Reading Music -an idea?

[billkath]

I was wondering--

For all you sight readers out there- Do you ever pick a shape (A JB or CAGED shape) for the key you're going to be in, when sight reading? For the last couple of weeks I've been doing this (it just popped into my head as a good idea) and have found it's helped my reading a lot. A lot a lot. It's also helped my transposing-on-the-fly immensely. For instance-if I'm in C or Am--I'd pick a shape that's in the C Major scale. I'd pick one shape that makes it easiest for ledger lines above and below the stave etc.

Doing it this way, all I really have to think about are incidentals-I'm thinking more in scale degrees rather than actual notes. It keeps my fingering "correct" and makes it easier to hit chords and arps etc.
Is this "cheating"? Is it a bad idea? Or is this what they'd teach you to do if you had a teacher?

[fep]

Hi Bill,

I do something which I think gets me to a similar place as your thinking of CAGED scale positions. And it helps my reading also.

I think of a chord grip in the position that I'm at. I'm usually thinking of the chord progression and moving my position around with the chord grips I'm visualizing.

Say the line is descending... Ab G F Eb B Ab and the underlying chord is G7. I'm playing at the 3rd fret and visualizing that G7 grip at the third fret.

The line all of a sudden makes sense to me in that context, both to my ears and fingers and theoritically. It now becomes a path similar to ones I've traveled many times.

Even though I'm bringing in the extra elements of thinking chords and chord grips, it still makes reading easier for me.

[billkath]

That's the ticket. It's the familiarity, I think, that's helping me. Seeing the chord shapes on the scale/shape. Knowing that if I'm in a C shape all the notes of that scale are right there,2 octaves of them, rather than doing what I was doing which was saying "Jeez-where's F now?". It's really helping with transposing on the fly, by just shifting that shape to the right fret and playing what's on the sheet-no need to think.

What put this idea into my head was Jimmy Bruno's idea of thinking about the white notes-learn all the white notes on the fretboard. Once you do that, it's only a matter of shifting position to play in any key just as easy as playing in C on a piano.

[cosmic gumbo]

You definitely have to find something that is familiar under your fingers, because you can't read a chart and look at your neck at the same time.