Isn't It About Time You Got Better At Sight-Reading?
A six-week online course for pianists looking to up their proficiency and sight-reading techniques
Explore your sight-reading potential!I’ve created this course to help pianists find structure and methods to improve their sight reading skills.
We need to sight-read a lot in order to become better sight-readers. This is true, but it is also nebulous. How do we know what to sight-read? How should we approach it? Just…play? Up to tempo? Do we fix notes? What are our goals, and why? Most of us have busy lives, and don’t have the luxury of endless time at the piano. It can feel daunting and wasteful to throw hours at a goal without a specific plan beyond hopeful repetition.
We often think of sight-reading as a technical or kinesthetic skill, but it is also a practice of training our eyes. Over the course of six weeks, we will focus on different methods of effective sight-reading that address the interplay of our eyes, hands, and brains.
Class Structure
Each morning of the class session, two pdfs will be uploaded to the course website so you can print them out beforehand. At the scheduled class time, we will have a synchronous online zoom meeting where I will introduce and demonstrate a new sight-reading technique. We will spend class time trying the technique independently (so plan to be around your piano if possible) and discussing questions that might arise. Each class will be 30-45 minutes.
The meeting will be recorded and uploaded to the website so participants who can’t make the class meeting can still watch at their leisure. In addition, a verbal description of the week’s technique will be uploaded to the website for quick reference.
Each of the following five days, two pdfs will be uploaded to the website, with which you can practice that week’s technique. While words like “advanced” and “intermediate” are rather fuzzy, both an easier and more difficult piece will be available. The techniques are equally applicable to either piece of music.
Practicing at Home
The daily pieces are tools to help you practice your new techniques. If you find you run out of concentration or time before you get to the end of the examples, no problem. If you don’t get to the piano every day, no problem. Sight-reading is most helpful if done consistently in small bits, but this class has no quizzes, performance requirements, or grading; do what works for your life!
This class is not an exploration of the full range of literature we might encounter as professional or amateur musicians. Rather, it gives a structured approach to ways we might delve into the vast world of reading music. This course helps reduce stress while increasing reading facility and confidence. We achieve this by exploring specific techniques and applying those to a variety of scores.
Real Time Lessons
Recorded Lessons Avaiable
Weekly Practice Materials
Your Instructor
Rose Lachman is a pianist focused on the experiences of the performer and listener. Her teaching centers the intersection of kinesthetic and learning processes. As a performer, she creates intimate mini-concerts to draw audiences into the communal aspects of music. As a teacher, she develops a whole-musician experience for adult learners in individual and group settings. Rose earned her Doctorate in Musical Arts (DMA) from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2015. She is a dynamic collaborator, and is fortunate to work closely with living composers. Dr. Lachman commissioned several works from composer Nathan Hall, including a cycle of 24 preludes based on calendar months and zodiac signs. Their co-production of Earth, Sea, Sky was released in December, 2015. Dr. Lachman plays on Hall’s second album Greenland Diary, recorded in February 2025.
Dr. Lachman made her debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall in 2011 after studying with Irish pianist John O’Conor at the Adamant Music School. She attended Avaloch Music Residency in 2018, along with violinist Michiko Theurer. Theurer and Lachman were semi-finalists in Boulder’s first international duo competition; The Art of the Duo, and wrote a blog during their work as long-distance collaborators. Dr. Lachman trains adult pianists of all levels from her studio in Boulder, CO.
