In this study, we analyzed eye gaze during the reading of sheet music prior to sight-singing without performance. The subjects were college students at a primary teachers’ college and comprised two groups: 37 students who had experience of specialized musical education, and 29 students without such experience. A well-known song for children, without its text, was used as the theme of the composition, which comprised of 12 measures. The sheet music was displayed on the monitor of an eye-tracker system. The composition was separated into six areas of interest (AOI), and each subject’s fixation count and fixation length was recorded per AOI. Students who had experienced musical education were able to read all measures evenly, while those who did not have experience of musical education showed longer fixation lengths per fixation count. The experienced students showed more efficient reading of the music when they read it with fewer fixation counts and a shorter fixation length.
