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I repeat the question - if asked to read a solo guitar version of Pavane pour une enfante defunte by Ravel, how many would raise their hand? How many have ever played this piece?
The blues is the blues, Henry. However, one would have to hear or see the music to comment intelligently. Nice story about Stern.
Saturday, in between trying to get my tax extension finished for the 15th, I recorded Dindi by Jobim as a vocal plus two guitar tracks. Came out really nicely recorded to a click 'Bossa' percussion track on my Korg at around 88 bpm. I did not have to 'read' the notation as the guitar tracks were 'improvised', but generally one of the big obstacles to sight reading is just that - need the damn glasses just to see the notes clearly, especially in dim light. Going to try and record a couple more Jobim tunes today, Sunday. I just hate doing taxes...
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10-12-2014 02:11 AM
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I've played that piece. The question is not reading it but playing it. Classical guitar is all about pre arranged fingerings and execution. It's not about sight reading. You work that stuff out in the practice room to perform it.
And the blues is the blues?? How ignorant a statement is that? And I said a bop blues. Fast. What the hell are you talking about?
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Working with lots of great readers through the years, big band, pits, I just never hear anyone bragging about their sight reading skills or even mentioning classical charts like they were different from anything else. Anyone who came up learning and playing in an organized program was grounded in the classics, that's the way it is. We all talk about reading well like it's some mystical process, when the reality is thousands upon thousands of kids are doing it in school every day around the world. Guitarists, what a bunch of schmucks...
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My grandfather went to Conservatory in Germany in the 1920's...could read anything put in front of him, which I tested over and over by pulling out buried random pieces from his basement full of sheet music. He was a machine even into his 80's with arthritis and being partially blind from diabetes.
Couldn't play a blues, bop, or anything improvised in a jazz style.....always needed some music in front of him....but hey if I could sight read Debussy on the piano, I probably wouldn't care about guitar or my improv skills too much....
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Henry, the point is that a piece like the Ravel work is polyphonic. The point is not about bragging in regards to one's reading skills, but whether you or anyone else is used to reading other than single note lines. As regards a fast uptempo bop blues, it is still the blues. Which implies that it has certain stylistic conventions, or you would not call it a 'blues'. It ain't like playing George Crumb or Henze. Don't get all in a snit when someone expresses an opinion other than in conformity with yours. So in what key do you play the Ravel again?
As regards reading, Cosmic Gumbo, the point is that it is an important skill than any competent guitarist should have, regardless of whether they are great 'sight' readers. Certainly if you want to play session work for sure. But if anyone here is a regular session player, I would love to hear their opinion on the character of the charts they play. I remember columns in Guitar Player and other mags with contributors like Howard Roberts and the guys in the Wrecking Crew who would show the notation for films and other jobs that often were quite easy as long as you could read them at all. In my experience there is a big difference from most band charts I have seen and much of the solo classical guitar repertoire. One is harder than the other generally. Guess which one...
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I'm not sure I get your point targuit. Reading more than one note at a time can be easy or hard just like reading one note at time can be. There was a time when I could sight read the hell out of baroque pieces....because I did it all the time. So reading through the Chaconne would have been much easier for me than the Stern example. I'm still not sure what the argument is. Guitarists are traditionally lousy sight readers due to a number of reasons. The main reason is they just don't work at it and are content to fulfill the stereotype that guitarists don't read well. They often cite the fact that there's multiple places to play a note and that it's just harder to read for guitar so they just don't work on it. But I guarantee it's not harder than reading for piano and organ and they manage to do it all the time. Try sitting down and sight reading some orchestral piano reduction which is something pianists have to do all the time (accompanying for juries etc.) Another thing to think about is that to be a good sight reader you have to have the technique to be able to pull off what the music requires. If you can't comfortably play at high tempos then you are certainly not going to be able sight read at high tempos.
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Yeah. I'm not getting the point either. When I went to school for Music Therapy, part of the mandatory requirements were studying classical guitar. The other students and I would read/play pieces sight-unseen all of the time for purposes of testing, ensemble playing and for small gigs. I happened to do that very well. It didn't however help my jazz playing one single bit.
Last edited by srlank; 10-12-2014 at 04:29 PM.
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Well, it is all about our individual opinions and experience. I just find it odd that becoming a better reader would not help your jazz playing. After all even a real book lead sheet is easier to decipher if you read well. And I still would suggest that for all but the most atonal or serial music, reading single note lines is easier, especially if you are familiar with modern classical music like Britten and Henze. But hey, your experience and insights are valid, too. If reading does not help your musicianship, I don't know what to say. Frankly, I find that commonplace wisdom that guitarists just cannot handle what is a routine skill for other instrumentalists nothing short of embarrassing.
How do you feel about using notation software? Do you use it and has it helped you develop as a jazz guitarist?
JayLast edited by targuit; 10-12-2014 at 01:15 PM.
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targuit
in many threads, it often seems like you purposefully misunderstand what people are saying, in a weird way that makes those of us who read your posts scratch our collective heads.
Try this example. Set you metronome at quarter note=200 (this is not too fast) and turn on your recording device (anything, iPad, iPhone, computer whatever) (only) then click on this link
Relaxin' At The Camarillo | Sheet Music Direct
and immediately play the melody (Ignore the bass clef). Its a simple (monophonic) bop blues, mostly 8th notes, a few eight note triples. Post the result in this thread for us to hear. The whole exercise should take you 2 minutes at most, so it will take less time that it takes to post a message in this forum.
This has nothing to do with Ravel, or singing Dindi, or classical guitar, or what you studied as a child, etc. I'm not saying this to challenge to you, although I have to admit that your reluctance to illustrate your many musical assertions with actual examples makes me skeptical that you can do what you claim. It is just that this exercise might help *you* understand what *sight reading in a jazz context* means. If you can do this reasonably, then it might lend credence to your strange suggestions on how to become a good sight reader.
Incidentally, I consider myself a reasonably good sight reader *for a jazz guitarist* which means I basically suck at it. If I didn't already know this tune I would not be able to do this any faster than about quarter note=100. Of course, after reading it down a few times I could do it up to tempo, but that's just not what sight reading means.
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Jay,
Originally Posted by targuit
What I consider playing jazz is improvisation. Reading to me is a completely different skill.....apples and oranges.
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I'm not sure if this reply is to me but I'll address it anyway. Getting better at sight reading won't necessarily help your jazz but it will help your sight reading. That seems fairly obvious. I think everyone here will agree that being a good sight reader is a good skill to have. My point was simply that most guitarists are bad readers because they don't work on it and that sight reading polyphony is not always harder than reading a single line. Also, reading a lot of Britton and Henze will make you good at reading Britton and Henze. Reading a lot of varied styles will make you better at reading varied styles. I'm not going to spend a lot of time reading reading Britton scores because I'm never going to be called on to do that on a gig. I also never said that reading doesn't help your musicianship. Sight reading is something I used to work on a lot and as a result I became pretty good at it. But since I'm hardly ever in situations where I'm required to sight read I'm not nearly as good at it as I used to be. Originally Posted by targuit
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I played in pit bands off and on since I was 17, and a few "big bands" too. I also currently teach/coach the guitar players in two local high school jazz programs. I think I've seen polyphony on a guitar chart two or three times. Shit, most of the time you get piano music and a pat on the back.
Really, jazz is ear music. There's absolutely nothing but positives about improving one's reading, but it really doesn't make you a better jazz player. Good jazz players listen, support, challenge, and create extemporaneously...and if you can do that really well...well...who cares if your reading of polyphonic classical pieces ain't so good.
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I resemble that remark. I delayed learning to read well until---well, I'm still not a good reader, so I'm still putting it off. I read charts from fake books and I'm working with Barry Galbriath material which helps my reading, but I am a long, long way from sight reading. And as the old blues song put it, "It's my own fault." Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
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To respond to a few points -
Jeff, I have zero experience playing in HS jazz bands, though I played rock and jazz fusion with highly capable musicians. But, your post would support my observation that most reading in the context of big bands is single line playing.
I agree that sight reading a complex single line is not easy, especially at the tempo of a quarter note as 200, which that highly capable musician, PKIRK, suggests is not fast (!). You must be a speed queen, Captain Kirk! But I still like your playing even if I question your apparent case of "horn envy". I actually hate Relaxin' at Camarrillo , to be sincere. Would you accept The Yardbird Suite, which I find much more excellent a tune than that turd you would like me to polish? That is, after I finish my taxes due the 15th extension, and after my son's upcoming birthday. I did take a glance at the sheet music you linked. No need to 'ignore the bass" - it is just essentially the chord roots - but you knew that. What is hard about that POS tune is that is not harmonious in any sense. Of course, if I got paid to produce the video you requested, that is if I had a video camcorder other than the video function on my decade old Canon point and shoot camera (8 megapixels, for those who are counting), and more pertinentally, if I knew how to link my video to this site rather than through YT, I would take that absurd challenge to play that crappy tune. But I really much prefer The Yardbird Suite, a blues to my ears, btw, if you insist. In any case, Uncle Sam is impatient and takes priority. And I don't think you mentioned paying me to "take the challenge".
But fear not! Once I get the taxes filed, I will be uploading to my YT channel some Jobim tunes and a couple of others including a version of Estate - I liked the trio one you uploaded, btw. Though I can't hear it at 200 bpm.
As for Jasonc - I would note that the composer is Benjamin Britten (spelling) - composer of numerous modern works including his famous solo guitar work, Nocturnal, immortalized by the incomparable classical guitarist, Julian Bream, who also played jazz in his misspent youth. Nocturnal is based upon certain songs composed by John Dowland, eminent Elizabethan lutenist and composer. In any case, his compositions are far more progressive and, let it be said, superior to what CP produced in Relaxin' at Camarillo. And no, I could not 'sight read' Nocturnal at first glance, though there are few guitarists on earth who could. But the more you read notation, the better you get at it. That is the primal concept.
And for Srlank -"What I consider playing jazz is improvisation. Reading to me is a completely different skill.....apples and oranges."
I pretty much agree, though as someone who does use Sibelius as a tool to rehearse with off arrangements that I write (not BIAB), you cannot write music if you cannot read music. Assuming you are not using some arcane tablature style (which I do sometimes in a pinch - no sheet music paper or computer handy). I push the use of notation software as a tool to improve one's musicianship. If you consider working on improvisation as elaborating on the melody in a creative fashion, it helps to have 'backing tracks' and the ability to refine what you write or wish to practice to. So if having a band available at 4 o'clock in the morning at the click of a mouse is not helpful to you in terms of working on improvisation, then ignore my recommendation. For me it has been a game changer. But your experience may vary. Strange thing - I play piano as well and use it to write guitar melody lines and to enter notation in real time or step-time. I'm getting to like writing the melody with the piano. Composition is a form of improvisation.
Jay
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Hey Jay, 200 is about the tempo parker plays it, that's a medium up jazz tempo. Fast starts around 230.
But whatever. Follow your own path if it works for you.
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There are many examples of polyphonic guitar music that are quite easy to play.
There are many single note melodies that are very challenging.
It is likely that the hardest music to sight read would be in the polyphonic category but the details that engender difficulty are more involved than just the number of notes played.
An X factor in good sight reading is the ability to make the music speak in an ensemble context.
This ranges from the ability to lock in, to phrase as a collective, play with dynamics and expression on the 1st take.
At times even simple melodies can become elusive because of lack of experience within the rhythmic style.
It is hard to enter on 2 when we are unsure where 1 is.
Much respect to the 1st call great readers of the world.
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Unfamiliar syncopations are probably the hardest thing to nail "on the fly." At least for me.
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Whereas Ravel and Britten are seen in all the hip nightspots nowadays...... Originally Posted by targuit
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Re sight reading. I think it is odd to compare sight reading skills as between classical and jazz. Classical playing is never about developing sight reading skills - not really. Aside from a couple of anecdotes, I am not aware that classical players ever sight read in the context of a performance. That's not really what classical playing is about. Even when it is about sight reading, it is so different an activity from sight reading in jazz that it is hard to compare.
I played classical guitar for a number of years(not professionally but pretty good if you ask my mother) and I am a learner at this stage with respect to jazz, but from what I know so far, what sight reading means in jazz is quite different than what it means in classical playing. In classical, all the notes are right there on the page. There is really no need to think about harmony at all and no real need to make decisions as you are playing other than articulation and dynamics. I am aware of no-one who would actually sight read a performance piece for an actual performance in classical music. Classical players certainly practice sight reading, but as a means to an end- not as an end in itself.
In jazz, and I am by no means an expert, it seems to me that sight reading means a lot more. In addition to having to play the notes that are on the page, you have to also read and understand the harmony, the options that are being presented to you on the page, and make decisions that a classical reader would never be called on to make.
In addition, the jazz reader has to "read" what is going on around him in terms of the other musicians and figure out how to fit what he is reading into the overall context of the group - harmonically and melodically.
So far, for me, playing jazz is so different from playing classical music that I have found that my classical playing has not really helped my jazz playing much. I don't really think that one is any harder than the other - just very very different. That applies to sight reading as well as other aspects.
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I was going to stay out of this thread... but Jasonc brought up one of the points I'm always trying to convey. You can't read, or for that manor... improvise etc... what you can't physically play.
We're on a jazz guitarist sight, that's the basic starting reference.
Jay's point about re-reading through music can't hurt. Just looking at the guitar or notation probably helps your playing in some respect. Re-reading music should be better...
I read well... that's what I get paid to do, I read well when I was 20, it's not magic, it's much easier that taking burnin solo through complicated chart on stage the first time... not really but sight reading is very mechanical. But you do need a organized system and development of that system to achieve results... being able to sight read.
Part of that system is having in place a fingering system that physically lets you perform the notation without having to practice or rehearse. Generally Guitarist use either five or seven positions... they both work.
The other part is having a picking system in place which also works with out having to rehearse. Again almost any method that repeats will work.
The next step as Henry pointed out is being able to recognize rhythmic and melodic figures.
Rhythmic figures generally breakdown to either on the beat or off the beat. Off the beat is either an anticipation of the coming down beat or a syncopated accentuation of the off beat. The off the beat attack is either related to the down beat before or the down beat after
Think Down Beat and Up Beat, strong beat and weak beat. The down beat is just that, a down beat, but the up or weak beat can be related to either.... The Down beat... before or after.
It's either... and one, (+ 1), or one and, (1 +).
The rest is just more complicated versions of...
The pitch aspect is again being able to recognize melodic patterns, scales, arpeggios or any organizations of linear notes.
If you don't know or can't finger and pick the patterns... it really doesn't matter if your able to see the notation, you won't be able to perform the notation.Last edited by Reg; 10-14-2014 at 05:55 AM.
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That's what I'm working on now. I'm using Barry Galbraith's "Fingerboard Workbook", which helps link up reading with fingering. (Supposedly, his book / CD of two-part Bach inventions is a real test of one's reading. I'm not ready for that.) That's where I really need the work---knowing immediately (or at least much sooner than I do know) how to finger something, and how to look at a chart and get a sense of where things are going. I guess this is the difference between reading notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) and reading words: CAGED, BADGE, FADED, FACED, DECAF....) Originally Posted by Reg
Great post, Reg! The whole thing, I mean.
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when I was doing studio work..some of the charts that we were had were written with errors that had to be corrected on the fly..(bar 7 its Eb not B) and some of Howard Roberts advise was used when a chart was in the key of C and we were told -- no its going to be in another key..transpose in you head..
now as an exercise this is a good one..read a piece written in one key but play in another..written in C but play it in D for example..I used to be fairly good at that but haven't put myself through extra torcher in a while.
For me its sightreading..what other kind is there..something like the following:
nowwhenyougettothelevelofagoodsightreaderyouseeall thenotesasonecontuniousstringofmusicnotabunchofiso latednotes
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Wolf - what kind of studio or session work did you do in terms of musical style, context, movies, etc?
The guys I knew were all good readers.
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If you're going to call yourself a musician (and are not blind or significantly visually impaired), being able to read music well is a required skill. If you're going to call yourself a professional musician, being able to sight read previously unseen music well is a required skill. If you're going to do studio work, sub in pit bands, etc., being able to sight read basically flawlessly is a required skill.
I can't read music in any useful sense and really don't consider myself a musician. I doubt I could read a page of whole notes accurately. I started trying to learn to read on the guitar in 1980 and I still can't. Now at age 55 becoming even a basically competent reader is not going to happen. It's a good thing I have no aspiration to be a professional musician or do studio work. I have basically given up on trying to read music. After 34 years I can barely read the pitches and I can't read the time (and as my eyes and brain get more middle aged it gets even harder, I notice). BTW, I'm not looking for solutions to this- at this point it is what it is.
My wife picked up the clarinet again about 18 months ago. She hadn't played since her senior year in high school. I gave her the Klose book I had bought back in 1981, she opened it up and just started reading stuff she'd not seen in 35 years. *Sigh* I think you have to learn it young or you have to be intensely motivated (e.g., the Johnny Smith story about going into the military and being given a trumpet and an instruction book- and two weeks to learn how to read on the trumpet and be a musician or not and be in combat).
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we did a lot of rock..of course..alot of singers doing demos..some jazz fusion..sound tracks for plays..all that now can be done by a 15 yr old who dosent play anything..its like small business bookkeeping..you don't even have to know how to balance a check book..the program does all the work..even corrects your mistakes .. but it can play the blues!! Originally Posted by targuit
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