Productive sight reading practice

[TheGrandWazoo]

For Rhythmn I can recommend Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments by Louie Bellson. Rhythmn only book that focuses on syncopation.

Also, William Levitt Advanced Reading Studies for Guitar: Positions Eight Through Twelve and Multi-Position Studies in All Keys is great. Get out of the first position!

[Christian Miller]

With the Omnibook make sure you read them at guitar pitch and at written pitch (up the octave). Double value!


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[rpjazzguitar]

After Mel Bay #2, my teacher introduced Rhythms Complete. I only knew the first few frets. He had me play there and then transpose everything up an octave. At the beginning, I didn't even know people played that part of the neck. But, he knew what he was doing (this was Sid Margolis in Brooklyn). That was how I learned the notes all over the fretboard. Before long it simply didn't matter which octave, either on the paper or on the guitar.

It is a very useful skill. It allows you to put everything in the best octave for the music without a struggle.

With arranged music, I can't recall seeing any indication of which octave to play in on a guitar part.

I'd guess that you often want to play lines in the same octave as the piano would, so transposing up an octave would get you there. A lot of the time the guitar is reading the piano chart to begin with -- should I assume that a lot of thought went into what the guitar should do differently?

But, I also think that guess is sometimes wrong. When you see three or more ledger lines above the staff, you can't transpose it up an octave.

An aside: on a guitar chart, you often see slash marks. I asked an arranger what he wanted when he wrote slashes. His answer was "comp appropriately". I guess the opposite extreme would be to write out every chord, in rhythm. That would be very difficult to read and maybe mind numbing if you actually could read it. Part of the challenge. Every big band I've played with has a tendency to call tunes you've never heard and never seen a chart. Sometimes there's a word or two about rhythmic feel. Slashes. No indication of what to play until you hear the rest of the band.

In the moments you have before count-in you've got more important things to do -- like make sure you've got all the pages open, in the correct order, that you're in treble clef (or not) for your single note parts, you know where you're supposed to solo, if at all, and you understand the roadmap. And then, you can start to think about comping rhythm.

The point I'm making is that which octave isn't the only decision you have to make.

If anybody knows more about this issue, please post. I think it's a hole in my knowledge.

[pauln]

I am currently working through this. Mostly all first position and 2-part textures, its Bach so you still find surprising passages that make it more challenging than reading similar textures from 18th/19th century lute or guitar composers.

Very reassuring to my personal technique that Bach himself rested his pinky on the guitar as demonstrated in the photo. Too bad his left hand was cropped out; I'll bet he used all four fingers (and no thumb over the top).

[sgcim]

After Mel Bay #2, my teacher introduced Rhythms Complete. I only knew the first few frets. He had me play there and then transpose everything up an octave. At the beginning, I didn't even know people played that part of the neck. But, he knew what he was doing (this was Sid Margolis in Brooklyn). That was how I learned the notes all over the fretboard. Before long it simply didn't matter which octave, either on the paper or on the guitar.

It is a very useful skill. It allows you to put everything in the best octave for the music without a struggle.

With arranged music, I can't recall seeing any indication of which octave to play in on a guitar part.

I'd guess that you often want to play lines in the same octave as the piano would, so transposing up an octave would get you there. A lot of the time the guitar is reading the piano chart to begin with -- should I assume that a lot of thought went into what the guitar should do differently?

But, I also think that guess is sometimes wrong. When you see three or more ledger lines above the staff, you can't transpose it up an octave.

An aside: on a guitar chart, you often see slash marks. I asked an arranger what he wanted when he wrote slashes. His answer was "comp appropriately". I guess the opposite extreme would be to write out every chord, in rhythm. That would be very difficult to read and maybe mind numbing if you actually could read it. Part of the challenge. Every big band I've played with has a tendency to call tunes you've never heard and never seen a chart. Sometimes there's a word or two about rhythmic feel. Slashes. No indication of what to play until you hear the rest of the band.

In the moments you have before count-in you've got more important things to do -- like make sure you've got all the pages open, in the correct order, that you're in treble clef (or not) for your single note parts, you know where you're supposed to solo, if at all, and you understand the roadmap. And then, you can start to think about comping rhythm.

The point I'm making is that which octave isn't the only decision you have to make.

If anybody knows more about this issue, please post. I think it's a hole in my knowledge.

I'm playing a show right now ("Mean Girls") where the orchestrator has 8va lines all over the place; sometimes going as high Eb on the 23rd fret!
He even has a symbol (15ma) which I suspect is up two octaves, which hits the 24th fret, which my Parker doesn't have.
Then I'm also taking the mandolin part up an octave on sight, because I'm playing everything on guitar.
One uke part has two rows of chords, a perfect 4th apart, and I had to listen to the original stage part to find the one that in the key that we're playing in. To confuse matters more, another uke part only has one row of chords, so why the difference?

The entire book has practically no slashes, so every chord is notated rhythmically, with a slew of 16th note rhythms.
Then I go to my big band gig and there are very few 8va's (except Sammy Nestico was fond of using them), but are numerous syncopated lines in cut time, which are impossible to play in time, even if you could take the book home and practice them (you can't).
It used to be that playing the big band parts made it easier to play a 97 page show book; now they're expecting us to be all EVH's and shred!
One number in the show book has the directions in the beginning, "The Cars meets Green Day Meets the Killers".
I'm a moral man; I don't want to kill any cars on a green day...LOL!

[deacon Mark]

One thing to practice is transposing while you sight read. I read a tune and then transpose up or down a whole step or even more. What I do then is read the tune in another position on the guitar but in my mind, I am still in the original position. It works for things not real complicated and bails me out of many situations.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'm playing a show right now ("Mean Girls") where the orchestrator has 8va lines all over the place; sometimes going as high Eb on the 23rd fret!
He even has a symbol (15ma) which I suspect is up two octaves, which hits the 24th fret, which my Parker doesn't have.
Then I'm also taking the mandolin part up an octave on sight, because I'm playing everything on guitar.
One uke part has two rows of chords, a perfect 4th apart, and I had to listen to the original stage part to find the one that in the key that we're playing in. To confuse matters more, another uke part only has one row of chords, so why the difference?

The entire book has practically no slashes, so every chord is notated rhythmically, with a slew of 16th note rhythms.
Then I go to my big band gig and there are very few 8va's (except Sammy Nestico was fond of using them), but are numerous syncopated lines in cut time, which are impossible to play in time, even if you could take the book home and practice them (you can't).
It used to be that playing the big band parts made it easier to play a 97 page show book; now they're expecting us to be all EVH's and shred!
One number in the show book has the directions in the beginning, "The Cars meets Green Day Meets the Killers".
I'm a moral man; I don't want to kill any cars on a green day...LOL!

It made me nervous just to read that post!

I know that 8va is up an octave, but then I'm not sure, up from which octave?

Suppose I see a note on the third space of the staff. It's a C. Which one? Mel Bay says it's the one on the B string at the first fret.

But, the pianist, seeing the same note (because they gave me his chart with piano crossed out and guitar penciled in), plays it an octave higher. High E string, 8th fret.

Even after all this time, I don't know when to assume I'm looking as something written like Mel Bay, or something that's piano-correct with respect to octave.

As far as the syncopated lines, the horns seem to nail them, pretty much. I always figured that, in 4th grade, when I was out playing ball, those guys were practicing reading.

[Christian Miller]

YouTube transcriptions. Use settings to slow the music down


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[Reg]

God i love reading this stuff. All great and I'm not knocking... just some fun posts.

Seems like there are lots of approaches... I agree with the posts about working on the skills needed to sight read... bellson's books are standard starting point... and melodic pattern studies, along with chord recognition.

The big skill that helps me get through charts... is being able to recognize patterns or longer sections of notation which allow me to see ahead and make choices as to what I want to be Targets... Which allows me to choose what I'm going to screw up...LOL.

The other elephant in the room..... you can only sight read what you can actually play. By that I mean most can practice and get it together... but live is different LOL. And BS gigs where your sight reading... (Like the last few nights for me...LOL) ... You need to know what the chart is actually trying to say. It's pretty common to have mistakes.

[wolflen]

One thing to practice is transposing while you sight read. I read a tune and then transpose up or down a whole step or even more. What I do then is read the tune in another position on the guitar but in my mind, I am still in the original position. It works for things not real complicated and bails me out of many situations.

NOT real complicated indeed!!

When I was doing studio work..my practice routine for reading was play a half step higher than what was written..

A tune written in G ..played in Ab..

next exercise play a minor 3rd higher..

and continue until you play all intervals

now the challenge was start at slow tempo 60 and increase by 10 each new exercise

ok..I reached 100..this was reading cold and not difficult parts...

sight reading is a separate skill

[rpjazzguitar]

The pattern recognition thing is a real advantage.

Arrangers want their stuff to sound novel, so if you're playing unfamiliar charts, you often see stuff you haven't seen before, or, at least, you haven't seen it often. And, often, it's not one bar, it's several, with everything syncopated. You look at it and think, okay, I can play that, and you go over it in your mind at about 90 bpm. A moment later, the tune is counted off at 220 bpm. Oops.

OTOH, if you see accents on 1 2& and 4, you ought to be able to chunk it. That is, it's one thing, not three.

Guitar charts generally show the chord symbols above the staff and the accents on the staff, or, occasionally, in the bass clef. So, your eyes are moving to the right in time with the music, but they're also jumping up and down to see the accents and the chords. It's difficult. But, you can't complain, because the pianist has all of that, plus the left hand.