Question on sheet music

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For those who can read sheet music, I'm curious - can you immediately play off sheet music, much like reading the written word out loud, or does it still take practice to be able to play a piece?
I'm interested in learning this again, never really got the hang of it to a great degree.

Like reading....you start with "See Spot run. Spot is fast." and you work your way up. Facility on your instrument is a huge factor too. Site reading is a skill that takes years to develop to gain any high level of proficiency. Most pieces of music are played through, and then worked on in sections and then pieced to together to get you from start to finish. Best of luck. It's never too late to start up again.

I have reached a level of proficiency where i can do a decent job of playing a piece the first time i see it.
However, i will not (well, rarely) perform a piece i have not seen before, since that requires you to "understand" it, get into character and "do the voices" for the characters (to keep into the book analogy)

I can play a piece of music straight as i see it, no problems, but that is different from a performance level.


good luck on learning to read music again; it is a great skill to have.
remember, sheet music is in essence no different from any other language (i like to equate it to chinese; who also use characters)

Classical music teachers seem to consider "Sight-reading", or playing on first sight, to be a specific skill. A bit different from learning a score note-by-note, I guess. I seem to be naturally quite good at sight-reading, and don't know how to go about it any other way!

There are limitations. Give me some sheet music for piano and I can play through it right away... slowly, clumsily and with lots of wrong notes. (That's assuming it's not something way, way past my skill level to play.) I still have to work at /learning/ the piece to play it at all well.

I suspect my ability at sight-reading may have lead to a lack of discipline in learning, though. As a child, I'd clang my way through a piece then be all, "I know that one now."

If you think normal sight reading is hard, try reading piano music / harp music / any kind of music written for an instrument that requires the use of two hands. You have to read TWO LINES OF MUSIC AT ONCE, one for each hand!!

That's called a "grand staff" (as opposed to a normal staff).

http://www.allaboutmusictheory.com/grand-staff/

To make it even harder, in a grand staff each staff is often notated in a different clef.

And if you think that's hard, try reading organ music, in which the grand staff often has three separate staves, not two. (One for left hand, one for right hand, and one for feet).

And if you think THAT's hard, try being a conductor. Conductors have to read everybody's staff at once!