What are good options for learning sight reading?

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I understand fully that sight-reading is not essential, and I’m not wanting to skip more important things to fit it in. I’d just like to add it to my practice routine during the winter months when I’m able to spend much more time on guitar and music learning. I do think it would add another perspective that might “round out” my understanding.

I know the fundamentals of standard musical notation, so my question is specifically about how to practice reading and playing from it so that it becomes familiar and eventually second-nature. Has anyone here recently started from the very beginning and learned to do it? Can you recommend good resources for doing that? Thank you.

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I started it, but…

I’m nowhere near pro level. I just don’t have enough time to do it, but I try my best. I can recognize the notes and keys when there’s a treble clef at the beginning.

William Leavitt’s “A Modern Method for Guitar” is exactly about learning sight reading from the very beginning to an advanced level.

The most important things are:

  • Always revise what you have learnt (theory, chords, etc)
  • Don’t keep on practicing only one thing until it’s perfect but keep on going back to it from time to time
  • As for sight reading, don’t play things over and over again until you know them by heart because then you won’t play what you read anymore
  • Always search new music to read

I agree that sight reading is a nice skill to have, though probably not the most essential for hobbyists like the most of us. But why not learn it if you’re interested?

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Hi Bob, My husband has a book entitled “Solo Guitar Playing” by Frederick Noad which teaches to read while teaching technique. It teaches classical guitar, so it may not be what you’re looking for. PM me if you’d like more details on how the book is structured.

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Justin has a book on note reading. I went through it a few years ago and I thought it was pretty good

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Like @Jozsef , I’m working through the Leavitt book as used at Berklee…

There’s a lot in here, volume 1 will keep you busy a long time!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Method-Guitar-Volumes-Complete/dp/0876390114

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I use Leavitt’s book as well. It is difficult, not meant for total beginners for sure. Some exceptional exercises there.

Mel Bay’s “Modern guitar method grade 1” offers far more user friendly approach and is tailored to total beginners. There is more explanations about everything, including sight reading. Excercises are shorter and easier. The approach in terms of keys, chords, guitar positions is very similar. It is a light version of Berklee book. :slight_smile: You could probably get both books and see which one works for your level the best.

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Hi Bob, I’m studying Classical Guitar but, while I do love Music Standard Notation I think I’m not yet developing efficent Sight Reading skills, as my focus is on other aspects at the moment. I think the Method Book 1 I used is good if you don’t mind starting off with simple melodies…which I think is helpful to count and tap and respect the lenght of notes and rests and put down some solid fundamentals.
There’s a free pdf copy you can download from this site and there are video lessons too.

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And myself the same as @Jozsef @mathsjunky the same book very good book to learn from and it will last you a long time cheers Hec

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Thank you all for these great responses.

@Jozsef, thanks for those tips, too. They’re consistent with what I’ve read elsewhere, so I’ll take them to heart.

@judi, I found some previews of that book, including a detailed outline. At first I thought it would be just another - admittedly very good - book like Leavitt or Bay, but it appears to have some great technique stuff in addition to the reading exercises. Thank you for this.

Thank you, @OpsRes. It’s hard to know for sure from the description, but as far as I can tell, it looks like Justin’s book is unlikely to go as deep as I’m hoping to go.

@mathsjunky, did you start from square zero with Leavitt? How has it gone for you?

@Boris1565, thank you. I found a scanned copy of Bay’s book online and skimmed through it quickly. It does look very good and includes many little notes that I thought were very insightful and instructive. I have a feeling I might be able to get through it fairly quickly (ha-ha), though, so I lean toward getting something that would challenge me for a long while. I might get it anyway because of those special details.

@Silvia80, that’s a great resource; thank you. I looked through it and downloaded it. I can well imagine making good use of this, too.

Thanks, @DeltaTyne. It sounds like Leavitt is still widely appreciated after all these years.

I wasn’t sure what kind of response I’d get to this question, so I didn’t include much detail about where I am currently. Like so many of us, I took lessons in my teens, it began with learning to read music and play very simple melodies. I wasn’t good at it, my instructor wasn’t very good, and I really didn’t enjoy it, so I quit after a couple of years. About a month ago, mostly out of curiosity, I decided to see whether it was still as hopeless as it was back then. After all, in the past year I’ve come much, much farther than I got in a couple of years as a teen. I brushed up on the notation system, found some sheet music online for simple songs that I know well, printed them and gave them a go. I was very surprised by how quickly it started to fall into place. So I knew there was hope, but what I think I need now is lots of exercises that are targeted to where I need to go from here.

So, naturally I have more questions for you folks who chose to follow this path yourselves.

  • What makes you want to learn to sight-read: The challenge? Access to a wide range of songs? (These are my main reasons.) Something else?

  • Do you enjoy this aspect of learning to play?

  • Do you find that it enhances your experience in other areas?

  • Have you seen in any of these resources that they address playing in other positions on the neck, not just open position? (After getting a song down in open position, I thought I’d switch to another position to see how it went. It went…poorly.)

  • Do chords eventually become recognizable at a glance the way words do? I sure hope so.

Thank you again. This is very helpful.

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Because I remember my Music Teacher at school…she used to praise me oh so much any time I blew air on my recorder. I loved it. Such great good feelings! I’m absolutely sure I’ll be successful!
And also because Music Standard Notation is beautiful…and we all much need beauty these days.

A lot :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Absolutely, it actually makes anything easier for me, I’ve always struggled with Rhythm for example, having a tab without the Rhythm information it’s not the same! Tabs are for smarter people than me. And Theory. And learning to recognise the structure of a piece and memorising it faster

Just that in the book I mentioned. I’m now working on Volume 2 and I think the other positions are mentioned, I’m not there yet.

They do if you’re studying Theory too, which you should do.

By the way…

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They’re all advanced for me…but one has to start somewhere, right? So I started by getting them :joy:

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I’ll add my endorsement to A Modern Method for Guitar. It’s what I used, as well, when learning to read for guitar. (Disclaimer: I could already read treble and bass clef due to learning piano, but I didn’t know where those notes were on the guitar.)

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Hi Bob - I had a few recorder lessons when I was at school, but that was over 40 years ago, not sure that counts. I also worked through Justin’s Rhythm Reading book, although that only covers rhythm (obviously).
I’m no expert, but IMHO and experience, reading music isn’t particularly difficult, but it takes a LOT of practice to be able to sight read. Leavitt provides a lot of practice and that is what you need. There’s no shortcut to being able to recognise a chord, you just have to see it and play it lots of times until it becomes second nature. I’m tackling this in the same way I approach transcribing - I do minimum of 5 minutes a day, although once sat down it often turns out to be longer.
With Leavitt I am particularly enjoying with duets, where I record one guitar part then play along with the other (and then swap).
How far have I got, well in the key of C I can slowly play the simple duets after one or two run throughs. I think the difficulty will be keeping the practice going, which is where my 5 minute rule comes in (it’s worked for transcribing which I’ve been doing for about 18 months now).

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Hi Bob, reading some of your questions is strange because I find I can actually answer some of them, for instance. Do chords become recognisable? And yes they certainly do and it does not take long after answering you yesterday I actually found my book opened it and played, even after all these years it did not take me long to start and remember the note shapes as you can see in the photos cheers Hec

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Oh Berklee. Thats where Tomo Fujita is an instructor. That guy is cool.

I watched the videos of him trying to teach his daughter how to play. I thought it was funny because it seems even the best teachers still have the same father frustrations when trying to teach their own teen something. Needless to say there was only 4 videos from that series.

:laughing:

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I love all of this, @Silvia80, but especially that you are enjoying it so much. I really feel like that’s what matters most.

This part:

reminds me of when I was a child. On the first day of school every year, I’d open my new mathematics textbook and I’d look at the very last chapter. It always blew my mind, because I didn’t understand any of it - but I knew that if I worked at it, someday it would make as much sense to me as the things I already knew. I feel a lot of that same wonder and excitement studying music. It seems like you have a similar experience.

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These are great details, Paul, thank you.

Right. Exactly what I’m looking for. Thank you.

Ha! I certainly don’t expect - or even want - any shortcuts. I just wonder if, after much-repeated exposure, we eventually see something like this:

Screenshot from 2024-12-22 11-49-17

and immediately recognize it as our familiar C major chord - meaning we no longer have to work out what each note is and say “Aha!” as I do now. It sounds like you’re saying that does fall into place with experience.

I saw that the duets were in the book and wondered if folks were recording one part then playing the other. That sounds like a great way to learn a lot.

Your plan of 5 minutes per day (but probably more in reality) is exactly what I planned to do, just as I was planning to do with transcribing, too.

After 18 months working at transcribing, do you feel like you’ve come a long way?

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Thanks, Hec! It’s good to know that it “sticks” once you’ve gotten it down.

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Entirely transformative. When I started it would take me ages to get anywhere. I still get stuck occasionally, I can find some double stops difficult, but on the whole I am pretty confident and quick now. If I hear a lick I like then I know I can steal it!

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Love to hear this!

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Absolutely, adding sight-reading to your practice routine sounds like a great idea, especially if you’ve got extra time this winter! Since you already know the basics of standard notation, you’re off to a good start. I’d recommend starting with simple pieces or exercises that match your current playing level—books like “Progressive Sight Reading for Guitar” by Tom Ball or even beginner piano sheet music (adapted for guitar) can be super helpful. Set aside a little time daily for it, and don’t worry about speed at first—focus on accuracy and connecting what you see to what you play. Over time, it’ll become second nature. Enjoy the journey!

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