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Originally Posted by JohnRoss
I don't think there's anything wrong with practicing rote exercises while watching TV (although I don't do it myself), but you shouldn't expect to learn anything from it mentally.
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08-22-2010 07:53 PM
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It does all come down to practice, for sure; and I believe that some folks feel more inspired to practice reading than other folks, and sometimes that inspiration (of lack of inspiration) comes from their teachers.
If a teacher does not know how to read, she/he is less likely to pass that skill onto her/his students. Also, a lot of students come to their first guitar lessons with all kinds of bad feelings associated with reading, and they have heard on the web from other illiterate guitarists that reading is not very important. A teacher who does not know how to read may support the student's opinions.
I always tell students over the phone, before our first lesson, that I believe that reading is an important skill and I will be giving them reading assignments if they choose to study with me. If they really don't want to learn how to read, I will recommend another teacher who does not teach reading.
I'm not a great reader, but I get by. I love the Melodic Rhythms book, and I just bought a new book that's pretty cool: Reading for Contemporary Guitar. Anyone using that one?
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Originally Posted by FatJeff
I don't think there's anything wrong with practicing rote exercises while watching TV (although I don't do it myself), but you shouldn't expect to learn anything from it mentally.
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Originally Posted by JohnRoss
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Originally Posted by Susan Palmer
Amazon.com: Reading Contemporary Guitar Rhythms: Single Note and Rhythm Guitar Technique (9780634018299): M.T. Szymczak:
Or this one?
Amazon.com: Mel Bay Sight Reading for the Contemporary Guitarist (9780786664764): Tom Bruner: Books
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I’m here to give some encouragement to you aspiring sight readers. I am a good sight reader. I have been practicing sight reading every day for almost seven years now. It's a project (so to speak) that I've been working on. I was becoming bored of playing so I decided to start reading music ever day to see where it would lead. I have never looked back. I still read every day. I would encourage anyone to get started. Although difficult at the beginning, if you keep at it you will begin to love doing it. After 1-2 years your skills will be good enough that you will begin to really enjoy it. This new found love of reading will further improve your sigh reading skills. It all feeds on itself. After five years you will begin to recognize things very quickly and a lot of music will become easy for you to read. For beginners, read everything you can get your hands on, including bass clef. I would recommend starting with easy piano folios of popular standards and classical music. You can find these at any music store. These EP books will include melody, basic accompaniment and bass clef. For me, reading has made playing very enjoyable. It has allowed me to experience a lot of the great music out there. The trick is to get started and do it every single day because you will lose your skills if you don’t stick with it. If you are disciplined and stick with it you will get very good.
Kman
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It's funny this came up. I was thinking about this kid (eighteen year old rocker) who could wail on guitar. We played together in a pit band for the musical Footloose last year here in Kansas City. When I first met him, he taught me a ton about electric guitar setup for the sound we needed. I just wasn't that good at it and he was.
I also learned that after we were done with the show, he was picking up and driving to Nashville to become a studio guitarist. It was his dream. The kid could shred with the best of them so I figure he's got a decent shot.
Fast forward to a week before the show and we are playing this one number in dress rehearsals and I notice that there are notes all over his page but he isn't playing. I ask and he says he doesn't read music. He even asked me if I could take it home and tab it out for him.
I don't know whatever happened to him or if his dream came true, but honestly I doubt it. Here was a kid who was convinced that all you had to know was the fret board stuff. I'm willing to bet that he has a decent gig somewhere shredding away, but I seriously doubt that any group or studio would sign him on since he couldn't read much less sight read.
~DB
P.S.: Me, I don't sight read too well. But, I do better than most as long as it is one note at a time. I get the opportunity by playing hymnal music at church every Sunday. My goal is to eventually be able to do it. So now when I pick up a new song out of the hymnal, I try to play all four parts (on two different lines). I'm not too good at it yet, but I bet after a few years I'll pickup a lot of skill.
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Originally Posted by Susan Palmer
Amazon.com: Sight-Reading for the Contemporary Guitarist (9780739031568): Tom Dempsey: Books
I use this one, as I have studied with Tom some in the past. Good book.
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OK, so here's real-world for all you cats out there:
I just got back from my semester audition for placement in the jazz combos at school. I did OK on the repertoire section of the audition (we played Yardbird Suite and Body & Soul), but I totally flailed on the sight-reading stuff. Of course, this was the first thing they had me do (in front of about half a dozen of the big boys on the jazz studies faculty, and a few local gig musicians as well, two of which I saw last night backing Dale Bruning). So, it set the mood for the entire audition.
The reading was a song I had never heard of before - and which I've already forgotten the name of. It was a mid-tempo "rock" feel song (130bpm, no swing), and I was given a piano chart, so not only were there multi-voiced melody lines to keep up with, but half of the chart was just slash chords changing every beat and with really odd syncopated rhythms. A lot of chromatic descending dominants resolving to weird places. In short, there was a whole lot of shit going on there.
But the piano and bass players kept up just fine. It was only me - fulfilling everyone's negative expectations - that couldn't hang with the reading. I left feeling like a tool, but you know what? I am going to start hitting the sight reading now every day, and I will not be embarrassed like that again.
Can anyone recommend a good book to get that would help me improve on this type of reading? It was way more complex than just reading out of the RealBook.
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Originally Posted by FatJeff
Obviously you have to play finger syle but there are no chord symbols, so you have to know the individual chord notes stone cold. Man, was that an ass kicker--reading multiple voices on the fly.
I started with a rep book by Charles Duncan.
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Originally Posted by FatJeff
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Hey Jeff ... we all have faith in YOU... Has any one every taught you how to approach becoming a great sight reader...the actual methodology, sequence or steps... not just material to practice. I'm one of those, as you called "Gig Musician"... I won't bore... but I know players who became great sight readers in six month... best Reg
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Originally Posted by Reg
And yes I am definitely interested in your course, "How to become a World-Class Sight Reading MONSTER (tm) in only 6 months!!"
EDIT: PS Thanks to all the other responses as well - I would love to get back into a big band but time restrictions prevent me from doing that right now. I'll revisit my old classical books, which I have on a shelf gathering dust since I skipped out on the CG in favor of jazz a year ago. :-)Last edited by FatJeff; 08-23-2010 at 07:24 PM.
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Originally Posted by FatJeff
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Originally Posted by fep
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When I was in band in high school sight reading was a big deal for contests. It showed your musicianship and could be the thing that put you over the top for best band (we did that all four years).
We approached practice by spending the first ten minutes each rehearsal (after warm-ups) sight reading a piece put on our stands that morning that we had never seen before. You were not allowed to make sounds on your instrument. So in my case, I took the mouth piece out of my horn and put it on my stand. So, any fingering I did wouldn't make noise. Yes, we practiced the attack which was just breathing as we went.
Steps to sight reading as I remember it were as follows:
1) Notation, look at/for:
- Key signature
- Time Signature
- Tempo markings
- Accidentals and key changes
2) Hard passages
- Find groups of notes that are quick in the tempo marked
- Finger them silently finding the most efficient, recognizable approach
- Look for similarities between these "runs" and others in the score
3) Beginning and Ending
- Four measures from the beginning/end
- Finger each note until the easily done full speed
4) Song
- Go through the entire song beginning to end
- Remember any "tricky" passages to replay after finishing
5) Polish
- Replay "tricky" passages
- Re-finger runs.
Yes, guitarists have it a little harder since you can choose different positions for stuff, but with practice you can get preferences on what is easy for you.
~DB
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Originally Posted by lindydanny
If you really know your fretboard, positions shouldn't be an issue. Here's a good little practice item:
Have somebody call out a note for you, say Eb.
If you can't play an Eb (or any note) on all six strings in about 2-3 seconds, you need to work on your fretboard knowledge before you even think about sight reading.
Guitarists are bad readers in general mostly because many haven't had any formal training.
One other issue is 'ear learning" and memory. I'm fortunate to have a very good ear. I can't take credit for it, it was just there. Way back when I was 8 years old and took a few lessons, my teacher would give me assignments using the good old Mel Bay books. I'd come in the next week and blast through the songs, not because I was reading them, but because I had memorized them.
In retrospect, my teacher should have been able to see this and given me more reading challenges. I didn't start really reading and transcribing things until a few years ago. I'm 63. It would have been easier at 8.
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Originally Posted by lindydanny
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Originally Posted by derek
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Originally Posted by derek
A long time ago I played in a college big band and we played in the Pacific Jazz Festival at UC Berklee.
The festival was a competition. You'd play several pieces in the concert hall. Then you'd be scheduled at another location for a sight reading test.
They gave us 5 minutes to look the chart over in silence, then a few minutes for the director to give instructions (dynamics for certain sections/passages, where he was going to give cues etc.). Then you'd play the tune as a band, one take, and you'd be graded/judged.
They called that sight reading.
And I think it should be considered sight reading as that is similar to a real life sight reading situation for a studio musician. So in practice, that is sight reading.
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Also, good sight readers are looking well ahead of what they are playing... so they are in a sense also reviewing the phrases before they play them.Last edited by fep; 08-24-2010 at 11:06 AM.
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Just as we no longer read words by individual letters but see letters and even words in the aggregate, we need to think of notated music that way--to not see each individual note in isolation (like a child spelling out each letter of C-A-T), but to see, for example, each 2 beat passage in the aggregate.
For this I would recommend Louis Bellesons book.
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Originally Posted by JohnRoss
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Originally Posted by derek
The sight reading challenges according to the state of Oklahoma's band contests were based on the entire group getting a fresh, usually written specifically for the contest, piece of music. You had a set, small amount of time during the contest to "practice" it during which none of your ensemble could play (fingering for keyed/slide/string instruments was okay as was "air" drumming for percussionists). After the practice time was up, you performed the song.
Points would be deducted if someone played a note or a drummer hit a drum. However, the majority of the scoring was from the ensembles ability to play the song correctly according to notes, phrasing, dynamics, tempo, etc.
So, you can "practice" in sight reading. I wouldn't be so strict as to say no playing during practice (that's just for those contests). I would say that if you just go the music in front of you (say within the hour) for the first time ever, then you are sight reading.
~DB
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Originally Posted by lindydanny
Probably just reading something sight unseen as soon as it is placed in front of you exists only in academia.
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There are sight reading methodologies, techniques etc... which help you become a good sight reader and then there are techniques which help you in the act of sight reading. I believe most are aware of approach at gig when chart is put in front of you... pretty straight ahead, if your lucky, you have 15 or 20 sec. But back to how to become good at sight reading, there are many approaches, but I'll pass on what I used and what I watched work. My end goal is to be able to have fun or enjoy playing, even when sight reading. In one liner style... You need to be reading ahead of what your playing. The trick to getting ahead is to be able to recognize rhythmic and melodic patterns. Most agree rhythm is more important or 1st aspect to get correct, (obviously all aspects are in the end, but need to start somewhere with a plan). I got my rhythm reading chops from reading Drum studies,(percussion). They cover all the subdivisions of each beat, which expands to each bar etc... There is probable better rhythm material available now, but you could take the time to notate the sub-divisions yourself... ( all these things will really help your playing also)
Put simple... there are two styles of rhythm, 1)Isometric; all values are multiples of the beat, and are grouped in units of 2 and powers of 2, 2,4,6,8 etc... repeating patterns become units of time and you have multiple layers of time. This is the majority of jazz or western music.
2) multimetric rhythm; (polymetric) all time values are also multiples of the beat, but with no recurrent accent pattern. I only give this information because I believe it difficult to become good at something without understanding what it is.
So get your rhythm chops together, that will enable you to begin to sight read, you'll be able to recognize the rhythmic pattern and then you only need to fill in the blanks, the pitch(s).
In regards to pitch, I also believe without knowing what scale, mode, arpeggio etc... your playing when sight reading, your going to struggle. Which lead to the 2nd part of sight reading... Pitch(s); Same thing as rhythm, pitch patterns, (also harmonic patterns), are pretty standard. In order to be able to hear what your trying to read, you need to understand what it is. From what I read on this forum and others, as well as at gigs, most could put a little time into pitch collections and how there developed or where there from. Take the time to write out all the scales, modes and arpeggios of each scale, label all the tones and chords built on each mode degree from each scale. That will cover the majority of melodic and harmonic material.
I would suggest to become aware of the music theory, but that could take some time. But from practical experience, (years of it), the more theory you understand the easier sight reading becomes.
So in short, learn to recognize, 1) rhythmic and 2) melodic patterns, and in that order. These should be worked on individually. I've always also practiced transposing while I sight reading, really makes concert charts feel simple. By transposing I mean, mechanically moving each note or pitch up or down a constant interval, for example move or transpose melodic line up a maj. 2nd. And as many have said, it's a daily thing. I sight read every day. Hope this helps give you a plan to develop your reading skills. Best Reg
A duet piece for guitar and cello
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