Piano sight reading practice from real scores

Read the page, not the falling notes

Falling-note trainers show which key to press next. That teaches the keys, but it does not teach the page. When the notes stop falling, the score is still unfamiliar: the clefs, the key signature, the shape of the phrase and the distance between the hands all have to be read again.

Tập Nhạc starts from the page. MusicXML or MIDI goes into your library, the score is engraved on screen, and you practise the bars in front of you. The feedback is attached to the notation, so what you learn at the screen is what you take to printed music.

Start with aids, then fade them

Reading aids sit on top of the score and can be switched off one at a time:

• Note names under the staff, below lyrics and dynamics so they stay readable.
• Finger numbers, including any fingering already written in the score.
• Interval hints for the distance between notes.
• Current-note highlight so the eye knows where the music is.
• Wrong-note marks after a judged pass, showing the note that did not land.

The useful direction is to need less. Leave note names on for a new key or a new clef, then turn them off and read the same bars again. Keep the current-note highlight a little longer if the eye still loses its place.

Practise the bars that break the reading

A whole piece is too much to read at once. Select the bars that slow you down, and only those bars are shown and looped. The passage starts at 60 percent of the score's tempo: slow enough to read ahead, name the notes and keep the rhythm steady.

Three clean repetitions in a row move the tempo up one step. Two misses in a row move it back down. When one bar keeps breaking the passage, shrink the loop to that bar until it holds, then return to the full passage. You can also start at a random bar to check that the passage is not only known from its first note, or build from the end so each run finishes on music you already know.

Make reading a weekly habit

Short and regular beats long and occasional. A piece is split into chunks of up to four bars, and each chunk can be practised on its own. When a passage is solid at full tempo, it comes back for review after 1, 3, 7, 21 and then 60 days. A clean review moves it to the next gap; a miss brings it back sooner. The library marks what is due, and Continue reopens the passage you practised longest ago.

Reading improves when the material is slightly new. Import a score you are learning, or open one of the bundled samples and read a few bars without the aids. The aim is not a perfect run on the first attempt; it is a page that needs less help than it did last week.

What you need

• A browser. The app runs as an installable web app and works offline after the first load.
• A piano or keyboard. A MIDI keyboard lets the app judge each note; the on-screen keyboard works without one, and you mark each pass Clean or Missed.
• A score. Import MusicXML or MIDI, or add the bundled samples from the library.
• No account. Everything is stored on your device, and sync is optional.

Questions

More ways to practise

The method explains the passage-first loop from the first bar to spaced review. If you already have a keyboard, practise piano with a MIDI keyboard covers judging and hand separation. If your score is a MusicXML file, practise any MusicXML score, bar by bar shows what happens on import and how to choose the bars.