The best free sight reading websites

You choose the key, time signature, length and level, and it writes the exercise, plays it back with a count-in and a metronome, prints it, and downloads it as PDF or MusicXML. Every exercise has its own link, so a teacher can send the same one to a whole class, and Embed puts it on a website.

Its limits today: one line in the treble clef, between middle C and the B above it; 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4; notes drawn at random from the steps of the scale you choose, so no phrases or cadences.

Made for guitar students and useful on most instruments: treble, bass or alto clef, every major key and thirteen time signatures, 5/8 and 7/8 among them. You pick the note values, rests, ties and triplets yourself, or follow its eleven levels. It plays the exercise back with a choice of six instrument sounds and has a metronome and a practice timer.

We found no print or download. Minor keys are offered only in its four-part Bach Mode, which we didn't test.

Notes appear on a treble, bass or grand staff and you play them, on a MIDI keyboard plugged into your computer or on the keyboard on screen. It counts hits and misses, and either waits for you or scrolls at a speed you set. In its settings you choose the staff, the range, the key and what it generates: single notes, triads, seventh chords, intervals or progressions.

It drills notes, not rhythm: every note is a whole note.

A new rhythm on a single line at each tap, with playback, a metronome and a tempo control. Its settings choose the time signature, the number of bars and the groups of notes and rests, and a button copies a link to your settings.

One note at a time; you answer with its name. Customize sets the clefs, the range, key signatures and accidentals, so you can drill exactly the notes you mix up. The site has more exercises of the same kind, for intervals, key signatures, chords and ear training, and teachers can make a permanent link to a customized one.

On an iPhone it first offers its paid app, Tenuto; Use Web Version opens the same exercise free in the browser.

Short graded drills: notes in treble, bass, alto and tenor clef up to ledger lines, and rhythms, intervals, chords, scales and key signatures. The drills work without an account; a free one adds a leaderboard.

A new melody at each tap, in five levels from quarter notes moving by step up to sixteenths and accidentals; treble, bass or alto clef; major or minor; 4/4, 3/4 or 6/8. It counts you in, plays the scale first if you want, shows one to four lines at a time and has a button to print a full sheet.

Melodies filtered by scale, rhythm, time signature and how far the melody moves. Before each one it can play the cadence, the scale or the first note; afterwards you can listen and compare. It draws from a fixed set of melodies (29 with its default settings), not a generator.

Generates melodies, scales and arpeggios for your voice range and key, with a reference pitch, a drone, a metronome and solfège syllables under the notes if you want them. You can loop any part of the melody. The same site has interval, chord and dictation trainers and guided solfège lessons. It never listens to you: you judge your own singing.