Better Sight-Reading On The Guitar

Just the mention of sight-reading causes most guitarists to squirm in their seats or look for the nearest exit. There’s an old joke about what you call two guitarists sight-reading the same line of music. The answer…polyphony. For classical or jazz guitarists, sight-reading notation is essential. For the rock and blues guitarist, not so much. And contrary to widely held beliefs, sight-reading for performance dates back further than performing from memory. Let’s delve into this topic to see why we should work towards better sight-reading and ways to improve our skills. 

A Stab At Sight-Reading Definitions

At the onset, I think it best to define sight-reading. The definition differs from musician to musician. Some would argue that true sight-reading is playing a piece on the guitar from a score without first ever laying their eyes on the page. Others might allow for a quick visual play-through making any notes of unusual phrases, rhythms, and/or fingerings. Others might stretch it further and allow for more actual play-throughs and still consider it sight-reading. Therefore, it is best to place these definitions on a spectrum.

For the purposes of this discussion, the definition will lean toward the initial end of the spectrum. Researchers Thompson and Lehmann give a good working definition. “In its most common usage the term refers to the practice of playing a piece of music directly from the score on the first encounter or after brief rehearsal.”^[1]Thompson, S. & Lehmann, Andreas. 2004. Strategies for sight-reading and improvising music. Musical Excellence. 143-159.

Next, a definition of “unfamiliar music” should be defined. The history of recording music for fretted instruments intertwines with the lute and vihuela. Both of these instruments used early tablature to communicate in written form the notes and durations that should be played. Since our current topic is not on the different styles and types of tablatures, it is enough to know that initially, fretted instruments used this type of symbology to communicate auditory notes. With the solidification of notation, the guitar eventually moved in this direction. This solidification codified the aural perception of sound across multiple instruments and styles. Ironically, as we see in rock and blues, the tablature type of representation continues in these genres. Therefore, the definition of “unfamiliar music” in our case lies in the codification of notation in the Western classical music tradition and not tablature. 

Concertizing Through Sight-Reding

As mentioned earlier, sight-reading was the default in performance up until the nineteenth century. Prior to this, new scores were always performed at first sight, and having many rehearsals up to the performance was rare. I find it interesting that one of the main reasons for this was “the musical idioms were familiar, most music was not performed more than a few times, composers were afraid of plagiarism by orchestral musi­cians, and so on. As a result, works written by someone other than the performer were generally sight-read.”^[2]Parncutt, R., & McPherson, G. (2002). In The Science & Psychology of Music Performance Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning (p. 136). essay, Oxford University Press. The pianists Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann are credited with beginning the tradition of playing repertoire from memory. 

Of course, at this time the godfathers of guitar, Giuliani, Sor, Carcassi, Carulli, and Aguado were also concertizing throughout Europe. We can assume that, like their pianist counterparts, most of their work was sight-read as well with a transition happening to more memorization. With any precursory investigation into the aforementioned guitarists’ methods, they offer very little guidance to the learner in terms of an approach to developing sight-reading skills.^[3] Isaacson, D. J. (1990). A suggestopedia-based method of guitar instruction (p. 3). University of Cape Town, Cape Town. 

Even to this day, there are very few works devoted to the development of sight-reading for the guitarist. The most prominent of these is Robert Benedict’s Sight Reading for the Classical Guitar. Benedict’s is the only such book that I have found that “provide(s) an orderly and systematic approach to the study of sight reading, based upon standards for sight reading for the classical guitar found in respected schools around the world.”^[4]Benedict, R. (1985). Sight reading for the classical guitar: Daily sight reading material with emphasis on interpretation, phrasing, form, etc. Belwin-Mills.

Why Improve In The First Place?

If sight-reading is such a neglected aspect of guitar practice, performance, and pedagogy, then why work to better our ability in the first place? The primary answer is or should be, to become a better performer. ^[5]Hayward, C. M., & Eastlund Gromko, J. (2009). Relationships among music sight-reading and technical proficiency, spatial visualization, and aural discrimination. Journal of Research in Music … Continue reading However, this idea seems to be a one-way street. A good sight-reader is correlated with being a better performer but a good performer is not correlated with being a better sight-reader. The two skills are practiced differently.

“The majority of solo performers spend most of their practice time preparing and refining their memorized interpretations of a small number of pieces. Hence, they spend very little time sight-reading unfamiliar music.”^[6]Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson, K. A. (1996). Performance without preparation: Structure and acquisition of expert sight-reading and accompanying performance. Psychomusicology: A Journal of … Continue reading Most guitarists fall into the category of solo performers even if they are performing the pieces for an audience of one, themselves. Therefore, if sight-reading develops better performance, then it falls at the top of the list of reasons to improve the skill. 

Second, on my list of reasons to sight-read is the ability to sift through music that we might want to play and/or memorize. And when I use the word play here, I am not just referring to playing to know if the piece is to our liking. Along with this is the sheer joy of playing music from sight for the joy of making music as did our nineteenth-century forefathers. This reading of music is a circular cycle on two levels. The first is the expansion of repertoire creates a greater ability to sight-read effectively (Lehmann et al., 1996). The more patterns learned through the processing of vast amounts of music from different time periods and genres increase the stored memory of patterns that the brain can then access when sight-reading. Second, the closer your ability to perform a piece of rehearsed music at a certain difficulty to the ability to perform a piece nearer that difficulty at first sight, the better the sight-reader you become. In other words,” the smaller the [skill] gap [between performing and sight-reading], the better the sight-reader (Parncutt et al., 2002).”

List Of Sight-Reading Benefits

I will not dive deeply into the list that follows at present. However, there may be a time in the future to follow up on each of them. Therefore, the following are other reasons to pursue the skill of sight-reading. 

• To increase our kinesthetic movement (i.e. relating to a person’s awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs (proprioceptors) in the muscles and joints.^[7]Oxford Learner’s dictionaries: Find definitions, translations, and grammar explanations at Oxford Learner’s dictionaries. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries | Find definitions, … Continue reading
• To learn/memorize music faster.  Research has “found a significant correlation between the ability to memorize music from notation and sight-reading.”^[8]McPherson, Gary. (1995). Five aspects of musical performance and their correlates. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. 127. 

• For accompaniment (more opportunities for music playing) 
• For ensemble work (more opportunities for music playing) 
• Improve rhythmic patterns recognition 
• Aural training (ear training) 

List Of Sight-Reading Barriers

It’s one thing to know that sight-reading is beneficial and helps move a guitarist toward their ultimate musical goals. But the actual act of sight-reading requires numerous barriers to overcome. David Isaacson gives a fairly exhaustive list which I will put into my own words below (Isaacson, 1990.). I am listing them in no certain order. 

1. The classical guitar fretboard lacks visual cues to help the player memorize note positions putting greater importance on developing visual memory to create a mapping of the fretboard. Steel string and electric guitars do use fret markings but the layout of the notes still impairs visual cues compared to the piano where black and white notes and pairs create distinct geography. 

2. The same pitch can be played in numerous positions on the instrument. When sight-reading, a player must decide at the moment where the music is attempting to place the pitch on the instrument. 

3. The string with the highest pitch is lower to the ground geographically and the string with the lowest pitch is highest from the ground. 

4. The lowest note on the musical staff is played on the highest string geographically and vice versa. 

5. As a string length is shortened, the pitch raises, and the hand moves lower geographically due to the guitar being held at an angle to the horizontal and vice versa. 

6. The playing position causes the strings to be viewed in one plane. Therefore, the player must develop a kinesthetic feel for correct placement. 

7. The guitar is a polyphonic instrument and up to six different pitches may be sounded at any given time creating vast complexity for the coordination between the two hands.  

8. Most guitarists play solo. Instruments that usually play in orchestral or ensemble settings demand that higher levels of sight-reading be used. 

9. Sight-reading is a complex global skill consisting of many individual skills needing to be mastered and integrated into one fluent function These are: 
   • musical response; 
   • aural skills;
   • theoretical knowledge;
   • notational-instrumental relationship;
   • technical development;
   • practicing skills;
   • focus away from hands;
   • rapid note identification.

Rapid note identification is the subject of the book I released titled Sight Reading Mastery: A resource for all guitarists. 

Now, Steps To Better Sight-Reading

Now that we know all the barriers to sight-reading, it’s time to give up and go back to our old non-sight-reading days. It is a bit overwhelming when the barriers seem so high. However, if you can play the simplest song on the guitar, then the barriers are being conquered already. Let’s get into some practical suggestions on improving this skill we all need. 

The previous list of global skills falls into three main sequences of events when sight-reading. First, one must understand the notation. Second, one must process the information. Thirdly, one must execute the information using physical or motor movements and programming. Let’s begin with understanding the notation. 

Understand The Notation

Learning to read music is akin to learning to read words. There is a slow deciphering of individual symbols with a gradual increase in fluency. These symbols are then grouped together to form patterns (i.e., words in the text) to allow for larger fragments to be processed at a time. When we reach a point where the initial learning of these fragments is developed, then sight-reading begins. 

In the process of sight-reading, our eyes do not move consistently forward. They have a focal point called the fovea and the area around the focal point that is blurry is called the parafovea.^[9]Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (1989). The Psychology of Reading. Hillsdale, N): Erlbaum. This focal point moves forward and backward collecting information for our brains to process. In sight-reading, most of that focus needs to be in the forward direction. Good sight readers look further ahead than less adept sight readers. They also do not fixate on every note as a beginner does.^[10]Thompson, S. & Lehmann, Andreas. (2004). Strategies for sight-reading and improvising music. Musical Excellence. 143-159.This is analogous to the grouping of letters to create words in the text. The further you are able to read ahead, the more competent a sight reader you will become.

An interesting test is to begin sight-reading a piece and then close your eyes and carry on playing as far as you can remember reading. I would begin this test with single-note lines and work towards more polyphonic and chordal music. Doing the test over the course of developing better sight-reading will give you a good perspective on your progress. 

I believe a caveat is in order at this stage of offering information on improving your reading. As alluded to earlier, your ability to perform a piece will be higher than your ability to sight-read. In other words, the level of music you play from memory will exceed the level of music you can sight-read. Always work with simpler materials before adding complexity. The goal is to not stop the sight-reading process when you begin. The tempo should remain even when mistakes happen. Therefore, choosing too complex or pieces too advanced for your sight-reading skills will only hinder your overall development of the skill. 

Processing The Information

Let’s move on to processing the information our eyes are reading. Along with seeing more material by looking ahead, good sight-readers recognize patterns more easily than slower sight-readers. The question should then be asked, “How do we learn more patterns?” Two of the main factors found to account for expert sight-reading on the piano are the amount of time spent accompanying and the size of the accompanying repertoire (Lehmann et al., 1996.). With the similarities in the two instruments, we can assume the same to be true for the guitar.

Though a majority of guitarists do not spend much time accompanying, they do spend time learning repertoire. The amount of repertoire sight-read (in lieu of accompanying) builds the” size of the accompanying repertoire.” This allows the brain to constantly see and absorb new patterns. If the styles (i.e., classical, baroque, etc.) are varied as well, then the learned patterns become much more complex and accessible in real-time when sight-reading. 

Therefore, the aspiring sight-reader must read as much music of varying styles as possible. This will build the intuitiveness of patterns when sight-reading new material. Another interesting point made in the research is that listening to the styles you are sight-reading allows you to aurally anticipate the music. It builds the patterns aurally while the reading builds them physically. 

Executing The Information

Finally, let’s talk about the execution of the notes on the guitar. The most important piece of advice in all of my research on this aspect is to choose a tempo that you think you’ll be able to play the most difficult part. This brings us to a secondary point of pre-reading. As mentioned earlier, sight-reading sits on a spectrum. Pre-reading sits just above reading a piece without ever looking at it. I feel this is one of the best approaches to reading a piece for the first time. The basics listed below I learned from both Aaron Shearer^[11]Shearer, A. (1990). Learning the classic guitar, Shearer, Part 2. Mel bay. and Christopher Berg^[12]Berg, C. (2006). Sight Reading. Columbia.. 

1. Analyze the basic form, tempo, and meter. Look for where the song repeats. Find all the second endings and codas. Look over the meter and determine your initial counting. When looking at tempo, use it as a guide knowing the rule previously given about choosing a suitable tempo. 

2. Find and work out difficult rhythms. From a teaching perspective, reading rhythm is the most difficult to teach beginning and intermediate players. Scan the piece of music and try to find any place where the rhythm changes dramatically or looks tricky. Then, perform the rhythms by clapping, counting, or a combination of the two until fully understood. 

3. Try to note the fingering. This is difficult to do as a beginner. Again, look over passages that seem to be unusual from normal fingering. Remember, your normal fingering will expand as you build a base of patterns from sight-reading. Anywhere the fingering seems concerning, take a moment to analyze and choose an appropriate movement. 

4. Do a mental play-through (i.e., visualize). You may decide to skip this step if you want to test your sight-reading level. However, by doing a complete playthrough without the guitar you are priming the pump so to speak for actually playing it. Yes, you could argue that it is really sight-reading without the guitar. But who really cares if your first actual playthrough is successful? 

5. Sight-read. It’s time to play the piece. Remember the goal is to play without hesitation. If you make a mistake, then you must keep going. If something seems too difficult during playing, then leave parts of it out. I know I leave out bass lines sometimes when I get off track. The goal of sight-reading is to create continuity from beginning to end. 

Sight-reading eludes many guitarists mainly due to the lack of practicing it. Sight-reading is a skill that will improve over time if practiced. Ultimately, we want to play the best music possible with our developed skills. Learning piece after piece to perform in a memorized way is essential but will not improve your sight-reading. However, improving your sight-reading demonstrably improves your performance. 

Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.