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Training wheels first, good sir. How many guitarists who have never played piano can get around the bass clef and treble clef with ease ?
Originally Posted by christianm77
Conversely speaking, almost every guitarist I have met who played piano first has no problems ( or at least far less problems ) sight reading charts.
As applied to your dichotomy, I guess the goal is to minimize the time between "learning the piece" and "sight reading". With daily practice, the gap will hopefully become zero.
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09-20-2015 10:52 PM
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True, I can see your point. Originally Posted by NSJ
However there is also the viewpoint which is that sight reading to a large extent is 'sketching' the music, keeping moving forward, omitting things where necessary, even playing wrong notes but keeping moving forward at all costs.
My concern about the use of rubato in sight reading practice, while great for learning difficult passages, is that it can become a nervous tick. I have heard a few players who slow down and speed up when reading. This is unacceptable for jazz and pop reading. Wrong notes would be better than variations in tempo or incorrect rhythms and articulations (I was told this by a friend who is an excellent pop/big band reader.)
Needless to say an experienced sight reader will be more accurate. But I am wondering if it isn't worth my practicing 'getting through' pieces at tempo, without stopping, regardless of pitch accuracy. Seems closer to the reality of reading on gigs.
Both directions will lead to the same goal ultimately, but I'd be interested to know if anyone has worked on the tempo first/pitch accuracy second approach? How do you practice it?
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the hardest part for me were the high notes especially if accidentals were added and the rhythm was a bit tricky..the main thing for me and many guitarists is confidence..a piece that is well within my ability may be a horror story if I "think too much"
I have studied inversions of many types of chords..so when I see a chord I look for familiar voicings..and if there is a chord symbol I hope it is correct..seeing the bass and soprano note of the chord helps a great deal with fingering..some of the trouble comes with an extended chord sequence with only one chord symbol..or a symbol I am not sure of what is really means or how to finger it .. in those cases I just look for some familiar intervals in the structure and hope to play at least the essence of the chord..if the piece is moving too fast for recognizing most of the chords .. the top two or three voices-if possible may save the day
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What pro guitar charts have people encountered that actually have chords that are written in music notation vs chord notation? Is sight reading musically notated chords really a needed practical guitarist's skill, or more of a specialty?
I guess what I'm saying is why waste your time on skills that aren't really used in the work place? Being able to read and execute something such as Ab7b9#11 written on a guitar chart is more prevelant and important.
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this is where I get frustrated with conversations about "sight reading". We're having two different conversations really. Originally Posted by christianm77
Sight reading is a very specific exercise of reading in time, at tempo, at first sight, not stopping for mistakes... all of this assumes though, that you can already read music. for the initial part of learning to read , playing rubato etc. is probably very helpful in addition to playing things repeatedly, at slower tempos etc.
The OP is not about sight reading , but that's the title. This topic is one of the greatest names for disambiguation of anything that's discussed on the forum probably. Need something with the sticky . Reading music versus sight reading.
Not really aiming this at you or anyone else specifically BTW .
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Incidentally, I don't think that people who came up playing band or orchestra in school ever use the term "sight reading" to describe that other process. It's a guitar thing , because were generally less educated , formally .
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Good feedback, thanks. My question was about reading the notes themselves, we can leave rhythm out. As to singing the notes while you read, I think that's yet another skill altogether. The last poster is correct in that my original post was biased more towards reading than sight-reading (but placing myself in a situation closer to sight-reading where there is little time to prepare or make notes on the music sheet).
So far, I take away that chords are troublesome for everyone. Even though I may have seen a particular chord voicing many times, if no fingering is provided, it would still look quite foreign to me! (in classical guitar repertoire, they would give you such indication in the first few measures and let you figure it out yourself for the remainder of the piece).
Regarding reading notes, some referred to "knowing your scales". Are you referring to scale patterns (shapes)? I find that approach to be tough because you still have to know which note within the pattern you are reading. So don't you still think of the name of the note?
-In my original post, I meant that reading becomes more difficult (for me) as the flats/sharps in the key increase. So how can I make reading in the key of E major "as simple" as reading in the key of C? (for me, the issue probably lies more within the task of reading and keeping track of the flats/sharps than transferring that to the instrument)
-For chords (no chord symbol or fingering provided), that takes a few seconds to figure out and I don't have any methodical approach to make that quicker (except doing it over and over, but that's not a method)!!Last edited by pinbridge; 09-21-2015 at 08:34 AM.
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Good point. Personally, I can already read. Give me a few minutes with a piece of music and if it's not an absolute roast I can knock it into shape. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Sight reading though - first flush, without stopping, that's what I personally need to work on...
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I don't see this very often on band charts - but sometimes if a composer wants a specific voicing. Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
If my friend is right (and I imagine she probably is), reading chords is an important part of reading well anyway. The reasoning goes that you need to be able to recognise groups of notes in one go.
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In terms of reading pitches there are two ways I can see that you can go about this: Originally Posted by pinbridge
1) Absolute pitch - learn where the notes are on guitar, E, Bb etc
2) Relative pitch - instead read each note as a degree in the scale. So instead of think 'E' you would think of the 3rd note of C major. Or the 5th note of A. To do this you need to know the key signatures and which note is 1. Other than that, it's just counting up and down the lines.
Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses as far as I can see. I think it's good to work on both.
2) is what you will do if you learn to sight sing as an adult (unless you already have perfect pitch in which case you will hear the notes as C,D, F. etc) I've been doing a lot of relative pitch work recently.
This got me thinking - it is also very guitaristic, as many of us learn our scales this way anyway rather than thinking of notes. We use moveable positions - understand that Bb major is the same shapes as A major up a fret etc.
Also, 5 or 6 flats or sharps is not a problem, as you are only using the key signature to identify the key. After that it's as easy as reading in C major. The only slight issue is accidentals You do need to know that in a note for a note that's flat in the key sig a natural sign means 'raise a half step' but the opposite if the note is sharp in the key.
You can also put the music into a different key without too much computational overhead so to speak ;-)
I'm working on this approach - it's much slower than my absolute pitch reading ATM, but I think it could be useful. What do you think?Last edited by christianm77; 09-21-2015 at 08:54 AM.
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there's a very thin line there....
I think starting point should be 'playing music' - playing real music...
If someone can sight-read fluently but at the same time I feel he cannot capture the character of the song or he cannot think all through properly while sight-reading... then I'd prefer he takes a few minutes or more to gp through it before performance...
In my practice even very well experienced and top classical players sight-read during rehearsals to go through the piece - that does not mean they stumble while playing but any way they get to know music through sight-reading.
That is what sight-reading skills is needed first of all - to easily sight-read through the piece in proper tempo with nuances to make rehearsing process more efficient and comfortable.
But one should not expect more from sight-reading unknown piece of music.
Sometimes due to lack of time and lots of gigs they sight-read unknown parts in the group or in the orchestra... but I do not think this is real pleasure for them or great achievment in performance
Besides let's not forget that in most cases when we see sheets on the bandstands they are there to remind the music, to give a hint... it does not mean that music is completely unfamiliar, they just did not learn it.
And for experienced classical player even hearing is a kind of preliminary sight-reading too.
And one more thing: in jazz it could be relatively simpler in many cases... when the sheet gives a sketch of a tune with chords for example .. skillful experienced player in some cases can get into it while playing very naturallyLast edited by Jonah; 09-21-2015 at 09:03 AM.
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To start, you'd need some basic experience with guitar-specific reading material using chords. William Leavitt's Modern Method has a lot of chord reading integrated with the basic note-reading, as well as his Reading Studies. There are others as well. Originally Posted by pinbridge
Reading chords is tougher for sure. I'd imagine that reading chords is largely memorizing what they look like on the page. Mostly just practice reading the stuff. Just reps with the stuff. You get to where you know what the basic ones look like in root position, and then some inversions. When you get to know what a major triad looks like, it's easier to read a suspended one later. I don't imagine many people are reading Joe Pass chord solos "on the fly", by sight. I'd think that those are more for long-term study, but maybe I just need to practice... :-)
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You clearly don't live in London. Quite often the read through IS the gig. That's what I want to be able to do, because I know players who can do this. Originally Posted by Jonah
(Incidentally this is why many of the Hollywood scores were recorded by London orchestras. Best sight reading there is. So much cheaper.)
This is not in fact, a good thing. It comes in part from lack of funding of the arts, high cost of living and so on.
But that's not the whole story. For example, New York musicians tend to be not as good at sight reading as London players, but they have the vibe much more when they've *gasp* actually rehearsed it.
Here everyone tries to avoid rehearsing as much as possible.Last edited by christianm77; 09-21-2015 at 09:22 AM.
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I don't live in London...)))
But anyway what you write does not seem to contradict what I am saying.
It's the business issue
My friend lives in Germany - being violine and viola player he often has to play a few gigs per day in various quratets, orchestras etc. becasue he has a big family...
but he never considered it playing music
Just a job to get the money
At the same time at home - he can take out some violine sonata (unknown or forgotten) and plwy with his wife (pianist) sight-reading.. and they do it brilliantly to me...
but again if you say what about playing it on the concert they would just laugh.. it's extremely high professional level
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I sort of agree with you, but in Germany they pay the musicians properly. I would characterise the musical world there as higher quality and better funded and respected. The musicians in the UK largely survive on their wits, nervous energy, and quite often, beta blockers. Originally Posted by Jonah
Playing a public concert with minimal or no rehearsal would not be unheard of in the UK, especially in the jazz world. You might get a rehearsal afternoon before the gig...
I've rehearsed enough as a choral singer with professional conductors (such as Bernard Haitink) to appreciate how it works for high profile concerts.... The orchestra is certainly not sight reading for Haitink. Kurt Masur programmed in a string of rehearsals (endless rehearsals) for a Proms performance of Elijah that I sang in one time. I mean, why bother? ;-) But these are big money things. World famous conductors have a lot of clout and prestige...
On the other hand I have seen the RPO play through Mahler's Eighth with one afternoon rehearsal (admittedly can't be the first time they played it) for an amateur choral gig (I was singing) at the Royal Albert Hall and actually get lost. It was interesting watching the leader rescue it, all within the space of a few bars.
But this is classical music performance. It's pretty divorced from my world, now.
In the jazz/pop world - most big band gigs are a full on sight read. The depping thing for the West End works on players coming in, no rehearsal, and not making a mistake (or they don't get called again). They may have studied the music at home, but even so....
The big band I occasionally dep for is full of West End guys. I always feel like the biggest doofus, which is fantastic! :-)
You may get the call last minute to play some original music for a jazz group. At a jazz club. I know guys who've been in this situation at Ronnie Scott's.
In any case I think your 'just a job' statement sums it up. The thing about sight reading is it is a powerful and amazing tool, but I think people can become *extremely* lazy. Because it allows musicians to perform music at the drop of a hat it can mean that people get sucked into that mindset, and never get the music as good as it can be. I think the English mindset is to go along with this.
In the same way, I know guys - seasoned pros - who can read anything you take along to a gig, perfectly first time, but have absolutely no repertoire.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Thanks as always Matt !
As just a hobby guitar player, ( and lousy reader ) I approach chart reading as Bob Ueker's description of how to best catch a knuckleball - - ' wait 'til it stops rolling and pick it up '....
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The upside with choral singing is that if you get lost reading, you can...lip-sync. Originally Posted by christianm77
Perhaps that's a skill that could save the day on guitar too!
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I ask your permission to give my piece of advice.
This practice requires many different skills.
1 - know the notes in all positions on the fretboard
2 - know the notes in all positions on the score
3- establish the relationship between the notes on the score and their positions on the fretboard
Prerequisite: First, it is essential to know the scales, at least in the most usual keys (and preferably the chords that go along with that). Without this knowledge what will stop your reading is not the sheet music, is your background. We have to figure out where our main difficulties are.
Some suggestions I'd like to make to know all the notes on the fretboard:
a - Pick up any sheet music with chord symbols (Blue Bossa for example)
b - Look at the first one (Cm7)
c - say to yourself the names of the notes which form the chord (C, Eb, G, Bb)
d - choose one of them (let's say Eb)
e - choose a region on the fretboard to get this note (Let's say 1st string, 11th fret)
f - play the note
g - Look at the next chord (Fm7)
h - say to yourself the names of the notes of the chord (F, Ab, C, Eb)
i - choose the one which is closest to the note you just played, whether in the downward or upward direction, and play it (let's say the C note downwards, 1st string/ 8th fret or 2nd string/ 13th fret). Although the Eb note belongs to Fm7, repeat the note is not a good idea because the proposal here is move forward, always.
Go back to step "g". Don't change the direction until get at the lowest note in the sixth string, then start the movement in the opposite way.
Don't rush. Never. The pace is given by your ability to think about all that and certainly the process will speed up in few weeks.
I don't agree about what people said that someone has to be good at something to give advices. Good in what sense? Many times a student may come to play better than his teacher which only proves that the teacher is very very good. One thing is to do something, another is to teach how to do something or, not always a good musician is a good teacher and vice versa.
Sorry if I made some mistake about the English.
Cheers.
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I am not a professional musician, but I have been reading music notation since I was twelve or so and that was some fifty plus years ago. As I look back, I am very grateful that I started in on classical guitar lessons with an excellent teacher from that age on. Reading notation and playing spontaneously is a skill that like most benefits from practice. Reading classical music requires learning to read melody lines, but the music is so polyphonic that you learn to recognize chordal forms, just as you learn to read a language.
But the degree of difficulty of reading and playing in tempo varies tremendously with the degree of difficulty and density and style of the music. Reading Hans Henze is far different from reading a typical Elizabethan lute score, which can be challenging enough if you are not familiar with the music. Or reading a solo guitar single note line is far different from reading a Joe Pass transcription. I remember the first time I bought a Joe Pass "chord solo" book. I was annoyed by the density of the chords which did not correspond as written to the type of contemporary classical music to which I was accustomed. The measures and chords in the Pass book were so dense that sight reading them would be quite difficult, especially as I was unfamiliar with the obscure songs in the book.
For those who are serious about improving their reading skills, I am a great advocate of notation software. Simply because creating your own arrangements of songs not only provides with the graphic notation that you can use for reference and midi musical files to practice over, but requires you to deal with notating rhythmic figures, melodies, chords, voicings, and all aspects of written notation. I cannot overemphasize the benefits to the player from rehearsing songs that you have arranged yourself. You have to deal with notation and reading to improve, and I know of no other approach that incorporates the synergy of reading notation and playing in real time or rehearsing a piece at a much slower tempo to accommodate your learning experience. In the process if you use a keyboard for entering notation via USB, you improve your keyboard skills which dovetails nicely with your guitar playing. Synergy implies that the net effect is more than the sum of the elements involved. Working with notation software is exactly what synergy is about.Last edited by targuit; 09-21-2015 at 02:24 PM.
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Definitely. Me looking at big band chart - what's that? Two bars of tricky stops. Maybe I'll let the horns do that. :-) Originally Posted by pinbridge
The upside with choral singing is that if you get lost reading, you can...lip-sync.
Perhaps that's a skill that could save the day on guitar too!
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Just do it
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On a more helpful note the "read rhythm" app is probably the best app invented for sight reading. After watching the BJ Fogg ted talk i now "attach the habit" of going for my morning sit down on the loo with using the app.
No one now can tell me my sight reading stinks And I was already a decent reader.
Funny but true I'm afraidLast edited by 55bar; 09-22-2015 at 05:05 AM.
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When I was playing trombone in the army band.. sometimes there were cases when all trombones played unison...Definitely. Me looking at big band chart - what's that? Two bars of tricky stops. Maybe I'll let the horns do that. :-)
And once we had defile' - you know when you have to march making different figures and play and count the steps - five steps turn left - two steps turn right... not very comfortable especially with trombone...
And I was not a trombonist - I mean I learnt to play only army stuff to be in the band during duty service.. so I though let these pro guys play it and I wil just coubt the steps and move the slide..
And you know what? Nobody played.. every one thought that the other guy would cover it)))
But the conductor was experinced enough.. he asked brass baritones before to double the trombone part because he expected the trombones would not make it properly...
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Regarding chord notations...throw in the "East Coast/West Coast" shorthand notations! First time I saw these and the attendant Rosetta Stone guides I got ill. It was as if someone was deliberately throwing up roadblocks for student of Jazz. It was difficult enough learning the changes let alone two or three different shorthand notations.
And I don't even live on either coast!
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one other thing that helped me a lot in reading was knowing the feel of intervals..I have (and still do) study melodic patterns..there are a couple of hundred of them..just in ascending form..know the feel of a fifth in any position(or any interval) an octave higher or lower than the root and not having to think of where it is makes reading those wide interval jumps so much easier to navigate and keeps the piece together..
now this is reading..not sight reading..I have met just a couple of real sight readers (guitarists)..they could read a piece cold..and nail it..read two bars ahead..no problem..yes they have been doing it for years and keep their chops up..it goes away fast without constant upkeep..
I am just glad I can read a piece and with time can play it as intended..sight reading is a separate skill that requires a lot of maintenance..
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