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Hey everyone, hope you're having a great day.
I have a quick question for y'all! When I read music, I find myself scanning steps and skips and making quick calculations about which note to play, instead of reading the name of each note on the staff (A, C, etc.). Is this normal, or a good procedure to use when reading the music?

Thanks,
Houston Mullins

You can do it either way, but a good goal is to eventually be able to sight-read music without displaying the letter names.
I admit that I often use the letter names of the notes, but It’s a crutch. I do it especially when I want to get through a lesson quickly, or when I get stuck learning a difficult song. Interestingly, I find lately that the letter names slow me down when playing chord progressions and more advanced songs. I guess that means I’ve reached a point where my sight reading has vastly improved...but I got here by using the letter names to help me learn songs more quickly. Don’t be hard on yourself.
I suggest you do whatever works for you, and helps you make progress and enjoy playing.

Hello Houston - I have done the same thing myself. Early on, if the next note is one step up or down you really don't need to know what note it is, just play the next note with an adjacent finger.. That trick will get you very far in the rookie boot camp, but it all falls apart when you start to play chords and keys other than C-Major (where the black keys are used.)

I know from experience that it is tough to turn that trick off inside your head, but I did it this way:

Saying the note names out loud when counting:
Instead of 1-2-3-4, I would say C-2-3-4 for a C whole note
For 2 C half notes I would count C-2-C-4.. and so on.
This works well with very slow pieces and pieces with half and whole notes. For me, I have trouble keeping up when counting out loud 1/8th notes, just can't speak fast enough.

The other thing I did was I got one of those free sight reading test apps. Basically if throws up random notes on the screen one at a time and you are timed on how fast you can hit the appropriate key. It keeps score on the number of right and wrong and can be a good teaching tool. Best of all the 'one step up or down' trick does not work here.

Best of luck with the program, and there are always users here that help each other with the app, should you have any other questions.

I use a mixture of intervals and staff memorisation. If the interval is more than a few steps I have trouble but I've only been back into it for less than a week after a six year absence (and I was a mediocre sight reader back then) so I'll see how it goes. Theoretically I think just using intervals should be good over a five note range for each hand. At the moment I am constantly trying to tell myself the note before I play it which is different to how I approached it back then where I mainly relied on intervals. I certainly helps sight reading.

The biggest issue I have is that if I change my hand position I lose track of which is the root note for each hand so neither intervals or staff memorisation helps there. I'm thinking the bootcamp would have been better off having a number of "both hands" sessions where the hand position was the same so we could get comfortable with just using two hands before changing hand positions on the keyboard. It isn't a big issue, just a thought.