Sight Reading Solutions for Pianists

               Recently, I checked out a book at the library called The Bach Fake Book . In case you do not know what a fake book is, it consists of music notated with single line melodies in the treble clef with chords symbols above the staff. The chord symbols are often letter names suggesting major chords, slash marks like F/A, which indicate chord inversions, abbreviations for minor, diminished, and other chord types, and numbers representing extended chords such as sevenths and ninths. In contrast to normal piano music with two staves and full notation of complete harmonies and bass lines, a fake book only provides the bare minimum notation for the performer to improvise an arrangement of the piece without being confined to playing every single note a composer has written. For popular music, playing from a fake book is common practice. Many classical musicians often struggle with fake books because of the lack of training in this aspec...