Sight reading
Sight reading is reading and performing a work of music without having seen it before. Sight reading is considered a useful and important skill for musicians.
When singers sight read, it is called sight singing; if no lyrics are specified, they use solfege, numerical sight-singing, integer notation, or simply pick a syllable ("la", "duh", etc.) to sing on each note.
Studio musicians (that is, musicians employed to record pieces for commercials, etc.) often record pieces on the first take, without having seen it before. Much of the music on television is played by musicians sight reading.
In some circumstances, such as examinations, the ability of a student to sight read is assessed by presenting the student with a short piece of music, giving the student an allotted time to examine the music and prepare to play the music, then testing the student on the proficiency of how the student plays. A harder kind of test requires the student to perform without any preparation at all.
The ability to sight read seems to depend in part on a strong musical memory. An experiment on sight reading using an ear training
