Beginner sheet music sight reading exercices for ocarina

These are some exercises to practice sight reading sheet music on the ocarina. Sight reading is the ability to play music that you don't know by reading notation in real time, without memorising it in advance.

The exercises start with the higher notes of a single chamber alto C, as:

• The higher notes are more pitch stable
• There is less chance of miscovering a finger hole with fewer holes to cover.

They also start out using a very small range, so that you can hold the fingerings and note positions in short term memory. The goal is to associate the sight of the note directly to the fingering and breath pressure for that note.

Tips for getting started

• Look up the fingerings for the notes being used in the exercise and memorise them
• Also memorise where those notes are on the music staff.
• Practice sight reading these with a metronome at a low tempo, 40 to 60 BPM.

You may also find it useful to practice the rhythm in advance by clapping it, before you try to sight read the notes.

Stepwise movement (G, A, B)

Repeated notes (G, A, B)

Remember to separate these notes using tonguing, or fingered articulations.

Introducing leaps (G, A, B)

Increasing the range (F, G, A, C)