Practise sight-reading with the sound in your ears
Sight-reading is best practised with the answer at hand. You read a bar, sing or play it – then hear how it should have sounded. Duly Noted reads your own sheet music, a PDF or a photo of the page, and plays it in the browser while the current bar is highlighted. Read first, then listen. Or listen first, when the page is too hard.
What the app is – and isn't
Search for a sight-reading app and you mostly find drills: note names on a keyboard, rhythms to tap, intervals to hear. They are good for the first step. Duly Noted is the second: real music – the hymn your choir sings, the piece your teacher gave you, the tune in the book – read at your own pace and heard played right. It does not correct you and it does not grade you. It shows where in the music you are and lets you hear how it should sound.
How to practise sight-reading with it
- Upload what you have to read. A PDF, a photo of the page or a MusicXML file. The app reads the music and is done in about a minute per page.
- Read the bar yourself first. Sing it, play it or read it silently. Then click the bar and it plays – the answer, straight away.
- Slow it down until you can read in time, without the pitch changing. Raise the tempo a notch at a time.
- Loop the bar that haunts you. Click the first bar and shift-click the last – on a phone, tap the bar – and the passage repeats until your eye keeps up.
Four exercises
One step ahead
Start playback at a low tempo and read the bar before it is highlighted. The goal of sight-reading is an eye that stays a beat ahead of the fingers; here you practise that with the sound as your check.
Rhythm first
Turn the click on, mute the melody and clap the rhythm against the click. Turn the melody back on and hear whether it matched. The count-in gives you the first beat.
Your part against the others
Choral music with several staves gets a chip per staff. Mute your own part, read it and sing it against the others. Turn it back on when you want to check.
The road map
Repeats, endings, D.S. al Coda: the app plays the piece in the right order and highlights the bar it is on. Follow along and see that you land in the right place at every jump – that is sight-reading too, and it is where people get lost at the first rehearsal.
Who practises this way
- Choir singers who read music slowly and want the answer for their part before the rehearsal.
- Beginners on an instrument who want to hear what the bar sounds like before they play it.
- Adults starting again after many years without sheet music.
- Music teachers who send a student home with the homework playing at a tempo they can manage.
- Folk and session players who were handed the dots instead of a recording to learn the tune from.
Common questions
Does it teach me the note names?
No. It assumes you know what you are looking at, or are learning it, and gives you the answer for how it sounds. For note names, clefs and rhythms there are drill apps – use them first, or alongside.
Can I read without hearing it?
Yes. Nothing plays until you press play or click a bar. Read the whole page silently first if you like, and listen afterwards.
Does it work with choral music and several parts?
Yes. When the music has several staves, each staff gets its own chip in the toolbar, so you can mute your own part or listen to it alone. Handwritten music is not read yet.
Can I try it for free?
Yes. Your first piece of up to 4 pages is read and played for free, with no card needed, and you can mute parts and correct chords and repeats. Tempo changes, loops and transposing come with a pack of 3 pieces for €3 or a subscription from €5 a month – see pricing.