Practice
I feel like a dumb.
When you learned to read as a little kid, it took you years to learn enough words to read, and you didn’t start with Shakespeare or Tolstoy, you worked up from See Spot Run.
Reading music is the same. You learn the first, start to recognize chords and patterns and context clues, and you learn to read more and more complicated things until you don’t see the individual pieces, but the actual song like you don’t see individual letters when you read a book now.
I’m 3 years in with a teacher, and I’m getting better every week. It often doesn’t feel like it, because my pieces increase in difficulty as I’m progressing. It’s syncing my hands to what I’m reading that I’m working on at this point. Once my reading progresses to where I can recognize chords and chord progressions quick enough, that’s going to be the next plateau.
Just stick with it, and you can read music anywhere, not just at your instrument. Get in practice where you can. You’ll always be that much better than the day before!
From the sounds of it, most of us never learned how to read music like that, so I guess you’re in good company!
It helps to work incrementally. Assuming you’re a beginner, start with simple single voice (one-handed) exercises and melodies. From there you gradually build in complexity as you learn the various note rhythmic values, and soon you’ll be ready for two-voice (both hands).
Any decent piano method book will use an approach like this. Carve out a minimum of 15 minutes a day of practice. More if you’re motivated and have the focus for it. Practice the exercises to mastery before moving to the next - that is to say, don’t just practice it until you get it right, practice it until you can’t get it wrong.
Lots of practice and then some more. Take your time going through the process of learning the notes. Consistently repeated effort makes a big difference.
I played piano for years as a kid, but never learned how to read music.
I just couldn’t.
When we were working on a new song, I would have the teacher play it for me so I knew what it was supposed to sound like, and through practice, my fingers memorized the motions. If I hit the wrong key while practicing, I would every good boy does fine to figure out what key it was supposed to be, and do it again. Once I learned the song, I could play it without looking at the music at all.
Just doing it over and over again. I memorise which ledger line is for which note now - and same applies for notes way above or below the ledger - and that’s all there really is to it. When you’re sight reading I feel it helps you to pace yourself as well.
I read the music through first, slowly, imagining pressing the notes. It’s like having a mental practice or two. It doesn’t work unless I genuinely imagine my fingers moving.
Over years and years I got very good at sight reading the styles of music I play a lot, but I still find it hard to sight read music that’s in a different style.
