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Site reading is not a goal of mine. I have it down enough to get through the realbook. I'm not fast at it, and the hard part is the rhythm. That said sight reading has really helped my playing be more rhythmically precise. Generally I want to spend as little time with reading as possible, and I try to internalize tunes as soon as possible so I don't need books.
If site reading was my goal, I would just go through the realbook rather than through books. This is assuming you already know the notes on the fretboard and on the scale. If you don't know those, you'll have to get the basics down first. I don't think it's very hard, but I had piano lessons as a kid.
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03-05-2013 06:52 PM
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as beaumont said, sight read jazz tunes if you're ultimately going to be playing jazz.
If you just want want be a better reader in general get on some some classical music like bach. if you head over to IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music you can find a wealth of bach and free public domain music. bach is great because the rhythmic content is often highly motivic and driving. harmonically you,ll come across every key throughout his work and there are common progressions that will be congruent with jazz.
other composers are worth checking out too. check out ones you like !
studying rhythm alone will also be very helpful. A lot of people use a little book called studying rhythm .
even just getting a click going and strumming or scatting all the rhythms in a piece is great practice. beethoven is great for this as a lot of his pieces have tiny note values, ie 32nds And 64th
I think those are some great goals but dont be afraid to change it if it stops exciting you. I just went for jazz heads and clasisical pieces because it was more enjoyable to me
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Thanks for all the great responses. I play regularly in public in both paid and volunteer gigs. Part of my job is teaching guitar. The desire to become a better reader is all about getting into studying other styles and possibly getting into some new playing situations. Once I finish the course of study listed above I would like to tackle the George Van Eps books. I cant help but believe my playing will improve during this.
Guitarzen......bare minimum? Lol........not laughing at you.....I'm laughing at my schedule. If I were able to focus solely on guitar I would spend 6 hours easily on my own development. As it stands, the 2 hours I get each day are gained at the expense of sleeptime after getting kids to bed and getting kids out of bed. Work schedule, my own sports schedule and my kids obligations are all things that have to happen because they pay the bills (teaching and coaching) or are more important (my daughters ages 5&7).
mr. beaumont, agreed.......i never have trouble with note recognition which is why I asked for suggestions for books on rhythm reading......or at least i meant to???I should read my own original post i guess just to make sure.
Jonzo, thanks......that is a fantastic plan. I had thought of that......but decided against it for some reason......may reconsider it.
danwaineo, it's not about me becoming a reader as opposed to an improvisor or performer who composes or learns by ear.....but as an enhancement and addition to my current skill-set
euterpe, once i get more into this I may pickup a copy of the real book or something similar.
thanks for all responses....great forum
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Probably stating the obvious....
Sight reading is that which is played on the first read through or at least without working things out.
In this regard it is good to read material that you can read through relatively easy in this manner to solidify your present skills and also to read music that is slightly above your level to expand your skills.
In my opinion the music doesn't have to be played at full tempo but should be somewhere in that ball park.
If you can't do that then pick something easier for sight reading practice.
The other kind of reading practice is more about working things out using any time frame needed.
Within this structure you can address any level of complexity that you can handle as a player.
The trick is to figure out your weakest links in the reading process and strengthen those.
Uncovering what those are will allow you to structure the clearest and quickest path to sight reading skill.
I feel my reading improved greatly (rhythm in particular) when I started writing charts for others.
Becoming more aware of subdivisions and beat structure of the sounds I was hearing made it easier to interpret these figures when they appeared in music I was reading.
As long as you are breaking out the church hymnals, check out the bass clef as well.
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mbself,
As an experienced player, you already know many songs and sounds.
Figuring out to notate not only drills for students, but also at the level that you can play should help.
When I first encountered quarter note triplets, I thought how the hell am I going to get 3 beats into 2.
First, I approached it mathematically, common denominator 6, 2 triplets become 1 2 3 / 4 5 6.
The result was accurate but a bit stiff but it was good enough that I could make a connection to 2 songs that I already played which made all the difference.
Twenty years of public performing is an amazing resource to tap into.
You don't need to learn many things for the first time but rather figure out which of the things that you already do relates to the musical symbols that you see in front of you.
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Bako, sight reading isn't a great strength of mine so I'm interested to pick at what you're saying here to get some ideas:
Why do you advocate picking easier things and getting them close to tempo rather than just picking anything and reading it at a suitable tempo? I'll admit I go a little extreme with the latter at times, trying to sight read things that I have to play at <30bpm to play in time, which I guess is an interesting exercise itself.In my opinion the music doesn't have to be played at full tempo but should be somewhere in that ball park.
If you can't do that then pick something easier for sight reading practice.
I've always just picked whatever I wanted, within reason, and then found a working tempo. I don't know if that's worked out all that well for me, like I said, reading isn't my strength.
How? Isolate the variables? How do you target elements of sight reading skill-building?The trick is to figure out your weakest links in the reading process and strengthen those.
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this may sound crazy but you can also "practice" sight reading without the guitar. Just sit with any music you have and read it say the note names "see" the fingering, clap the rhythm, sight sing it phrase by phrase (even using the syllable la).This can be mentally exhausting but I find it an excellent way to practice the readng part of being a musician.Also i would recommend the Berklee book,Melodic Rhythms for Guitar.Good Luck!!
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+1
Originally Posted by eddy b.
I think everybody should have a pair of drumsticks and a practice pad as well as a pile of drum charts so that you can forget about the notes and focus on the rhythmns
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+2 The absolutely best little book on reading rhythms for all instruments had one note in it. And it was written by a drummer--the great Louis Bellson. Originally Posted by ColinO
*Modern Reading-Text in 4/4 for All Instruments*. $8.42 plus tax. Best $8.42 one could ever spend on sight reading rhythms.
Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments: Louis Bellson: 0029156061369: Amazon.com: Books
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The main thing is just to do it every single day. It is also important to practicing maintaining the tempo even when you screw up...stopping and fixing it is OK sometimes, but generally you have to keep your place in the time and just jump back in say at the next bar line.
Also, writing music notation will help your reading. Next time you come up with a cool lick, write it out...
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Jake,
I am not saying reading more complex music at 30 doesn't have value, but I think of it as somewhat closer to learning music through reading, figuring things out, than I do the sight reading category.
I have never played on a gig or rehearsed anything at 30 with an ensemble and so it is that playing reality that I am targeting in sight reading practice. Playing easy music also allows us to play with full range of our expressive abilities, something we may lose touch with playing music too far beyond our reading ability.
Identify a weakness, pull it out of context and deal with it head on.
An example addressing one of my reading weaknesses:
I probably play more cello these days than guitar (don't tell anyone around here though).
Cello reads in 3 clefs bass, tenor and treble. Playing mostly jazz, latin and songwriter gigs did/does little to improve my tenor clef reading. It comes up mostly in classical setting, which I partake in only occasionally but often enough that makes it a bad idea to allow this stumbling block to continue.
I needed to be able to see the note names quickly and visualize the register on the cello.
I used the note namer on music theory.net to address this.
I would name 100 correct notes each, on the staff, above the staff, below the staff and all combined. This helped.
The other issue is when changing between tenor and another clef if say going up a scale, you lose the visual aid of continuous upward motion. If I am on middle C in the bass clef going to D in tenor, it goes from C 1st line above the staff to 4th space on the staff. This is still my weakest link, seeing the progression of the line as the clef changes from either bass or treble to tenor. I haven't done this yet but I could dump midi files into Finale and insert clef changes randomly all over the place rather than scouring music looking for related events.
A study approach suggestion for gaining control of reading intervals.
Take any piece of music, in this instance the harder the better.
Eliminate rhythm, everything is interpreted as a slow quarter note.
This will clarify what combination of notes if any will throw you off.
I have been organizing my thinking about learning in these 3 categories lately.
Descriptive Knowledge
Mechanical Knowledge
Sonic Knowledge
I see my tenor clef reading deficiencies as residing largely in the descriptive knowledge category.
If you suggest some aspect of reading that you are working on, perhaps we can problem solve how to isolate the issue and create a study strategy.
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bako makes some awesome points
Really reinforce your connection with finding notes all over the neck.
The idea of making everything a quarter note is a great exercise because your brain can just focus on fingering and not rhythm.
I like the drumsticks idea, a lot.
A common thing I help guitar students with is positioning problems. You need to be scanning the piece with your peripheral vision to avoid getting stuck in a position that won't have a note you need, whether it's too high or too low. Often classical guitar arrangements make movements that seem odd, but then a few notes later you realize, they were just prepping you to avoid and even more awkward situation.
There are so many exercises we can recommend but it's all going to be variations of two things. Problems with reading are just vertical/note choice and the horizontal/rhythmic. If you study both of these parts separately it should help speed the process up. Study them rhythm, study your instrument fingering, and just read pieces slowly and in time.
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Two things have helped me the most with sight reading - tapping & counting rhythms is the first and most important. If you can't tap a rhythm, you can't play it. It's as simple as that. The other thing is...I don't focus on sight reading, I have just let it develop naturally. Sight reading as a skill, in my opinion is not that important. Why? When you show up to a gig you are playing stuff you have practiced and memorized in 99% of the situations. Of course it depends a bit on your exact situation, i.e. orchestral players probably need to sight read more than a jazz guitarist, and rock guitarists even less. But in my opinion, focusing on building up your sight reading skills is not the important thing. The important thing is know how to interpret everything on the staff notation, and then have a system for memorizing repertoire, and be able to perform it. If you do this, your sight reading skills will develop naturally anyways. For example, I'm not particularly great at sight reading, but I can be handed an advanced arrangement for solo guitar and have it playable in about an hour. To me that is the important thing, not being able to brag about how I can sight read charlie parker heads or whatever. And over the years as I've learned many classical guitar pieces, my sight reading has gotten better, but more as a side effect, rather than me doing specific "sight reading drills". Drilling stuff like that I see as a bit of a waste of time. Simply because I need to use every moment that I can spare to music learning something useful, i.e. repertoire I can perform.
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The Earmaster computer program has a pretty good module for learning to read rhythms.
EarMaster Pro 6 - Ear training and sight-singing software
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Your best choice would be the Berklee sight reading for guitar, vol 1 + 2 and--especially-- the Melodic Rhythms book. 3 books by William Leavitt that will improve your reading if you put the work in. Originally Posted by mbself
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The great book suggestions and strategies and software apps keep coming. Thanks!
And for those of you who question the usefulness of this all this time spent on a skill that is maybe not as useful as others I understand compeletely. I have avoided this for literally decades. My ear developed quick and at a young age. Most of the music reading skills I have were developed during about 18months I took piano lessons as a teen. It was enough to allow me to learn theory independently and to teach the very basics of music reading to students who were interested. But, the truth is and always has been that I am a very poor reader. Whether or not this is a skill I will use frequently is beside the point. It is a weakness that needs addressing.
I have already learned a few things about myself and my playing. One of the things I have always been proud of as a guitarist was my sense of rhythm, but it is the weakest part of my reading. But, even in what I have learned so far in my progress it is apparent that the holes in my knowledge of rhythm need to be filled. The feeling of falling into the groove and nailing a new rhythm (in the context of reading it at least) is great and I beleive it gives me a new a better understanding of what is going on with it. It is about advancing my understanding of the instrument and not about the geewhiz of sight-reading. Getting inside of the beat, so to speak.
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Jake,
Maybe Reg or one of our other highly skilled sight readers can weigh in on this.
Meanwhile here are some of my thoughts.
A key signature is a short cut to a known entity, note collection.
In relation to a tonic it is easy enough to see all the interval modifications that accidentals create.
Without a key signature every note appears as a singular event.
The biggest challenge here seems to be taking in groups of notes at a glance, instantly seeing relationships.
That element would be the focus of my practice.
The Mark Turner solo is not 12 tone music but rather moves through successive harmonic areas without key signatures.
Still I think the act of mentally organizing 12 tone rows into 2,3,4,6 and 12 note groups might be helpful practice.
This link is to a random 12 tone row generator.
Mike McFerron
Reading through 12 tone or other highly chromatic music scores.
Probably involves a trip to a school music library to gather material.
Rather than searching for a collection of music with similar issues, I would open midi file melodies into a notation program and alter the key signature in a way to maximize accidentals making it more difficult to read.
To address the memory aspect, I would allow myself to glance at a measure or two for 2 or 3 seconds,
look away and play it. This one can more easily organized by progressive difficulty.
What did you try? Was it successful?
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Thanks! Originally Posted by bako
This is helpful, interesting ideas.
Sight reading is a funny thing for me right now as it's a skill that so rarely gets put to any use, but at the same time it's important (and something I was shedding a lot before my school auditions) and I don't want to get rusty with it.
I think one thing I have been working on that has helped has simply been to trust myself more - I tend to stumble when I think I've made a mistake, and it's really difficult to not want to go back and see what the measure 'really' was or to feel confident that I played it correctly. The only thing so far that's helped much with this accidentals issue is to just trust my instincts, play what I think is probably correct and keep going regardless of my confidence in accuracy.
Thanks again for the ideas. I'm going to save your post and give some of that a whirl when I've had more coffee.
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With organized practice, usually takes between 6 months to a year to get your sight reading skill sets together.
Of course this can only happen if you have already developed the technical and performance skill.
Lets first explain what sight reading is... What your doing is recognizing the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic,(I'll skip the articulations etc...), implications from notation.
Generally your not going through that process... see the note figure out what and where to play etc... You recognize a phrase and move ahead... recognizing phrases ahead while you play what you recognized before.
Somewhat like when you learn a piece of music from the notation... you figure out short sections of the piece and then when you read through the music, it functions somewhat like an outline for each short section that you've figured out before. That's how I sight read... I just don't need to figure out those little sections. I've played them before or something close enough to be able to adjust to what's notated.
Of course that's where the technical and performance skills come into play. I'm able to recognize rhythmic figures, scales, arpeggios... melodic and harmonic figures. I'm aware of the difference between a melodic minor line as compared to a harmonic minor version... and I recognize that while I'm sight reading.
The other skill that helps... I'm very comfortable anywhere on my fretboard... I'm not trying to say being able to play at fast tempos is the point... but that skill... being able to play at fast tempos, not just licks... anything and anywhere on your fretboard... makes the performance of recognizing the notation much easier.
So to prepare yourself to be able to sightread...as NSJ mentioned earlier... the Bellson books cover the rhythmic aspect.
Being able to recognize melodic material... this gets a little complicated. There are great sight readers that get every note out... and there are great sight readers that also get the notes out but also express the context those notes are being performed in.
That difficult aspect being aware of the context... being aware of how the notes function in what your sight reading, that takes time and either understanding or years of being exposed to those contexts.
I'm from the understanding school... but neither approach of sight reading works without developing the technical and performance skills 1st.
Almost all start with rhythm.... being aware of rhythmic figures and being able to recognize them... you feel the rhythmic figures as compared to mechanically reading them.
You can only sight read as well as you can play something not rehearsed.
Reg
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Thought I would throw in an example... At gig on Fri. nite... one of the tunes called was a Lee Morgan tune, "Startstop" from Procrastinator ... anyway, never played before and so sight reading through chart... up tempo bop 230 240 ?
If you recorded and slowed down what I played... there were mistakes. But because i recognized the context and got the rhythmic phrases correct... sounded like I new what I was doing. In reality... kicked my butt.
The out chorus... was better.
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Whew, "Startstop" is an ass kicker for sure.
It's in JA Vol 106 [Lee Morgan tunes]
I just beat out the rhythm to the head @ 1/4note = 240.
That was interesting in itself - my accuracy time wise was c. 80%
at sight.
I didn't play the head [melody] but it didn't look too fierce, given it's in F and pretty much
stays close to the home key, with a couple of mods into closely related key centers.
Some short 2-5's and then some flat patches on one chord.
....[What did you do on the solos Reg where it goes Eb/EMaj7 ?]
I think that melodically you'd be processing the above [not consciously..too quick] along with the
chord symbols, and the rhythmic phasing,that falls into 2 or 4 bar patterns with quite
a lot of syncopations crossing barlines.
If you didn't have experience of knowing how this tune is telling you to play it ....
....you'd be sunk.
In a word : experience! ....born of deep knowledge of the music and of the
instrument
At the risk of putting words in Reg's mouth, this is what I think is at the heart of some
of his posts that often seek to get us to be more specific in our thinking
in dealing with the many issues that jazz playing involves.
...eg the thread on Jazz Advice.....
BTW,I wouldn't have been too thrilled to be confronted with that chart, boom, in the heat of a gig.
I'd give it a good worrying though. ha ha
I takes my hat off to you Reg.......cojones of steel man!
That, and keeping cool under fire.
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Hey Moonray...LOL thanks I think. It was just a tune, a bop tune in standard form and we all know Morgan... his melodic and harmonic style.... I don't have the music, but I think you are referring to the B section, Ebmaj to Emaj/Eb ?
Usually That Ima to bIIma groove is treated as
-two constant structures with common tones, old approach
-IIImi to IVmaj feel
-min pentatonics on Eb and Lyd on E
-Ebmaj and Bbaltered on Ema.... my usual default, opens MM door... play off common tones... Bb, Eb, Ab.
Reg
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Hi Reg
Yeah it was the B section I was talking about : you're right it goes Ebmaj to E7 in the JA
leadsheet I've got.
Now that I look more carefully I noticed that the Ebmaj is for a whole bar and the E7 is notated
as a push beat on the "and of" 4 and fills the next bar.
I had originally mis seen the first four bars of B as being 2 beats per chord.
It's lucky it was you doing that gig and not me. ha ha
Basically it's Ebmaj/// E7/// [repeated].
So that's a much more straight forward deal.
Would you treat the E7 like a sub V7 ?
That'd be a little different than if was Emaj.
...or would you wait to hear how the rest of the band interpreted it?
Thanks for your other suggestions above...they are taken on board.
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Hey Moonray...
I don't have the chart... so ? But I thought there was a Eb pedal going on. Which still works with any type of chord for the second bar. Ebma to Ema/Eb or Ebmaj to E7/Eb. Hmm..
Ok I just checked out youtube... sounds like the changes are Ebmaj9 to E7(b9), Ebma9 to B7#11, Ema9 to Ebma.
And when you listen to solo sections and even on out chorus... The changes... change. But there all based on that Eb to Fb root motion, That comes from III- to IVma Phrygian to Lydian, with typical modal interchange usages. Ay least that's how I hear it. Which open the improve approaches I mentioned above.
I hear and would use the E7, Ema7, B7#11 or where ever the changes went as either an embellishment of a pedal pattern... tension and release... or play as two tonal centers... and either approach would reflect where the 1st two "A" sections went... do I want to keep the two part feel... relaxed 1st four bars with tension building 2nd four bars approach going. Usually would have change for "B" section.
Reg
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Updating my progress.....such that it is...lol.
I am moving through these books but have yet to really start the recording portions of my plan. I decided to play though the pieces for a couple of months until I am on Summer break from my job...then I will begin recording the pieces and tracking my progress from there.
Done with Mel Bay 1 and Halfway in to Mel Bay 2. Also, about 1/3 into Berklee 1. Berklee is the better book for someone who already has the physical challenges out of the way. It moves a littler quicker in my opinion and gets into theory more heavily than do MB books. Both are good though. A rank beginner would be better served by MB if that is the route any beginners are still being asked to take. I personally wouldn't do that to a real beginner. It was done to me, and I hated it back then. As a 10 year old taking lessons I hated Mel Bay and wanted my teacher to burn his books and teach me to play "real music"...lol.
The Fisher books will have to wait. The others are gonna bog me down a while.
Anyway, I can totally see, hear and feel my playing improve. I don't mean just my reading, although it has improved. In the course of working through these books, even just to the point where I am, I have picked up several new ideas and concepts that have been incorporated into my playing. From different applications for an odd chord voicing and transitional movements from one chord to another, to learning how to better pick a position for playing a particular piece.
The most important thing about doing this has been that it has forced me to face my weaknesses. Even reading the simple rythms in these books so far has made me more aware of my timing, even on things I have played for years. Could a casual listener notice? Maybe not. But I can feel the improvement.
Once the recordings start, I hope I can listen and find more flaws and work on them.
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