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just to add a bit..
I have met some super sight readers..and studied with a guitar god..he could read piano charts cold and produce a chord melody of the tune..yikes
one guy I played with from time to time come over to our studio...just to visit..I just received the Mahavishnu "song book" he read a couple of those tunes cold
super players like Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour have vast studio and varied band experience and know many styles - inside and out -
today there are many players with degrees in music and have been playing at advanced levels for years.. sight reading is part of their skill set
sight reading for many guitarists today is almost a given..young kids new to learning the instrument think they will play some metal band tunes and by-pass theory and reading..
I met one such player..he was super fast...but could not play a basic blues progression..why? he did not know how to form basic triads or four note chords
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11-08-2022 06:38 PM
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Practice your bloody reading
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Practice in a situation where you're reading with guys who can really read. It's one thing to play the head from a RB chart. It's another when you're playing a harmony part with a bunch of horn players who are playing the part accurately. No slop. No interpretation. Start every note where it should start and end it when it should end. Melt in with the horns so that the guitar can't easily be picked out of the lineup.
When you can do that on first sight about as well as the horn guys and the pianist, you know how to read.
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I enjoy reading music. I think if I was better at it I'd like it even more, so I work on it a bit.
RE the older thread, there was some mention of not really needing to know where the notes are. I'd like to share:
In 1976 I somehow ended up in a session with some really good players. A very well known jazz keyboardist was in the control room. A few bars into my solo he calls "Cut" over the intercom, and then in a mildly annoyed voice "Guitar.... don't play C# on the D chord!" Embarrassing, but at least I knew what not to play on the second take.
Note that he didn't say "don't fret the first string at the ninth fret".
(i can't remember what the actual note or chord was)
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It is just so much easier when you work with people that are good readers and bands with organized musical directors, accurate printed charts, etc. It respects everyone's time, and makes it easier to focus on the music early on.
I've worked in a few good paying projects where people couldn't or just wouldn't read (not jazz - mostly bands of successful singers where the musicians were there for many years), and it would take like two months to get the program down. With a chart based band, we would have done it in two rehearsals max..
One of my last sessions, was this: Originally written to be played exactly as printed on classical guitar (which wasn't too bad except for all the time changes), we ended up splitting it to two guitars. So I stitched up a melody and made up a chord progression (taking quite a few liberties which the composer didn't mind). Then you have to remember the thing, hence the chord diagrams. I saved it for the looks!
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I didn't post it so I could be told how wonderful it was and all that, it was all about not really having gained much from it. And what a ghastly prospect having to repeat it in eleven other keys. And how discovering other tunes and styles was far more to the point. I was being subversive really :-)
Originally Posted by KingKong
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You write on charts in PEN? You absolute Visigoth. Originally Posted by Alter
It is just so much easier when you work with people that are good readers and bands with organized musical directors, accurate printed charts, etc. It respects everyone's time, and makes it easier to focus on the music early on.
I've worked in a few good paying projects where people couldn't or just wouldn't read (not jazz - mostly bands of successful singers where the musicians were there for many years), and it would take like two months to get the program down. With a chart based band, we would have done it in two rehearsals max..
One of my last sessions, was this: Originally written to be played exactly as printed on classical guitar (which wasn't too bad except for all the time changes), we ended up splitting it to two guitars. So I stitched up a melody and made up a chord progression (taking quite a few liberties which the composer didn't mind). Then you have to remember the thing, hence the chord diagrams. I saved it for the looks!
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I like this bit
Just teasing, Alter :-)
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That chart ruined my breakfast.
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How do you get a guitarist to turn down their volume?
Give them that chart for "So to Speak."
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Though I believe you were joking, I also had to do that. When I played in a church band for a while, the band leader (pianist) would hand me a copy of her piano score and I would quickly figure out what the harmony was and scribble symbols above as sort of lead cheat sheet. I did use pencil though. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Tony
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Pencil is fine. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
Though I believe you were joking, I also had to do that. When I played in a church band for a while, the band leader (pianist) would hand me a copy of her piano score and I would quickly figure out what the harmony was and scribble symbols above as sort of lead cheat sheet. I did use pencil though.
Tony
Pen is not.
The green ink is a nice touch tho.
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MI6green ink
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With regards to playing in all 12 keys: As others have stated doing so is often NOT the best use of one's practice time.
But I have found it very useful to learn a song in 3 keys; different keys that require me to use different chord voicings (grips).
Therefore it is nonsense to just have the POV of: just learn the voicings in 1 key and then just move your wrist up or down the fret board.
That isn't physically possible as one moves up the fretboard (e.g. playing an Eb chord): to use the same chord voicing one would have to go up an octave. Thus I learn a song in its most common key, and then 2 more keys to increase my ability to play different chord voicings but remain in the octave that I believe works best for the tune.
Thus when I play a song with a singer that request a key that isn't one of the 3 I practiced THEN I can just move my wrist up or down the fret board using one of the 3 keys that is closest to the one the singer requested.Last edited by jameslovestal; 11-10-2022 at 11:42 AM.
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One thing which is definitely useful. If you've got to learn the head of a song, learn it in at least two octaves. That's very useful.
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I'd argue for something else. I think the ability to hear a line in your mind and play it starting on any note/fret/finger is basic. Originally Posted by ragman1
So, you learn the melody the same way as any non-musician and then you can play it in any key, anywhere on the neck.
You get there with a lot of time on the instrument.
Same thing for the chords of a tune, but I find that more difficult. The wedding musicians of my NYC youth could play anything in any key without changing the bored expression on their faces.
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I meant to write Line cliche, it sounded ok over the changes.. Originally Posted by ragman1
I like this bit
Just teasing, Alter :-)
Of course the secret weapon is the pen that erases like a pencil Pretty much the only ones i use on charts/lessons/tunes these days! The green outlines the melody guitar, the blue the chordal one.
But that's an elementary chart
. I have played with a pianist that was a painter as well, and he had a concept that charts were visual art too! You could never figure out what was in them. It'd be something if i could find some, but it's been a while. That would be a fun thread, people posting the most difficult/weird charts they have come across..
P.S. I was just discussing this tune with the drummer who wrote it today. They recently played a big concert where they had a robot with them onstage, and the robot had written most of the music, and was playing percussion and vibraphone. All the robot music was in weird time, and extremely complicated.. The AI taking revenge for what i had to go through haha!
That's the robot:
Shimon Robot & Friends
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Of course! Easy when you know :-) Originally Posted by Alter
Why? Why not really beautiful?All the robot music was in weird time, and extremely complicated
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Didn't MacKillop post a performance of this a couple of years back? :-) Originally Posted by grahambop
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The guitarist is playing too loud ? Give him a score and the problem is solved.
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Haha, it’s possible. I think this is by Stockhausen, I just googled weird music scores. Originally Posted by ccroft
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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I just read a great book on David Tudor where it talks about how his methods of score interpretation changed over the years. At first he took the scores literally. He would use calipers and rulers to derive stopwatch timings and then write out his own personal performance score, basically his score of the original score. In the 50s and 60s he was THE guy composers would write for, to the point where "David Tudor" was considered an instrument unto himself.
Then the scores got too complicated for one performer and/or he got bored, so he altered his approach to have the scores only suggest things to him. One thing was to not read from left to right, but to let his eye move as it wanted over the page.
Then he dropped interpreting other people's music and started making his own with electronics.
Which seems to be the logical conclusion for the particular line of inquiry into increasingly difficult written music.
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I think I'm partially color blind because I have a hard time differentiating between green and blue. I didn't even realize that there were two colors of pen until you pointed it out! Originally Posted by Alter
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