👀 Let's be honest about sight-reading

I think it is useful to define what I mean by sight reading. Sight reading could be Option A: playing a piece of music put in front of me that I have never seen before or maybe I scan it for 1 minute before playing.  Option B: playing a piece of music I have spent a long time studying and you play the piece following music in front of me. Personally I think sight reading is Option A, I think Option B is reading music I wouldn't define it as sight reading. The phrase sight reading to me implies reading at first sight. How fluently I can sight read depends on the difficulty of the material. I find I might practice it daily for months and then will go months and not do any apart from when I have to in an ensemble music setting. I am looking at new music all the time so there is always elements of sight reading involved. For more challenging solo guitar works I rarely try and sight read.

This is a topic I'm struggling with right now. I've avoided sight-reading for 8 years and only used tabs. Now I realize I need to work on it and would appreciate any advice. I can read sheet music from choir, but I need to transfer that knowledge to the guitar.

Thank you for this topic, Martin.  Oftentimes we practice certain things but then get distracted and this is a great reminder for me to get back to basics.  A few years ago, recognizing that my sight reading skills could use some practice, I included as part of my daily regimen picking up some music I never saw before and simply playing (struggling?) from sight, giving it about 15 minutes in my practice time.  But then yet another technical exercise was added to the routine, then spending time keeping repertoire under my fingers, and of course spending time with the usual technical exercises and learning a new piece or two, and before you know it, I completely forgot that important part of my dedicated time.  So I'm going to once again add that to my daily practice, even if I don't have time every day to do it, I will most certainly benefit from the time and reps I put in.  

It's one thing to sight-read single line violin or flute music, and quite another to sight-read dense, harmonically-complex music--Bach, Sergio Assad, Fred Hand.  I'm a weak reader, and deciphering the notes and simultaneously developing fingerings is way beyond my ability.  I clearly should be doing regular sight-reading, but I very much doubt I'd ever be able to sit down and play complex music in time, let alone at tempo.

I actually really enjoy sight reading, and it gives me a chance to look at things I might want to play. I don't play everything (or even most things) fluently right away, but with enough cohesion to get the jist of things. I think it's a great way to warm up.

There appears to be disagreement on what sight reading actually is.  From what I've been taught, if you're going slow, fixing mistakes, etc., that's just reading music, different from sight reading.  Sight reading, then, implies staying with the tempo at the expense of all that other, as in ensemble playing.  You continue on after a mistake.  You may drop notes.  You may drop out completely until you find a place you can re-enter.  None of this implies that it has to be your first go at it.  It is a very different skill from just reading to learn and practice a piece.

I've been reading on guitar for over 30 years - it took many years for my reading to catch up with my playing. I believe you should just always be reading something new every day if possible. There's so much online on IMSLP etc. Violin music is good to read too. A book that really helped me was Progressive Reading for Guitarists by Stephen Dodgson and Hector Quine.

For someone who plays solo classical guitar, sight reading speeds the learning curve. For those of us who make a living playing whatever gigs come our way sight reading is essential. If I take a pit orchestra job I’ll get the music a week or 2 in advance but there are always differences between the advance books and the actual working books. And there’s always the chance that a cast change causes a number to change keys.

The thing that trips up most reading isn’t the actual notes, though that can be tough enough, it’s the rhythms. For most of us reading rhythms has to be learned and practiced separately. Willam Levitt’s “Melodic Rhythms for Guitar” is an excellent place to start.
What are realistic expectations for your reading ability? I’ll use the RCM books of graded repertoire as as a reference point. You should be able to read 2 (or 3 maybe) levels below the level you’re performing. So if you’re performing level 5, you should definitely be able to read level 2, and most of level 3 should be there as well.

As I see it, there are two main aspects to sight-reading music: mechanics and audiation. I disregarded the second aspect for a long time, to my own detriment.

A bit of personal history: I started playing guitar 33 years ago and gave it up after 8 years of practice. In my youth, I could spend more than 6 hours per day practicing nonstop, and I started reading music after 6 months. But I learned to read music in the most mechanical and brutal way: mapping notes to (possible) guitar positions. Of course, in the middle of a reading session—and I remember spending days trying to get to the end of a single piece of music—one could "hear" mistakes and all, but the fact that I was given a repertoire always two or three notches above my current level meant I was always struggling.

After giving up the guitar, I started learning to sing and realized how important it was to sight-sing in order to get a job in a professional choir. I could never sight-sing well in those days. That brings my story to audiation and how important I think it is to sight-reading music.

The best advice I would give to my younger self would be: try to hear what you play before you play it, and learn your solfège well (both naming the notes and hearing them should be the goal) both melodically and harmonically (yes, you can think of hearing a chord as a super-fast arpeggiation of notes). That would apply to any music you read, even tablature. In fact, 5 years ago, I restarted playing plucked instruments—specifically, the lute. I would force myself to name (in my head) and hear the notes of the lute tablature right before playing them. That is a great exercise in audiation because you get immediate feedback (something a singer doesn't).

So, if you are still reading this, you might say, "All right, you're telling me about reading music in general, not strictly sight-reading it." You would be right, but I've noticed my sight-reading improved as my audiation improved. As I said before, I was always playing things above my grade, so my dexterity improved a lot faster than my actual hearing of music. You should work on both.

There is much more to sight-reading than this, and I've witnessed people reducing an orchestral score for piano on the spot, or transposing a choir SATB score on the fly.

Nowadays, I can sight-read things that are 1 to 2 notches below my level with ease. I'm no professional musician, so I have no need to accompany a singer or a choir on the spot, but I benefit from it as I can sit down and enjoy pieces I download from IMSLP in a single sitting.

I replied to this early but mine its not here. so I just say its very important to sight read for all the reason mentioned below.