standard notation music reading

[cisco kid]

One thing about guitar you can start out by having a guitar teacher...an older teacher in my case (jazz & classical instructor) and learn to read music. But the interesting thing once you leave the guitar for a number of years (maybe noodle around now and then) you forget a lot. You have to relearn.
Questions: What are the best books on reading guitar, that is, all the way through the upper frets 0 thru 9th or beyond. Once you learn one fret position you move on it starts all over again in the fingering. I hear it's all in the fingering.

Next question: Where is the down beat in music reading? I read pay attention to the downbeats and mark them it helps in sightreading.

Thanks for the reply

[GodinFan]

The downbeat is the first beat of the bar. It can be useful to mark where the beats fall in highly syncopated passages.

[randalljazz]

read a little every day...

[cisco kid]

I actually graduated from the same high school (Bell H.S., Bell, CA) that Stan Kenton did (1925 I heard), but the school had no visible indication that he did attend there. The teachers all knew he went to school there. I graduated many, many years later from his. Though he had real talent and was a real success.
Thanks for the feedback.
JamesBDean55

[randalljazz]

1930, according to wiki (check out the 'who's who' that played in his bands). you'd think they would have some memorial to such luminary...

[Space Pickle]

The best thing to do is to get some music that isn't for guitar. I've always found that guitar-specific books, even if they don't have tabs, include all kinds of fingering aids. Anything with a lot of single lines (assuming that's what you want to work on) is good, i.e. saxophone books, violin/cello/piano (again, if it's single lines). Bach works great.

The Leavitt books were a great intermediate step between barely being able to read on the instrument and reading out of real books and some classical music. There's a book by Tommy Tedesco called For Guitar Players Only, and a lot of the technical advice isn't as useful as some more modern texts on the subject, but there's a bunch of really helpful material for learning the fretboard and what not. Also, Rubank has a bunch of little instrumental method books; I purchased all of the solo repertoire ones for each instrument (they're 4.95? 6.95? each, with one study in every key, major and minor. I just read them concert, I practice transposition using other material). There are also duets and what not, and they're all very cheap. I hope you find them useful!

Regards

Chris

[GodinFan]

Clarinet books are one of the best resources for working on single note sight reading on guitar.

The notated range is the same - from E three ledger lines below the staff to double high C.

[Aristotle]

Clarinet books are one of the best resources for working on single note sight reading on guitar.

The notated range is the same - from E three ledger lines below the staff to double high C.

Never knew that.

I'd also recommend learning to read from piano scores, even if it means dropping out some of the comp notes.

It takes time and directed practice to be able to read notes in bunches.

[Henry Mars]

Originally Posted by GodinFan

Clarinet books are one of the best resources for working on single note sight reading on guitar.

The notated range is the same - from E three ledger lines below the staff to double high C.

Ditto. I have been using them for years.
You might also want to pick up some elementary duet books and find someone who is patient enough to work through them with you.

Chas Colin's "rhythm's" book is also very good.

Lennie Niehaus's Jazz Conceptions for the Saxophone is also a good starting place.

The best way to learn sight reading is to do it. It does take some time.