Q: Hey, so I've been reading music for a while now, and I feel like I can read just about anything given five-ten minutes. But now I feel like that's a hurdle to jump since people in the real world may be like "no. Are you crazy? Ten minutes doesn't exist. Play this thing now or not at all" so I'm trying excercises where I just flip to a random piece in "the real book" and play it as accurately and fast as possible. I find myself panicking and stressing myself out doing this though. So how to not panic? Or is panic is necessary to do better?
    -Mr. Freak
A: start practicing with a metronome. take it as slow as you need so you can actually sight read it. when you run out of tunes, get another book -- try to get one with actual tempo markings so that way you can keep track of what your handicap is, relative to the song's actual tempo, and that way you can very gradually increase the tempo. also a good technique is learning to look ahead. i know that seems crazy but that is really how you get it done