Sight reading practice for piano
Sight reading means playing from the page without preparing. The first skill behind it is simple: seeing a note and knowing where it is on the keyboard. Chord Drills trains exactly that with your MIDI keyboard. It shows lines of notes, you play them, and the app checks every note.
What this trains, and what it does not
The trainer uses quarter notes, four to a bar. It trains note reading and finding the keys, in both clefs, with key signatures and accidentals. It does not train rhythm values such as half notes, eighth notes or rests yet. For rhythm reading, use it alongside a method book or a course.
Settings
- Clef: treble clef (default), bass clef or both hands together.
- Range: set the lowest and the highest note for each clef. A small staff next to the controls shows where your range lies, so you can set it without guessing.
- Key signature: pick a key, and optionally add extra accidentals.
- Length: from 4 up to 64 notes, in steps of four. Eight notes are the default.
- Modes: musical figures (runs, broken chords, thirds), random notes, chords, intervals, or everything mixed.
- Time attack: a timed round with a high score, kept separately from the chord high scores.
How the feedback works
The current note is highlighted. A correct note turns green, a wrong one red. After a finished line you see how many mistakes you made, and a clean line counts as a success. “Show solution” writes the note names under the notes.
A practice plan
- Start with a small range of five notes, for example C4 to G4 in the treble clef, like early method books.
- Widen it by one or two notes when a line runs clean.
- Add the bass clef, then both clefs.
- Add key signatures with one or two sharps or flats.
- Move to chords and intervals when single notes feel easy.
- Look at the screen, not at your hands.
Related: scale practice and random chord generator.