Everything you need to get going.
How to plug in your keyboard, read the score view and settle into a practice routine. Setting up takes about five minutes.
How do I start practising sight reading?
Three steps to your first run.
Connect
Plug in a MIDI keyboard via USB, or use the built-in virtual piano with your laptop keyboard.
Pick a piece
Browse the library and choose something at your level — or start a graded course.
Play along
Notes light up as you play — green for right, red for wrong. In Pitch Only mode the score waits for you; in Pitch & Rhythm mode it moves at the beat, shading early notes blue and late notes yellow.
How do I connect a MIDI keyboard to SightReader?
Plugging in a keyboard.
What you need
Any MIDI keyboard or digital piano with a USB output. Most keyboards under £50 work perfectly — you don’t need anything fancy. If your keyboard has a USB-B port, you’ll need a USB-B to USB-A (or USB-C) cable.
USB connection
- Connect your MIDI keyboard to your computer with a USB cable.
- Open a piece in the library and select MIDI as your input method.
- Your device should appear in the dropdown. Select it and click Connect.
- If the browser asks for permission to use MIDI devices, click Allow.
Bluetooth MIDI
If your keyboard supports Bluetooth MIDI, pair it in your operating system’s Bluetooth settings first. Once paired, it will appear in the MIDI device dropdown in the app.
Browser support
The Web MIDI API is supported in Chrome, Edge, and Opera. Safari and Firefox do not support it. On iPhone and iPad, the SightReader app adds hardware MIDI; on any unsupported browser you can also use the virtual piano.
Troubleshooting
- No devices showing up? Refresh the page after plugging in your keyboard.
- Try a different USB port or cable.
- Make sure no other application (e.g. a DAW) is using the MIDI device.
- On macOS, check Audio MIDI Setupto verify your device is recognised.
- On Windows, check Device Managerunder "Sound, video and game controllers".
Can I practise without a MIDI keyboard?
Or just use the laptop keyboard.
No MIDI keyboard? You can play using your laptop keyboard. Select Virtual Piano on the practice page to see the key mapping.
The virtual piano covers two octaves (C3–B4) — enough for beginner pieces. For intermediate and advanced repertoire, a MIDI keyboard is recommended.
What do the note colours mean?
What the colours mean.
When you start a session, a cursor highlights the current position in the score. What the colours can tell you depends on the mode you’re in — Pitch Only has a smaller vocabulary than Pitch & Rhythm.
In Pitch Only mode
The score waits at each position until you play, and two colours cover it:
- Green — you played the correct note; the cursor moves on.
- Red — you played the wrong note. The score still advances so you can keep going.
In Pitch & Rhythm mode
With the metronome on, every note is also judged against the beat, so the palette grows:
- Green — the right note, in time.
- Blue — the right note, but early. The shade deepens the earlier you are. Let the beat arrive before you do.
- Yellow — the right note, but late. The deeper the yellow, the later the note. Try subdividing the beat.
- Red — a wrong note, or the beat moved on before you played. The music carries on; rejoin it wherever the beat is now.
Chords need every note pressed within a tight window before the cursor moves on. Your accuracy ticks up in the right rail as you go; the post-play screen breaks down where you went wrong.
What’s the difference between Pitch Only and Pitch & Rhythm?
Choosing a mode.
The tag above the score names the mode you’re in — tap it to switch, or tap the info icon beside it for a refresher. The metronome is the switch: off is Pitch Only, on is Pitch & Rhythm.
Pitch Only is the right first mode. The score waits while you find each note, which is what you want while a new clef or key still takes thought. Nothing about it is training wheels — reading accurately at your own pace is the foundation everything else sits on.
Pitch & Rhythm tells you the rest: whether your reading holds together when the music won’t wait. You get a one-bar count-in, a bar of grace at the start, and a rhythm breakdown at the end — how much of the piece you played on time, early and late, plus your average tendency in milliseconds. A full attempt in this mode earns 50% more XP. It’s new, and how forgiving it feels is still being adjusted.
Both modes work on every piece in the library, on the free tier as much as the paid one.
Can I slow a piece down?
The tempo dial.
Every piece has a tempo dial with a BPM readout. Playing in time doesn’t mean playing fast: slower gives you more time to read each bar, and an honest pass at 60 beats per minute teaches you more than a scramble at 100. When a piece starts to feel comfortable, nudge the dial up.
Double-tap the BPM number to jump back to the piece’s usual speed.
How is my progress tracked?
Every session counts.
Every time you finish a piece, your session is saved. Visit the Progress page to review your history — last six attempts per piece, total stars and streak days.
- Sessions are colour-coded by accuracy — green for strong, red for areas to improve.
- The post-play "To work on" card surfaces the bars worth revisiting.
- Streak data lives on your profile so it follows you across devices.
How do I get better at sight reading?
Habits worth building.
Start easy
Begin with Grade 1 or pre-grade pieces. Build confidence before moving up.
Read ahead
While playing the current note, glance at the next one. This is the core skill of sight reading.
Don’t look at your hands
Keep your eyes on the score. Develop a feel for the keyboard by touch.
Little and often
Even ten minutes a day builds muscle memory. Consistency beats marathon sessions.
Use Restart
Hit Restart after finishing a piece to immediately practise it again and lift your accuracy.
Who makes SightReader?
Where SightReader came from.
SightReader started when Bret Cameron, a software engineer learning piano on the side, went looking for an app built purely around sight-reading practice and couldn’t find one. So we built it.
Got feedback, found a bug, or just want to say hello? Drop a line at hello@sightreader.app.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn’t my MIDI keyboard being detected?
Check three things first: that you are in Chrome, Edge or Opera, that you allowed MIDI access when the browser asked, and that the keyboard was plugged in before the page loaded. Reload after connecting it. On iPhone and iPad you need our app instead.
Which browsers support Web MIDI?
Chrome, Edge and Opera, on desktop and Android. Safari and Firefox do not, so they fall back to the on-screen piano. No browser on iPhone or iPad supports it — Apple requires them all to use WebKit — so hardware MIDI there needs our native app.
How do I connect a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard?
Pair it inside SightReader, not in your operating system’s Bluetooth settings. Use the Pair Bluetooth button on the connect screen. BLE MIDI devices are not audio devices, so pairing one at the operating-system level does not make it reachable by the app.
Why did a note turn red when I played the right key?
In Pitch & Rhythm mode the beat carries on without you, so a note arriving after its deadline is marked missed even when the pitch was right. Turn the metronome off to fall back to Pitch Only, where the score waits at every note until you play it.
Can I practise hands separately?
Yes. On any piece written on two staves there is a hands control beside the mode pill: left, right or both. The other hand is dimmed rather than hidden, and only the hand you chose is marked. One-hand runs record accuracy and timing, but award no stars.
How long should I practise sight reading each day?
Five to ten minutes on most days beats an hour at the weekend. Sight reading improves through frequent exposure to unfamiliar music rather than through long sessions, which is why the daily session is five pieces and the streak counts days rather than minutes.
Preparing for a grade exam?
We publish a grade-by-grade guide to piano sight reading covering Initial through Grade 8. What examiners expect at each level, how to prepare, and which pieces in SightReader sit at the right level for practice. ABRSM, Trinity, LCM, RCM, MTAC and AMEB all covered.
Open the grade-by-grade guide