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Some of the best sight readers I have met simply look at the staff and know where to put their fingers.
They would have to think to say what notes they are playing at any given moment.
It is purely a tactile based approach.
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09-04-2025 11:29 PM
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When I'm playing a melody that I'm thinking of, it can seem like my fingers go to the right note without conscious thought. Not always, but it happens.
But when reading, I always know the note by name and I know exactly where I am on the neck and what finger I'm using. I have probably scanned ahead, if the music isn't too dense to permit it, to determine if I'm going to have a problem in my current fret position. I can't imagine getting to the point where my fingers are reading on their own, so to speak. But, I have met players who do things I find unimaginable.
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Yeah if I was doing it I wouldn’t use syllables I’d just think in terms of numbered degrees of the scale.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
It is graphical - a diatonic fifth or third or octave looks a certain way on the staff and I definitely use that when reading chords and arpeggios and things.
So maybe I do it a bit. So much of reading is based on sheer experience and exposure to music that it can be hard to track the exact way one does it - in order to sight read you need to be able to do it intuitively.
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This overlaps a bit with ear training/sight singing, which is no bad thing IMO. This is much more relevant to how I personally hear and analyse music rather than to how I read it off a page sight unseen. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
So yes moveable pitch centre. You go to the bridge in The Song is You for example, and you reset the key centre (1) from C to E.
Some sources will write out the key change as a fresh key signature, as a classical piece would (I have an old Mehegan book that does this), but these days most don't. So that makes it a little trickier to do the relative pitch thing in a sense (although it may make absolute pitch reading a little easier perhaps?)
In some cases (Aebersold Real Book for example) the author has chosen to use a Null Key Signature which makes this sort of approach a little more difficult. This is certainly a common approach in modern jazz charts.
What constitutes a modulation is a lot more nebulous and subjective. Some people seem to regard every II V I as a key change, whereas I think of them as temporary tonicisations/secondary dominants and true key changes are less frequent (most typically in the B section of an A A B A tune). You can hear them both ways.
My general approach for this is - only change the tonic when it's absolutely clear that you should.
So, for example, I'd actually regard a tune like Stella as having only one true key change* at the most - the move to V in bar 13. But there's obviously lots of secondary dominants going to IV and IIm and so on.
In terms of practicing sight reading - get used to:
- charts with one key signature for the whole thing (Real Book and most lead sheets)
- classical charts with key signature changes (Mehegan transcription book, also Dick Hyman IIRC)
- charts with one key signature at the beginning that they can't be bothered to print out on each line for some reason (New Real Books)
- charts with no key signature (Aebersold Real Book and many other published transcriptions) and Big Band charts where literally anything might happen haha.
*which is not the same thing as saying you can play Bb major all over it haha
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This seems like a pretty good summary of the hodge-podge of ways you can expect to see charts written.
And whether you think of it as solfeg (syllables) or degrees (numbers), understanding and mentally translating notes into a system of tonality can really help you understand the music and carry that understanding (and licks, etc.) across keys.
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Reading thinking solfege is the next step after getting decent at reading by note names. That's what you learn in music school. Couple posters here should check their attitude.
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Is that how you read Joe? Originally Posted by joe2758
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yeah, I think in solfege
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Including on the guitar? Might encourage me to work on this myself. I can see a lot of advantages. Originally Posted by joe2758
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Yeah on guitar too. Both are useful and no one who reads like that doesn't know the note names on their instrument. I would say for melodies completely solfege, two note intervals solfege for the bottom note and the top note sort of automatic (this skill I developed by following Sor's method and playing all his exhausting exercises in 3rds and 6ths), and chords solfege for bottom note and note names for the other voices.
full disclosure I have never been a pro and haven't had to site read on a job, but I got through a couple years of music school where it was tested. I also don't have any trouble analyzing scores in weird keys.
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I'm always interested to learn stuff. Originally Posted by joe2758
I do analyse and hear stuff by functional degrees, just because it is so incredibly useful, but I don't think it's primary engine of my reading such as it is. I will explore...
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Shouldn't difficult for you as someone who already knows solfege. You just sing along as you read and you'll site read at the same level that you can sight sing.
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Yeah, when I do sight singing, I look at what note is the root and then sing movable do based on scale degrees and then just flatten or sharp based on the key. I actually don't do that when I'm on an instrument because the notes are in different locations but with the voice these differences are less apparent. Interesting idea that might lend itself to shape based sight reading on the guitar. Originally Posted by joe2758
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How does this work?
You see a note, and the next note, and you can sight sing them. You know the interval.
Now, you find the first note on the guitar (meaning you have to know the fretboard) and then you find the next one by the shape of the interval? Bearing in mind, of course, that the shape depends on which strings you're using.
But, since you have to know the fretboard to find the first note, wouldn't you already know where the second one is the same way, without thinking about the interval?
I understand the value of sight singing/solfege, but I don't see how it helps with reading. I am always willing to learn something.
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The primary thing I'm talking about is scale degrees, not intervals. If I play or sing Do la sol ti la sol, i'm not thinking "ok do to la is a major 6th, la to sol is down a second" and so on. That would correctly be considered ridiculous Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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o.k., but it seems redundant to me because they are synonymous. For example, in C major, C-D is a major second, C-E is a major 3rd, etc. So if you know the major and minor keys and notes, you know the intervals (both ascending and descending). Originally Posted by joe2758
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The difference is scale degrees are single notes and intervals are the distance between notes
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Yes but within a key they are interrelated, like two sides of the same coin, at least that's the way I've always thought of them. It is of course different with atonal music, like say Twelve-tone music, but they don't use solfege for that, do they? Originally Posted by joe2758
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Sure you can say they are inseparable (if there at least 2 notes), but there is a difference in approach. I'm not sure where exactly that is though because to you it seems I'm adding an extra step and to me it seems you are lol. Originally Posted by Mick-7
I think note names would work best for atonal music, but I've never played it
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Scale degrees also impy relationships within a key which intervals don't. Originally Posted by joe2758
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I'm an interval number person, I remember having a book on Ear Training that used numbers for all the scale intervals.
Here are the Preview Pages from Hal Leonard site:
From this book:
Last edited by GuyBoden; 09-06-2025 at 06:33 AM.
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From my perspective, bringing scales into it is an extra step. In order to figure out the scale degree you must already know what the two notes are. And, when you're reading something written in, say, 5 flats, which doesn't have an obvious tonal center but does have accidentals, seems to me that trying to figure out scale degree is going to take some time and effort. Given that you already know what the notes are, I don't see the advantage. What have I missed here?
I don't play atonal music either, but I regularly play passages that could be. That is, if I play a note in a random chart, the next note could be anything. It's like learning intervals by singing the first two notes of a familiar song -- there's a song for every possible interval. Flat 3? Don't Blame Me. Maj6? Shortnin' Bread. etc.
Reading isn't complicated. You have to learn the fretboard and the staff. You break rhythms into ups, downs and triplets. Where it gets hard is the situation where you look at the chart and you can play it, then the leader counts off the tune three times faster than you were expecting. Strategies that worked at 60bpm can break down at 180bpm. And, the solution is more time doing that stuff.
Gradually, you begin recognize commonly used rhythms and chunk them so you're not reading individual hits - and things like that. But that doesn't work reliably because the arranger was probably trying to be original -- meaning novel rhythmic material. Solution: even more time doing it.
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Intervals don’t work for sight singing. Thats why all the school teach solfege or some variant of functional ear training.
Intervals are useful for other stuff. Non tonal music for instance.
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Yeah, to me the scale degree isn't something to figure out...it isn't any harder than reading by note names. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
If I'm in Bb and there is a Bb on the staff, I know it is Do the same way I know it is Bb.
Ok, so then the next note is G. I know it's a G, but it doesn't register in my mind as such, just "La"
And now there are accidentals. The next note is E natural. It is on my "fa" place on the staff, and I raise it. I don't think E natural at all, although I know it is.
So I don't name the note and then determine the scale degree.
When I'm reading with 5 flats I have to bear in mind 5 flats. If I'm thinking scale degrees it is the same as reading in C
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Like you, I learned the note names on the fretboard by rote. I also learned all of my scales and modes in all positions. So when I'm playing in, say, Db major (to use your example) I'm using muscle memory to play in-key notes: I've already trained my hands to know that (for example) a major 3rd is in a particular location relative to (for example) the root of the scale. Thus, when I am playing diatonically, I'm not thinking about those five flats. My fingers and my ears know where a certain sound is in relation to the current note I'm playing. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Thus, when I am reading in Db, I don't have to worry about the five flats that are in the key signature: they are implied by the key signature and they're hard-wired into the connection between my fingers and my ears. A note that does have an accidental stands out in standard notation as one that is not in the standard muscle-memory fingering for that key signature so will require some adjustment - a different finger, a stretch, a change of position.
I don't necessarily analyze as I read to inform my mechanics ("oh, this passage is Eb Dorian so I should finger it a particular way") but I might understand what I'm hearing as a confirmation that what I'm reading and playing makes sense. I most definitely hear scale degrees as colors - I've trained my ear to "just know" that a certain sound is a major third, or a 13th chord, and so on. There's no thinking involved. It's like seeing a color or tasting something. You immediately know that you see green or that you taste something sweet. You're not saying "hmm thats a mix of blue and yellow, so it must be green."
I hope that makes sense. I certainly don't mean to imply that anyone has to do any of this. Many people sight-read quite well without knowing any theory. Using theory to understand the context in which one is reading can be helpful tho. Its just another way to think about something.
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