Violin sight reading help??!!!?

Question

Hi! I've been playing the violin for about 2 and a half years and I'm pretty all right. The only thing I really lack confidence in is my sight reading. I have a really hard time sight reading music for some reason. I am able to play the piece when i practice but it's hard for me to play it right there when someone gives a piece to me. Are there any tricks or websites that help to improve your sight reading for violin? Any scales or something on sheet music I can practice for sight reading. I take the suzuki method book and they have the fingering (example: 1, 2, 3) below the note which is what I usually use to read my music (unfortunately). Please help! Thanks!

Answer 1

Sight reading is a skill that takes lots of time to learn. And the best way to get better at it is to do it. Really, there isn't much else to do- you need to get music (preferably some solos) and try to read them straight through. Do this a lot.

Try to learn your scales, and I mean all of them. All major scales, and all minor scales (natural, harmonic, and melodic scales). The better you can get at these, the easier it will be to anticipate what the notes will be.

As a musician, I always hated sight reading, simply because I wasn't good at it. But, the more that you do it, the better you get at it.

Answer 2

OK, here's what you should do.

Go get a lot of music for violin. Or for that matter, for flute or oboe or trumpet--anything in the same range. It should be music that's at your level.

Every time you practice, set aside several minutes for sight-reading. Put yourself in the right frame of mind--think "time for FUN!" When it's time, grab some of the music you've bought and just start trying to play it. If you need to stop and figure it out, do so. If you flub up, laugh at yourself (or if it makes you feel better, scream "I SUCK" or whatever, but smile as you do).

You can borrow the sheet music from a library maybe, or you can pick up from a secondhand book shop or via ebay or other online auctions.

It's going to take a while for you to develop good sight-reading skills. The first few times you might take forever to play half-way through a piece. But eventually you'll develop facility--it's just a matter of experience.

Answer 3

A lot of music will have fingering suggestions, but most won't spell it out for you. Try buying music that you know how it's supposed to sound. That way, when you hit the wrong note you will know it. Also, buy flash cards. I don't remember what company makes them, but there are some really good flash cards out for piano. You could write the violin fingering in below, or something.

Answer 4

The best deal on violin sightreading material I know is "One Thousand Fiddle Tunes," published by M. M. Cole. The book consists of reels, hornpipes, clogs, and strathspeys, each one playable in first position, and each one two lines long.
They are easy enough that one has a chance of playing them perfectly, but difficult enough that one has to concentrate on them.

Can you play in third position? The best way to practice the skill of sightreading in an orchestra is to find recordings of Mozart and Haydn symphonies. Then try to find violin parts. If you can't get them separately, get full scores. Then create violin parts for yourself by running the scores through a copy machine and cutting and pasting the copies.

I know what you mean. I've had the same problem.