The Sight Reading Drill Books 2nd is an excellent resource for improving the tactile skills required for secure sight reading. Whether students are young, teenage or mature, the drills provide the necessary repetition to coordinate the visual patterns in the score with the muscle memory in the fingers. Once these patterns are familiar, reading new music becomes easier and more enjoyable.
The Preparatory Drill Book features melodic intervals, harmonic intervals, triads and four note chords, and can be used separately or in conjunction with the Level 1 and Level 2 Drill Books. Clefs are absent and notation is limited to whole notes. This approach frees the student to play the drills anywhere on the keyboard and to focus on intervallic reading rather then pitch notation. It also means the book can be turned upside down, doubling the number of exercises!
Level 1A/B and Level 2A/B cover all major and minor tonalities. Level 1 has keys up to 3 sharps and flats, Level 2 has keys with 4 to 7 sharps and flats. Each two page spread adds another interval to the drills. Melodies are written in quarter notes and half notes, accompaniments are in half notes and whole notes.
Each Level is divided into two sections. In Levels 1A and 2A, the melodies are limited to pentascales; in Levels 1B and 2B they expand to an octave range.
Although created for pianists, the Levels 1 and 2 Drill Books can be adapted for sight singing, or as sight drills for other instruments. Simply choose the appropriate register and key, and either leave out the accompaniment or play as a duet with another instrumentalist.
