Competition results!
Thank you to everyone who took part and congratulations to Ela Dąbrowska and Marianne Ji-Bing who just won a free copy of Polish Christmas Carols!
About today’s topic
Sight reading can be scary (at least it was for me!), especially if you only start practising this skill later in your harp playing. But it doesn’t have to be like that!
Different countries have different approaches – most of the countries in the continental Europe don’t really have a structured sight reading programme, as opposed to the UK where it is a big thing and most musicians learn to sight read from a very young age. What is it like in your country? Let me know in the comments!
What’s most important about sight reading?
- rhythm
- looking ahead
- carrying on!
Rhythm
You will find some very simple exercises in my free ebook “Discover the Harp” [currently unavailable]. For more exercises check out Flip the Rhythm – a great book for practising rhythms!
You can start from doing just one hand at a time. If you choose to do that, try to use the other hand to cover some of the exercise (like I’m showing in the video) to practise the next skill, which is…
Looking ahead
All about the “dangerous” bits that you need to watch out for. In the PDF I am showing some examples, with arrows pointing to places were you need to push yourself to look forward.
Keep going!
I know it’s hard, but try not to worry about any mistakes and carry on! A metronome app (like SpeakBeat) which tells you which beat you’re on will be really helpful, because then you cannot go back without loosing your place in a bar
More about sight reading…
Check out my earlier blog post where you’ll find even more ideas for practising sight reading.
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Watch the lesson
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![How your fingers learn to match the notes to the harp strings? [ep 56]](https://www.zuzanna-harpist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/How-fingers-match-the-notes-to-the-harp-strings-Coffee-Break-Harp-56-on-Reading-Music-340x226.jpg)