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well ... after you run you also walk and then crawl and then...
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01-23-2015 02:09 AM
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One should not over-complicate this issue - just practice, not so amny wonderous methods for simple things... just 'go and practice'... sight-reading evolves 'alphabet' knoledge (notation signs), language knowlege (musical style, concept, system, genre, culture etc), ability to 'pronounce' it properly (playing technique).
All three are connected very much... traditional notation system is coming from classics of the functional period and mostly reflects its musical language, its cultural background, technique also evolves understanding what youre playing etc. etc.
On the other hand traditional notation is already adopted somehow to other styles.. so one can choose. Many options... many ways.
But no need to get too deep into the problem... just practice.
But the problem is there often for late - beginners .. I have a friend who being after 30 without any musical background decided to start to play guitar - he wanted classical guitar to play early lute music (later he switched for lute).
He did not have obvious musicality or hearing, but good physical ability - he achieved clean sound and technique but musically could not connect two notes properly but something moved him on...
He did not go to the teacher... learned on his own... we met much later... he grabed my lute and played quite complex plyphonic fantasia all through it the way he did it before - more or less clear, but just as a scope of note (and he accepted it immediately)..
And then he began to play lute version of Green Sleeves... and when he came to G-chord he played F# in bass, stopped... played again.. stopped... after a few attempts I got that he 1) could not hear where to go to get a proper note 2) did not see notes, shapes on the fretboard 3) definitely could not sight-read...
All was true... I do not consider myself to be a teacher, but we tried to work over it together...
The problem was he did not want to go just training. I tell him for example: Do not overcomplicate it, just accept two simple rules and play these simple voicings for 2-3 days considering these rules. Dont ask whys, you'll know why when your ear will get used to the system... and after you hear it you can go into complex theoretic speculations. (I know it I made this mistale myself, keep making it - even on this forum). But he once told me: You know, I know youre probably right... but it is hard for me, I will probably just do it a bit wrong way, it will be slow, but sooner or later it will work and if not - then not..
And now he just asks me advice from time to time when I do not have enough expertise on the issue of this period music I find some of my friends to help and so he goes on smoothly...
And i got one point - lots of late beginners do not need proper systems, good methods to achieve goals etc. - they donot want someone to have expectations from them.... they need only some support, some communication, some comfort... yeh comfort... it has been often negatively said 'he does not want to leave his comfort zone' - but who wants? only a few... most on the contrary want to find that zone... being young I would not hesitate to push these people, but now I know I would rather let them be the way they want.
Long post... sorry for taking time if you managed to read it throughLast edited by Jonah; 01-23-2015 at 04:42 AM.
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Remember the famous riddle of the Sphinx in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?
Oedipus came across the Sphinx on his way to Thebes in Greece. The sphinx asked him "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening?" Oedipus pondered on this question and then answered correctly, "Man."
Sight reading skills are really only necessary for performing musicians who are in band, theater or orchestral ensembles that play new music with little prep. But reading notation is a basic and relatively easy to learn skill that requires a little direction and regular practice.
I'm looking for ways frankly to earn from providing musical instruction in video format. Is there a demand for such material? A video series on learning easily to read notation? Probably already exists...
Jay
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I remember the riddle, Jay...
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I'm in exactly this boat, and have come to exactly this conclusion just recently. So, my sight reading practice is now much simpler than the things I spend the rest of my time on. I hope they'll converge in a year or two.
Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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I highly recommend this book: Guitar Journals - Mastering the Fingerboard: The Reading Book Book - Mel Bay Publications, Inc. : Mel Bay
It lays flat, it is not too difficult, not too easy, it has all keys, some pieces have syncopation (but most are admittedly streams of eight notes), it has some cool exercises where you play all notes on the same string so you have to jump up and down without looking at the fretboard. It's given me a basic foundation in sight-reading (not just reading). I think this book together with some random Real Book reading (open to a random page and play it) will get us amateurs to a pretty good level considering the reality of our musical lives (hobbies).
(eventually I will have to find a new book since although I avoid repeating pieces so I don't "learn" them, after a while your ear starts to remember how things go, especially as you become a better musician and your inner ear memory improves)
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Imagine a kid who wnats to read aloud but cannot speak - it never happens of course in real life but just imagine...If reading is always painfully slow and pisses you off every time you do it, you're probably working at to high-level
will he be able to read aloud? Will he ever learn to read like? Maybe after really long time with lots of digfficulties...
No-one learns speaking via reading... the mind, the brain should understand the meaning to send impulses ... the lips the toung should be capable to turn them easily into connected sounds... and all this before one begins to read. Kids do not learn to read from Proust, they start to read from what they understand for sure...
The musicians mind should see (see in the score/chart I mean - be capable to see music in notation - best to hear, but at least to see) connection of notes put together (this is knowledge of harmony, style, language, culture), musicians' fingers should re-act to this acknowledgement of mind - that is they should know patterns, fingerings, shapes whatever technical applications there are that are actual for this language and style...Last edited by Jonah; 01-23-2015 at 03:00 PM.
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I think I could get more gigs if I read better. Or at least I'd feel more secure playing the gigs I play.I'm also finding it quite fun to work on, doing a bit every day.But, you know there are people who can read fly shit who have absolutely no idea about what is going on the music, or are unable to play musically. I think one's general musicianship is a combination of factors - 'hearing' is maybe the biggie.
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Sure... actually strange thing... with age I often began to prefer amateur playiers.... they have sometimes terrible technique but very often good intuitive understanding of music and you can hear it in performance...I think one's general musicianship is a combination of factors - 'hearing' is maybe the biggie.
I remember last year I was visiting soem friends' friends and theere was an old auntie... very funny... she began to play and sing Schubert songs in German... she had voice... well piano was out of tune... and she stopped all the time, commented something... but she was so much involved in the music, and I could hear that she could really understand it.
Of course there are few really great performance of these songs made by great artists.. but I think she really lived it through too when she sang it... and this is what they were written through.. to be lived through, not to be perfectly polished.
Michael York - an actor - once said in TV interview (I hope to repeat word by word but not sure): profession/business/market takes from an artist one of the most importan part of real Art - that is the right to make mistakes...Last edited by Jonah; 01-23-2015 at 04:29 PM.
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Being able to sight read etc... never gets in the way of musicality. The old BS lines about the technical, sight reading, can't feel or hear music.... is extremely old.
If you can't hear or feel the music... it's not from being able to read through Scarlatti sonatas, Villa-lobos preludes or Parkers omnibook... it's generally from not being in situations where you needed the skills.
Some musicians just don't need all the skills, I like what Jonah was posting above... about being supportive etc... Great points.
I guess it takes time, knowledge and a whole lot more... But sight reading through a new tune, is personally just like using my ears and feel to play something. Being able to sight read is like choosing to sit or stand when I play. Doesn't really make any difference or complicate anything. I sill can have a conversation, or hear and feel how other players are performing.
It's not like walking and chewing gum... much easier.
The hearing factor is huge... so is being able to understand what your hearing. It's not always black and white... tonic or dominant etc...
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I would just stress that even in the realm of sight-reading, the degree of difficulty can range from "piece of cake" to "your worst nightmare" level.
Though this territory has been covered before, some observations about the technique of sight reading, which is just my impressions from my experience. A lot of reading notation generally is essentially pattern recognition, both in terms of rhythmic patterns as well as melodic movement in a phrase or measure. So many times if the harmony is conventional - think most popular music including jazz, pop, country, and much "classical" music - you can read a phrase just by taking in the measure visually focusing on the first note of the measure. The rest of the measure will often be scalar in terms of step-wise movement of half or whole steps. Likewise in many cases the rhythmic units can be easily taken in a glance. On the other hand, even a single melody line can be challenging to read properly the first time through with music you are not familiar with in terms of knowing how the melody and harmony go. My point is that if you are reading a chart of a jazz tune you know but it is in a different key, the "take the measure in a glance" approach is often sufficient to focus on the first note in the measures - like key sign posts along a hiking trail. If you already know the melodic and harmonic destination, the notation is just a comforting landmark along the way.
More modern and sometimes atonal music or more complicated rhythmic figures (think trying to play some Charlie Parker style solos) could be a lot harder. Simply put, the degree of difficulty can be all across the spectrum, even for very fluent readers.
As an aside, last night I was playing through a Diana Krall YT video which is essentially was her entire album someone put up (I have some mixed feelings about that), but in any case it was one with The Look of Love and Cry Me a River, Besame Mucho and other standards for the most part. It struck me as I was playing that even the notated parts of these session recording were not 'difficult' - just very good arrangements. I have a thing for her music and style, which is sometimes remarkably simple in terms of the parts and voices. Even sight reading that session would not be too challenging. Or so it sounded to me as I played along. I was comparing her playing mentally with the Brazilian pianist, Eliana Elias, who is one of my favorites. Her playing is generally much more complex and her piano arrangement would be much harder to sight read.
Jay
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That's something that's really striking me as I practice reading. In some ways it's not that different from improvisation - you have to know the style to read something easily. It's not as if your brain is going, now we play note 'x' like a musical computer. You have to make sense of it.
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OK now we're getting somewhere... there is more implied from jazz lead sheets than just the melody and basic changes. Originally Posted by christianm77
I need to work on getting what I post to make more sense... thanks Christian
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I'm not just talking about lead sheets either. Any kind of written music...
My aim at present is to develop flexibility in reading, as well as speed. I am described by other musicians as 'able to read' but my aim is really to take this up a notch this spring.
Here are a few things I am doing ATM
Reading different clefs (I'm OK on bass clef due to
Reading chords
Reading just rhythms
Reading figured bass (really fun and good for fretboard diatonic interval knowledge - anyone tried this?)
Sight singing
Reading exercises
Reading pieces (different styles)
I am not focussing on reading classical guitar pieces as this (in general) as technically this wouldn't be congruent with my every day playing ATM, although I do have the Levitt classical book, and might take a look at the plectrum guitar grade material.
By far the hardest stuff I have had to read are fusion charts. I find these really hard. Thing is, this kind of material is likely to come up in originals projects etc, so need to soldier on...
If I hit a snag, I target that in my next practice, as always. I'm keeping a practice diary ATM to help with this.
Anyone else?
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Oh a few more thoughts
Reading at tempos slightly faster than comfortable - aiming not to get lost or break tempo despite mistakes
Reading at comfortable tempos
Reading out of position (sliding between III and V for example, using open strings, etc)
Composing direct to manuscript without playing - checking if I got it right after. (I would like to get better at hearing scores as well)
I might try
Memorising a bar, then playing with it covered.
All very good fun, and challenging. I'm sure there are many suggestions for this kind of thing.
Needless to say, to do any of these exercises, you need to know the basics, how the system works etc.
Oh and practicing scales helps - who'd have thought it eh? ;-)
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Notation is highly conventional thing... traditional notation is more like letters of ABC, each sign means a sound more or less, with time traditional notation kept growing more precise and individual (that is less conventional)... probably lots of reasons for that, one of them the grpwing distance between performer and composer... and the loss of more or less common musical language, now every composer has to invent his own language (and his own notation).
No-one expects anybody to play non-conventional notation sight-reading...
Charts with chords are more like hierogliphic signs, they are notions/concepts - not just sounds....
But any notation systen is conventional and belongs to cultural eviroment where it comes from... it is invented by the people who communicate and understand each other in the same world... it is not a perfect absolute code...
If want to play continuo on lutes in a group I learn to read figuered bass in proper style (and reading of 17th century music will be different from reading of 18th century music though signs will be the same)...
If I want to ftake a seat in a jazz band I have to master reading from charts (and reading the same sign in combo and in big band maybe different)...
If I love music of Bach and Mozart I learn to sightread it just to have peasure of playing it instead of deciphering...
It is still simple, because I learn just what I need for practical musicianship...
Let me compare it once again with languages. Babies begin to read when they can speak, and they read best what they understand.
Let us read this without preparation Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta
Ooops...
This is foreigh languge word written down with familar conventional alphabet. This familarity makes us think we should be capable to read it immediately.
The same thing with notation, people think that if they sight-read they should be capable to sight-read whatever is written with this system... but it is not like this, we read text, not signs.
So my first conclusion would be: learn to sight-read the language you speak - as babies do, or a language you learn as specialists in Indian languages do...)
That means IMHO that sight-reading stays quite simple supportive practical skill and no special techniques are required except as mentioned before:
- knowledge of the language and its cultural enviroment
- ability to pronounce fluently what is written
- knowledge of conventional notation system
I belive that serious musicians develope first two aspects all their life without any relation to sight-reading otherwise they are no musicians... and to learn a notation system is nothing to mention actually...
Do not learn to read fluently any text jubberish for you written in familar letters...
(Maybe some zen approaches will advate this approach for unfocusing you mind and getting another perspective, like making meaningless what seems full of sense etc. - probably it may work for someone as a stage, but I am just not in it...)
here we approach a deeper problem of understanding and interpretation of music.... what for should we learn to sight-read clearly and fluintly words like Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta if we do not understand its meaning?
Unfortunately what seems to be so evident with words, somehow escapes our minds when we speak about music...Last edited by Jonah; 01-26-2015 at 06:28 AM.
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Yes to all of this and more. Originally Posted by Jonah
Not everyone will be interested in all of that.
I am interested in common practice (classical) harmony and I want to understand it better so that I can understand the basis of later harmony. Reading common practice music (and hearing it) I think is helpful for jazz. Most pianists start this way, and in general they have a better command of harmony then guitarists (although it is easier to play counterpoint etc on piano.)
Reading acts as a gateway to this world.
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I see... same for me, but I never thought of sight-reading regarding this issue... I thought only that I could take a bit more time on improving my piano technique so that I could just put Schubert sonatas and play it at least for myself without breaks...
By the way I have a friend - violinst, violist, composer.... he developed a kind of 'konzertmeister' piano style, like conductors play... without technique but he reads very fluently, he just knows where he can drop something out... and it sounds great and very integral ... because he undertands music very well (of course he does not perform on piano, and he mostly does not get into very 'pianistic' music like Chopin, Lizst)
PS
By the way if you are interested in figured-bass on strings there is a very good practical method by Nigel North
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I'm glad it's not just me. I can read the notes, just not fast enough to read and play. My approach, which seems to be helping is to take the score and write out the notes below the stanza. It helps me locate the arrangement on the neck or locations and is gradually helping me with the sight reading.
If the piece jumps all over the place I'll place TAB notation below the note call outs and then erase them as I learn the piece. when I can read the notes without the aide of the TAB or letter notation below I erase all comments and work at sight reading.
It's slow, tedious and a royal pain, but it seems to be working.
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I think you could learn a huge amount from analysing Schubert's harmony too. But I think one of the things is playing through music (perhaps sight singing it too) to get it in your ears. I think I have a reasonable handel (:-)) on Bach harmony just from singing Bach. I know what definitely doesn't sound like him. If I do more reading, I'm sure I'll get better at improvising in his style... Originally Posted by Jonah
I've always been amazed by people who can do that. I used to do a lot of classical singing, so I had some contact with people who's muscianship was a) infinitely better than mine and b) bombproof. The kind of people who could happily transpose Bach from open score down a semitone to approximate A=415. Some of these guys were also, unsurprisingly, into improvisation (and jazz. ) Originally Posted by Jonah
Opera conductors are often FEROCIOUS musicians, devoid of ego (compared to symphony conductors at least :-)) and able to deal with contingencies all the time, as well as often possessing the kind of konzertmeister skills you describe. One of the most enjoyable gigs I had was playing guitar in a small pit band playing a contemporary opera for kids. Once my head was out of the score, it was a blast!
Excellent, I will check it out. Thanks for the tip. Originally Posted by Jonah
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Probably true... but I never did sing from teh score really well, but I can read even orchestral score with inner hearing (of course relatively, considering style).... I mean singing helps but this is not the only thing that works (in my country it is a special subject in musical education called 'solfegio').I think you could learn a huge amount from analysing Schubert's harmony too. But I think one of the things is playing through music (perhaps sight singing it too) to get it in your ears. I think I have a reasonable handel (:-)) on Bach harmony just from singing Bach. I know what definitely doesn't sound like him. If I do more reading, I'm sure I'll get better at improvising in his style...
I like playing from the score even symphonic music mostly because with years it is more and more seldom that I can find performance that I like, and also I just like just this experience.
I actually think that there is always hearing if you get this music... this music is not for educated persons. For me music of Bach, Mozart, Schubert (major triad for me) is a real existential revelation, they go as far as the art can lead as a metaphisical way...
so harmony can be already in our ears, I know music lovers who understand music perfectly but have no idea about theory and cannot play any instrument, they just can hear it as a sematical system... it is like literature one does not have to necessarily dig into complex conposition or style issues - the most important thing is that he feels that characters live, that he takes it as absolute reality...
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Amen to that. I would love to be able to hear scores, who knows, maybe one day.... Originally Posted by Jonah
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We're they born with this skill... or was it developed?
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Once you have something, you can develope
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I have read notation nearly every day of my life since I was in grade school through high school, and especially after classical guitar training from the age of eleven or twelve for three or four years. I have a collection of transcripts of jazz standards with the melody and accompaniment written out in notation mostly as block chords, though some are written out as classical style pieces. There are few jazz standards I know that is not legible by sight to a good reader of notation, though the degree of difficulty varies. Perhaps the hardest to read cold might be Charlie Parker style solos with odd rhythmic meters. Where sight reading becomes hard is with modern classical music or serial or atonal music.
So good reading skills should get most jazz players very far in terms of sight-reading. But how do you get there? I keep reading posts where individuals talk about "learning the fret board" location of notes. Two approaches will get you there and improve your technique to boot. One is to use the Segovia edition of major and minor diatonic scales in all keys. If you play these scales or learn them on a regular basis at practice, you will learn the scales of benefit from a technical aspect of playing, and importantly learn the fret board.
The second approach is to use notation software. There is no faster way to learn notation than to see the piano key you just pressed appear as a note on a staff. Of course, this requires work and patience, but what doesn't? You have to get your house in order.
JayLast edited by targuit; 01-28-2015 at 10:07 AM.
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