually help you learn the music more quickly.  Yes, the conductor will have his own ideas, but you can also take some initiative.  Don’t be a passive choral singer - make choices.

Don’t allow yourself to get tripped up by your mistakes.  Make a note of your mistake, then move the heck on.  If you allow that mistake to live rent-free in your brain and try to dissect what went wrong in the moment, you’ll fall hopelessly behind.  

Don’t allow your mistakes to compound.  A single mistake should be just that. Don't let it set off a domino effect that compromises tuning or rhythm for the rest of the phrase.

Don’t get too wrapped up in vocal technique.  Accept the fact that sight-reading can be mentally and vocally fatiguing.  As long as you can figure out what to do technically on subsequent run-throughs, you’ll be okay.

Don’t get complacent.  Expect to encounter something unexpected.  Conventions of style are wonderful to rely on - but they’re not consistent all of the time.  This is, again, why we need more than one way of doing this.  

But I Have Perfect Pitch!

Good for you.  So do I.  But to be honest, I rarely rely on perfect pitch when I’m sight-reading.  

One reason is that it often causes you to read your part in a vacuum, instead of synthesizing the overall context - which is one of the goals of sight-reading.  I only pull pitches out of thin air for really tricky entrances or intervals that are hard for my brain to process in any other way. 

Also, if the ensemble intonation goes so flat or sharp such that you end up in an entirely different key than what’s printed on the page, you will need to employ a hard-core level of mental gymnastics in order to sing the right notes.  Again, this is why you need more than one way of reading.  Situations like this are where I usually default to interval reading.

How We Can Teach Sight-Reading Better

So, Ellen, you ask, if no one ever really taught you to sight-read, how did you get so good at it?

For starters, I grew up playing the violin.  Most of the best (singer) sight-readers I know have some kind of instrumental background.  

String players spend hours and hours every week practicing scales and arpeggios.  When you're immersed in that kind of material, you get reallllly familiar with your key signatures.  There is no way you can NOT internalize a key signature’s sharps or flats, where the half and whole steps are, which keys are related to each other and how, how things could be enharmonically respelled, etc.  

This kind of built-in musicianship training is inherent to the study of other instruments, too, and I think this is one reason why singers with instrumental backgrounds have an advantage in sight-reading contexts.

The other advantage I had was that I started studying undergraduate-level music theory at a young age.  In the theory classes in the pre-conservatory program I attended in middle and high school, we were asked to provide complete harmonic analyses for complicated, chromatic piano music (think Chopin ballades and the like), realize figured bass, take one- and two-part melodic dictation on the regular, and solfege our way through 2-part Bach inventions on the spot using fixed do.  This allowed me ample opportunity to think about and synthesize music in a lot of different ways - including having to sight-sing an entire piece of actual music without prior exposure to it, and having to keep going when I messed up.

I also taught myself how to play the piano.  In fact, piano was my “fun” pastime which I used to procrastinate

when it came time to practice the violin.  Sure, I played mostly cheesy 90s movie music and the musical theater tunes I loved, and I’d never had a lesson to teach me what “proper” fingering was, but it allowed me yet another opportunity to experiment with and experience chords and harmonies, in a way that you can't on the violin.  (Shout out to my parents for putting up with both the incessant noise and the violin procrastination all those years.)

By the time I got to college, I could eat all of this music theory stuff for breakfast - and it wasn’t just because my freshman theory class was early in the morning.  I was already an excellent sight-reader, and it was because I was given, seized, and created for myself ample opportunity to synthesize music in a lot of different ways, and develop my own way of thinking about it.

So when we “teach” sight-reading to aspiring singers, I think we would do well to:

• Impress upon them that sight-reading is about much more than solfege.  I truly do not understand the over-emphasis on solfege when it comes to college-level ear training.  The way sight-reading is often “taught” causes students to become overly preoccupied with “syllable correctness,” and de-prioritize other elements that are essential for good sight-reading. 

• Require them to study another instrument.  It doesn’t matter what it is, and they don’t even have to play it well.  They can even teach themselves, like I did with piano.  The point is that studying (or even just messing around on) an instrument other than voice often comes with built-in musicianship training.  This is less the case with voice study, where lessons are focused almost solely on technique.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it means that singers often need to get their musicianship training from somewhere else.

(Yes, I know that most undergraduates are required to pass a piano proficiency test - but IMO, requiring them to practice for a specific test doesn’t actually make them proficient at the piano.  That’s a soapbox for another time.)

• Impress upon them the importance of music theory.  A lot of conservatory musicians just view theory as a class to pass on their way to graduation.  While I acknowledge that theory is not everyone’s favorite thing, we need to emphasize that much of the stuff they learn in theory class is directly applicable to their repertoire and can actually help them learn it better.

• Allow students to sight-read in aural skills classes with whatever method works best for them.  Instead of grading them on accurate solfege, give them the opportunity to synthesize the music in whatever way works best for their brain.  This will also help to show what gaps there are in their understanding, which they can then work to fill.

• Impress upon them that sight-reading is about more than just accurate pitches and rhythms.  These things are a given.  The real point of sight-reading is not just to be accurate - it is to be able to quickly absorb and synthesize a musical context, so that you can get to the meaningful music-making sooner.

The more we can strive to impart a holistic understanding of music, the more skilled our young music students will become.  The more skilled they are, the more adaptable they will be in real-world, professional situations.  And the more adaptable they are as industry professionals, the better off the music industry will be.