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Last edited by jamiehenderson1993; Yesterday at 04:08 PM.
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06-10-2025 09:04 AM
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Any or all of the omnibooks.
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Not sure about a jazz flavor, but for straight up reading--learning and practice--this has done wonders for me: https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/. Very customizable, but very well structured as is. It generates new material with every pass, with or without play-along, at any tempo. It also has "rhythm only" practice that has done wonders for my reading.
Not for everybody, but great for me. It's cheap. Warning: It does not swing!
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I actually used SRF for years & it is so so good for getting your reading chops up - I would honestly recommend it to everyone who wants to improve their reading.
Originally Posted by Onlyserious
As you say though, it's not overly great for the Jazz Thing!!
Thanks so much for your help though.
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Great suggestion - I really should dust off my Parker one! Originally Posted by James W
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The Parker one in C can be really low on guitar, but that's good sometimes and also it's good to practice transposing up the octave. Originally Posted by jamiehenderson1993
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OK..as many know there is a vast difference between reading..and sight reading.
Just improving your reading skills can be done with basic reading material.
Some classical music studies will stretch your abilities.
Sight reading is a skill in itself..there are no short cuts to it. But there may be some methods
that show you some tricks to use..like finding the lowest and highest note in a study so you will be able to
choose a position to find those notes with ease.
Confidence in playing is part of the sight reading attitude.
Howard Roberts had a book on Sight reading ( its out of print - but its out there) that is good for this type of study.
Mick 7 may have a link to it.
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He may indeed: Howard Roberts Super Chops Originally Posted by wolflen
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Originally Posted by Mick-7
Amazing! Thank you so much!
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Yes, this is all spot on - I can already read reasonably well - for the type of music I'd like to read anyway. So it's not so much a 'learning book' I'm looking for as such - it's more a book (either a method book or book of etudes) that specifically is written in a Jazz Style, as opposed to a more 'classical/standard' reading style. I don't know if that makes sense? Originally Posted by wolflen
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Band in a Box can generate infinite solos in various jazz styles over any tune you want and you can control the range, tempo, key etc, play along with or mute the solo track etc. Originally Posted by Onlyserious
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If you're looking for basics, there's a lot of stuff. It's when you get into stuff that challenges your ear, that reading it, recognizing those sounds and ornamental devices and hearing the extended implications of harmony are going to go hand in hand with a more sophisticated vocabulary, ear training, knowledge of the fingerboard and eye training, not only in reading notes all over the staff, but all over the fingerboard.
There are a number of very good challenging classical pieces that will push your ear to expand your playing in general.
Kreutzer etudes for violin
Schradieck etudes for violin
Greg Fishman sax etudes in two volumes. Using jazz standard harmonic forms with challenging modern jazz vocab
Atonal studies in a book called Modus Novus by Lars Edlund
Classical etudes by Wolfgang Muthspiel
All of those works are intensive studies that will take you beyond the traditional sounds and figures of jazz etudes. But they're kind of master level studies for serious players who want to take their playing, reading and ear to the highest level.
Are you a pick player or a fingerstyle player, because there are books of Bach pieces for electric guitar and there are ones for classical players. I know metal players who developed astounding technique and facility through works of JS Bach.
It should be noted that strictly studying jazz oriented books can give you great facility in that genre, but for many advanced jazz players (Lage Lund, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Adam Rogers, Ben Monder, Fred Hersch, Mick Goodrick, Julian Lage, Jonathan Kreisberg, Bill Evans, Brad Meldhau...) it is familiarity and study of classical study materials that opened up the doors to transcend the genre, from imitating a language to creating a new one of your own synthesis.
You decided where you want to go and how you want to do it.
The resources I've listed have been ones that have a proven track record.
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Jimmy Blue Note..
I would add the names Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans to your list.
When I have played with musicians that have some classical music background I envy their ability
to expand their melodic lines and cross harmonic borders and make simple triads praise worthy entities.
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Oh yeah... Charlie Parker. Originally Posted by wolflen
Not to derail the OP's thread, it's just an undeniable truth that jazz is constantly progressing and evolving towards an artform that not only accepts outside influences, but among the icons at the forefront of the genre, demands a personal originality of resource, taste and experience.
There's nothing that says that you can't play jazz if you don't know classical based resources, but everything that one acquires through transcription and assimilation of the sound of jazz has strong roots in the language of classical music.
If you say you want only jazz etudes, you can't internalize enclosures and passing tones, chromatic approaches and scale passages without unknowlingly internalizing apporgiaturas, diatonic and chromatic phrase construction, syncopation and leading and escape tones. All of that is part and parcel in those very comprehensive classical studies I listed. There's nothing that says you can't play kreutzer with a swing sense; it works because the weight of essential chord tones is the same in both genres.
But again, jazz does say you decide your own filters and that is the basis of your own personal style. Get your own facility any way you can.
To these tools, I can add
Oliver Nelson's excellent collection of jazz improvisational patterns.
Lennie Tristano's materials.
Lee Konitz's contrafacts which are a veritable goldmine of bop and post bop language.
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I have the original 3 book series Praxis System. You pick your own path through the 3 books to focus on what you need at the moment. He provides a number of excellent paths that you can use and modify or come up with your own. I don't know what the legalities are of having the PDFs. Since I paid for and own the books, I will keep the PDFs on my tablet for convenience. I also have the original 3 volumes of Mick Goodrick's Mr Goodchord series that I bought years ago for (as I recall) about $35 apiece, and also have the PDFs for convenience. But I can always dig into the books too. Originally Posted by Mick-7
Tony
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One book that did a lot for my sight reading and lots more when I worked though it was
403 Forbidden
I love all this guys stuff.
I have read through this
Advanced Rhythms – Charles Colin Music
at least once a year for the last 45 years whenever I feel I
to shake the cobwebs off of sight reading. Completely unintuitive, no cheating, you just have to sight read the MF.
as unenjoyable as weightlifting (for me), but I can up by sight reading "bpm" by a couple percent
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there's clarinet and violin etude books you can find everywhere for "read through then discard"
stuff.
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Thank you so much for this massively insightful comment & for this list of pieces. Lots to work on from this! I have actually started working/looking at the Kreutzer etudes and they are a bit of a workout ! Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
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I have and can vouch for the Lars Edlund book Modus Novus. Of course it takes a lot of work and effort to be able to read atonal melodies. You could supplement it with scores by the Second Viennese School composers, Stravinsky, Bartók etc. anything really. You could even compose your own stuff and use that for reading!
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I have a hardcopy of Parker's Omnibook, but I found MANY errors in the transcriptions by slowing the audio solos down. This book already dates from 1978, so to the current date to me it seems outdated.
My advice: don't just sight-read the solos in the book and follow the recordings instead.
You will learn MUCH MORE from it.
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