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I mean, REALLY read music? Or should I stop beating myself up and just take lessons?
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03-02-2015 03:59 PM
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It's been done and so it is very possible.
You should stop beating yourself up whatever decision you make.
Taking lessons can offer many positives and is not just about admitting defeat.
What are your biggest challenges reading music so far?
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Yes, BUT if having issues the cost of a couple lessons can save time and frustration.
First you need to figure out what your issue is so help find a teacher. Is it reading pitches, or reading rhythm, or knowing the neck.
If rhythm might want to find more traditional teacher and not necessary a guitarist. Back in the 80's when being a studio musician was the big thing a lot of the musicians in L.A. studied with Joe Valenti. Valenti was the conductor of a local symphony and had a little book of rhythms, that covered how to look at music and count. You sit with him and play what looked like simple rhythms but with a metronome going and classical conductor nailing you for holding notes to short or missing a rhythm. As Joe would say you have to be able to read and play in straight time first, after that Swinging 8th and other style is simple. The amount of time a note occupies is the same no matter the style. It was a good experience studying with Valenti and learning to "see" and read rhythms properly.
Learning to read pitch is similar to reading rhythm all about learning how to look at the page an recognize scale fragments, arpeggios, chord inversion, so you just look and know what they are, that saves time. You aren't looking at the letters in these words you're just looking at them and know what they are, the only time you break it down is when you see a word you haven't read before. Music pitch and rhythm are the same you learn to recognize familiar patterns.
Now where many musicians have trouble especailly guitarist they try to learn to read music by playing from the beginning. At first until you start learning to look at music you should put the guitar down. Clap the rhythms of the music and get the rhythms down first. Then go through and name all the pitches and look for patterns of scale fragment or arpeggios. Now use the guitar in you're head and figure out where all the notes are on the guitar. After you have done all that then pickup your guitar, turn on the metronme and try to sightread it. In the beginning that process will take five minutes or so, but the more you do it the faster you become at looking at a piece of music and scanning for things you haven't seen before.
So if finding notes if you issue and moving in and out of positions while you read, or reading chord stacks that you should get a guitar teacher to help, but for the other stuff a more traditional/classical teacher might be better.
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One of the best things my teacher ever gave me were two pages of relative notes. No measures initially, no sharps or flats.
My assignment was to play the notes in all positions and say the names of them as I played them. Then he had me add the appropriate accidentals until I went through all 12 keys.
Then we added bars to the sheets and played quarter notes. Then 8ths, triplets 16ths etc. Then combinations of note values. Always at a tempo that I could handle, increasing as I could.
Not only has my reading ability gotten better, but my chops have gotten better as well. Now he's having me harmonize the same pages by adding chords.
It's a years' worth of work on 2 pages and has had amazing results.Last edited by Flyin' Brian; 03-02-2015 at 05:14 PM.
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You can do it without lesson, but lessons will speed up the process. You have to be patient either way. The best way to do it is by going through a graded system such as the Melbay books.
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It's exponentially more difficult on your own. Most things are better seen and heard than figured out out of a book etc. I think it's easy for those of us who learned it in school to underestimate the difficulty of learning to read on a FIRST instrument. That being said, once you learn concepts , rhythms etc., you do most of the WORK yourself. Lessons= money (and time) well spent.
Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-02-2015 at 06:32 PM.
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It somewhat depends on how much you know about music notation now... and your skill level on the guitar.
You can't read what you can't already play... without practicing or rehearsing.
If you've played for awhile... sure, it's not brain surgery.
You always start with rhythm as Doc stated above. I've been posting this for years... and I STILL USE IT... I can sight read basically anything.... napkins and all. Anyway Louis Bellsons Modern Reading Text in 4/4. It covers everything rhythmically.
You can usually pick a copy up for under $10 and $4 or $5 used... it's a standard for percussionist and you'll never finish it.
If you get it and start I'll help... After a month or two you'll start with melodic material. What you do while your working on rhythm studies is get your fingering together, generally don't use Mel Bay or any of the open position or caged systems, use a seven position like Berklees etc... You don't want to have positions that move. So while your learning your fretboard, your become aware of scales and arpeggios, note patterns developed from each.
The point is to have your fretboard together and all the basic note patterns... scales, arpeggios, any sequence type of patterns... together. To the point you can play any pattern anywhere on your fretboard.
This usually also takes a couple of months, and you can work on both simultaneously, they don't have conflicts. After a few month of practicing reading the rhythm studies... you'll begin to recognize rhythmic patterns, then a bar of rhythmic patterns, then two bars etc. You won't be reading each rhythmic note one at a time. It will happen, you'll begin to be able to look ahead. There's more but until you get into it... it's just more BS.
Could take up to six months. Then you start the sight reading of notes and note patterns.
Generally You sight read scales first, then arpeggios... after a while you'll begin to recognize scale and arpeggio patterns.
If you get to this point... I'll help with the next step.
What usually happens is most work on everything together and from teachers who may not really sight read that well, or books that don't really end up anywhere...... anyway most get frustrated etc...
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I found my old Valenti book and here's his page on see music. GIT talked about the same thing looking at notation and seeing instantly seeing rhythms in first half of measure, then the second half. Then being about to spot each beat in a measure no matter how that beat might be sub-divided and so on. Mr. Valenti pass a few years ago so I don't think he'll mind this one page being put up, the book is out of print.
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Not only can you do it on your own, but I think you should actually plan on doing it on your own. Here's why:
Even with a teacher, there is no substitute for practice. In the end you will spend 100 times more hours practicing than you do with a teacher.
A wise man once said: in the end, everything we learn is self-taught.
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Second to what Reg said. Of course you can learn to read on your own. Honestly beyond simply learning what something is there's not that much to teach ... Rather it's something that just needs to be practiced. In my opinion lessons are not for supervised practicing. A teacher will be able to help you pace yourself properly so that you're reading things that are technically accessible to you. If you're not pacing yourself appropriately then you'll drown trying to sight read things you can't play. If you can pace yourself appropriately then absolutely you can learn on your own ... You should still get lessons to learn a bunch of other cool stuff though. Also .. If you get lessons to learn then reading should be a small part of it only
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What kind of reading material do you suggest at this point?
Originally Posted by Reg
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i may have purchased this on Amazon right after reading this (along with the odd meter companion book) ... How do you like to work your way through it? Originally Posted by Reg
and yes it was less than $10
... Though the odd meter one was $15
Last edited by pamosmusic; 03-03-2015 at 04:44 PM.
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Studying with a Good Teacher is important, it's best to start from the begining with good habits.
Why spend your time reinventing the wheel. A good teacher will teach you how to set up guidelines, so that you can
eventually study and teach yourself.
Originally Posted by kamlapati
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03-03-2015, 04:39 PM #14destinytot GuestThank you! Just ordered one.Louis Bellsons Modern Reading Text in 4/4
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I have to read studies and huge books to keep my chops up .. I will memorize a chart the first reading so the second time I am not reading it....try to read a different chart as much as possible so you are not memorizing.
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Funny thing about reading notation. I read it virtually every day since I was twelve years old. That was ...too long ago.
Anyway, just a side comment about reading notation. Last night I was playing along and reading transcriptions by a Francois Leduc, if I recall, of Earl Klugh's versions of a couple of standards including Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, The Shadow Of Your Smile, Misty, and a couple of others on YouTube. He has a couple of Joe Pass transcriptions too - Night and Day, for one.
He must have done a lot of work, and they were fairly accurate, though I disagreed with some of the chord symbols he put above the notation. But given that I know the melodies and harmonies to these songs, I found myself just following the general architecture of the lines. I admit it was lazy, but some of Klugh's arrangements were a bit overwrought for my taste. And I find that I always prefer my own fingerings and voicings anyway.
I think a lot of session players do much the same thing occasionally. But reading skills is essential to develop until you don't need them so much anymore.
JayLast edited by targuit; 03-03-2015 at 06:31 PM.
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I recently signed up for a year of this.
https://sightreadingfactory.com/pricing
It seems like a pretty good way to learn.
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I asked some good readers if they could teach me to read better, and they just said 'just read music, every day, as well as you can.' Originally Posted by jakeyboy1216
So I guess that's a yes.
Obviosuly as a first step you need to be able to understand notation and where the notes are on the guitar.
A teacher might well help. There are also some good books out there.Last edited by christianm77; 03-03-2015 at 09:22 PM.
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I like the Mike Longo book
How To Sight Read Jazz and Syncopated Type Rhythms
It's a slightly unsual method, but I like the way it teaches you to phrase rhythms. I have found this has improved my rhythmic reading greatly in the months I have practiced it.
That said, Bellson would probably do the same job. It's a time honoured text.
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I would say take any partition (keep reading) that you have never seen before, have your metronome as slow as needed for getting most of the notes but still having a challenge. Don't read the same music more than twice. Metronome is the tool of gods.
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I know jazzers don't think that classical guitar has anything to offer them, but if you want to learn to read notation that has strong application towards the guitar particularly, one can start with a classical guitar method.
I learned with a combination of the Richard Pick method and the Carcassi method. Step by step, the notation and rhythms become more complicated and polyphonic. Then, the etudes of Sor, which progressively become more complex. Finally, I was studying some Bach, Frescobaldi, and a collection of Baroque and Renaissance music. My teacher was the President of the RI Classical Guitar Society - Hibbard Perry.
After I stopped taking classical guitar lessons formally, I essentially bought Julian Bream albums including Elizabethan lute works, Bach, Spanish composers, and his landmark Twentieth Century Guitar with contemporary works by Frank Martin, Benjamin Britten, William Walton, and others. I also bought a couple of John Williams albums including the complete Bach Lute Suites. I purchased the sheet music to many of these lute and guitar works including orchestral pieces by Rodrigo and other composers.
Through my twenties I worked daily on these as well as studying jazz albums from Joe Pass, George Benson, Pat Martino, and also fusion music like Return to Forever, Weather Report, etc. This was all by ear rather than off sheet music.
The point is that the road is long but it was a great musical journey. From a practical point of view, if you already know how to read notation, I think lute music as adapted to the guitar is a great way to sharpen your reading skills and expand your repertoire. Bach is the master of counterpoint and his Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas are also instructive.Last edited by targuit; 03-04-2015 at 04:44 AM.
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I think that's because the main specific challenge with everyday jazz and pop reading is being able read syncopated rhythms accurately and easily. I don't really need to be able to read fully fleshed out guitar arrangements per se - the type of everyday reading you find in pads etc is often chords with rhythms and single note lines. Originally Posted by targuit
That said, of course you can learn a lot from studying classical guitar, and developing reading in general unlocks a lot more music.
BTW - Jonathan Kreisberg was talking about transcribing classics at his masterclass. I thought it was an interesting point - we think must read classics and learn jazz by ear, but really we should be able to read and transcribe both.Last edited by christianm77; 03-04-2015 at 06:04 AM.
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One of the benefit of working on learning to read had a couple big benefits for me. First it really taught me the fretboard and my note location. When you need to be looking at music and not the neck you start getting the knowledge of the neck. It help build that second sense where you are because most music isn't written with guitar in mind you need to be able to shift up and down the neck without looking to play the sheet musically. So learning to read teaches the fretboard.
Then work on learning to read you develop the gut feeling of the beat and sub-beats. When you start playing you develop the feel for measure going by without thinking, four bars, eight bars, sixteen. Well working on reading is where for I started developing the feed of beats and know which beat is going on, then sub-beats eights, sixteenths. As guitar is a rhythm section instrument you need to master time in order to create feels, styles.
So everything you learn teaches multiple things though not obvious at first.
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Well, this morning I just put in my computer an Earl Klugh CD - Solo Guitar - and played along with his version of So Many Stars and Autumn Leaves. I know both tunes but I just wanted to play along with Klugh, as that is the style of solo classical treatment that I do with standards. I'm rehearsing my repertoire with that type of performance in mind, with the addition of vocals. The key of F which Earl chose for SMStars works fine for my tenor voice, though for a party type gig I would play and sing Autumn Leaves in the key of Dm most likely. Earl plays in F#m.
My point is that reading single note rhythms is generally not more challenging than full arrangements unless it is a Charlie Parker type up tempo tune you never learned. I'm more inclined to Earl's style these days anyway and playing my classical guitar.
But my experience reading is still a great asset. And I can bang out the transcriptions of these songs quite quickly as I play piano as well. Synergy in all things. Without my long experience with notation, I could still play the tunes but somehow I feel much more competent as a result.
JayLast edited by targuit; 03-04-2015 at 01:03 PM.
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I don't work that long, I already read well, so I try and play arpeggios or scales that I don't play that much, anyway I use note patterns instead of just solo pitch. But like I sad I've read well for years, shows musicals tough studio projects... that's somewhat one of my main call for gigs... I can cover with out rehearsing. That being said, the second 1/2 of Modern Reading text and I also use Odd Time, (lots of triplets)... can kick and has kicked my butt many times. There are just to many exercises.... Add in the occasional mistake, crossing of imaginary bar lines, some just almost nonexistent notational figures, It makes reading bebop heads... like playing slow changes. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
i may have purchased this on Amazon right after reading this (along with the odd meter companion book) ... How do you like to work your way through it?
and yes it was less than $10 ... Though the odd meter one was $15
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