Sight Reading, step by step
Thirty seconds of looking beats thirty seconds of guessing.
- Key and time signatureName the sharps or flats aloud. Name the beat.
- Scan for the hardest barSet your tempo from that bar, not from the first one.
- Find the patternsScales, arpeggios and repeats. Most music is made of shapes you already know.
- Check accidentals and repeatsNote where the road map jumps.
- Play, and keep goingEyes ahead of your hands by a bar. Never look back.
The rules
- Rhythm before pitch — a wrong note in time is better
- Slower than you think
- Practise with music you will never perform
Sight reading improves only by reading new things. Re-reading the same piece is memorisation.
Questions about the Sight Reading poster
- What’s on the Sight Reading poster?
- 5 numbered steps, with a full worked run-through. Thirty seconds of looking beats thirty seconds of guessing. Key and time signature — Name the sharps or flats aloud. Name the beat.; Scan for the hardest bar — Set your tempo from that bar, not from the first one.; Find the patterns — Scales, arpeggios and repeats. Most music is made of shapes you a…; Check accidentals and repeats — Note where the road map jumps.; Play, and keep going — Eyes ahead of your hands by a bar. Never look back.. Sight reading improves only by reading new things. Re-reading the same piece is memorisation.
- Who is the Sight Reading poster for?
- Sight Reading belongs to the Music section rather than to a school year, because music is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning ear & practice can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Sight Reading poster?
- Never stop, never go back. A wrong note is survivable; stopping is not. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Sight Reading belongs on the wall where that music work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Sight Reading?
- Hearing Chords, Interval Ear Training and Memorising Music sit alongside Sight Reading in the Music section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Hearing ChordsInterval Ear TrainingMemorising Music
- Is the Sight Reading poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Sight Reading downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Music section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Sight Reading poster print at?
- Sight Reading is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Sight Reading loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Sight Reading on the same wall.
Browse every Music poster, or start from the full catalogue.