The High Scorer at Today’s Piano Lesson 

Brigham scored 550 on the SASR today during piano lessons! The SASR, short for Standard Assessment of Sight Reading, is one of the many features students use on Piano Marvel at Piano Academy. Piano Marvel is an application that uses a computer or iPad, and a digital piano to aid in learning the piano. Students get instant feedback on how correctly they played notes and rhythms, as well as tests their ability to play with a metronome (Set up Piano Marvel in your home).

Many of our students have used the sight reading assessment on Piano Marvel at piano lessons. The SASR, which can take around 20 – 30 minutes the first time you take it, gives students a sight reading score at the end. Students choose beginner, intermediate, or advanced music to be assessed on. Once they choose a level, clips of songs will appear on the screen. Students will have 20 seconds to look at the music. Once the 20 seconds are up, a metronome starts, and the student does their best to play as accurately as possible. If they 80% of the notes and rhythm correct, they move on. If they get below 80%, they get their first of three available X’s. Once a student is given three X’s, they are done with the SASR and a score is generated.

Check out a video explanation of the SASR

Brigham has been taking the SASR a lot lately. His goal was to beat his mom’s SASR score, and today during piano lessons he accomplished that goal! 550! Yesterday Brigham was at 497. Quite a jump! Because Brigham has such a good sight reading score, he is able to do what many people say they want to when learning the piano: he can sit down and just play new music at his level. This is why sight reading is important. And this is one of the reasons why we LOVE having Piano Marvel as part of our curriculum at Utah Piano Conservatory!