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Rpjazzguitar's post:
I can answer for myself. I'm not sure how common this is, although I suspect that people who know how to read are fairly likely to find situations where it's required.
I lead and play in small groups. Mostly Brazilian jazz. Sometimes the guitarist has the head, sometimes a written-out harmony. I can read them.
The harmonies tend to be complicated and frequently modulate to other keys. I get through that substantially by knowing the names of the notes in the chords and scales I use -- if I have to think to avoid clams. I know some other ways to get through changes, but knowing the notes is my main thing. Obviously, a lot of people manage differently.
In big band playing the guitarist, fairly often, has written out single-note parts, not just chords. I play in two big bands and an octet and all the books have this sort of thing. Some more than others. It can be harmonizing the head, playing a countermelody to the head, playing backgrounds behind solos, shout choruses or whatever else the arranger came up with.
One of the bands is a rehearsal band that gigs occasionally. The book is more than 500 tunes and I have so far only once played a tune twice. It's read or leave. Not for everyone, but it exists and I enjoy it."
So first off that sounds really stressful and high pressure.... even if I were a perfect sight reader, the idea of some dude putting it in from of me and saying "play that you c--t" feels like work not pleasure!
Does this really ever happen like this? I mean, ok say you've got a meet up with your band next week..... will they not say 'here's the tunes a few days in advance' so you can go off and prepare? Or is it normal for stuff to get sprung on you? feels rude to me!
It reminds me of that film a few years ago, 'Whiplash' about that drummer that lost the plot due to band pressure.
Another thing, if everyone is sight reading a tune, what is the quality of the playing like? If everyone is tentatively feeling their way through a tune for the first time, its gonna sound ropey no, even with the best musicians. How do you put yourself into it, accents, expression etc if it's the first time you've ever played the thing?Last edited by KingKong; 04-07-2023 at 08:47 PM.
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11-08-2022 07:43 AM
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My understanding is that the situation you describe of having to sight-read something is in certain jazz circles not uncommon, since the idea is it fosters more spontaneity. I am pretty sure that this was the case on some famous Miles Davis and John Coltrane recording sessions.
Originally Posted by KingKong
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Hang on, so there are actual recordings where people sight read something for the first time ever on the take? Originally Posted by James W
Any idea where I can find these? I wanna check them out to see what they sound like.
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Before this thread gets closed I wanted to just say one thing. Any time opinions are stated in absolutes, arguments prevail and feelings get hurt. I have things that work great for me and continue to try new techniques and processes in my continuing journey. Despite the fact that I am an old dog, I am happily learning new tricks. The day I stop growing musically is the day I might as well be put out to pasture and give it up.
I consider Django, Joe Pass, Johnny Smith, and Tuck Andress, (and many more guitarists of all genres), to be geniuses. Some are sight readers, and some couldn't read a note as big as a barn. The common thing about all of them is their playing was or is brilliant and we can learn from any and every one of them. How they got where they were is totally different for each one.
For whatever my opinion is worth, I say that the only absolute I can thing of is that nothing is absolute.
Thank you and don't forget to tip your server.
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Originally Posted by KingKong[I
LOL... this is very common with pro JAZZ PLAYERS. That's the point .... we sight read just like we talk or walk. It's just another skill. Part of that not staring at your fretboard while playing... except for effect, LOL. I work with lots of different rhythm section... when we sight read, we can also verbally talk and make charts better... and have fun while playing. It's like walking and chewing gum.
Part of sight reading is being able to make quick analysis of chart... and understand.... musically what's going on.
This takes the place of needing to memorize or practice the tune. And yea the quality is usually very good.
who cares, right
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Look up studio guitarist and reader extraordinaire Tommy Tedesco. Originally Posted by KingKong
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Giant Steps (though of course Coltrane himself knew the material and had practised it - which is bound to be the case always that at least one person on the session already knows the material) Kind of Blue, In a Silent Way - this latter one famous for Miles removing the chords in the title track since John McLaughlin said he'd need some time to prepare it. Originally Posted by KingKong
Loads of others, too. I recall reading about Charlie Parker writing the head down for a tune on his way in the car to a recording session - all very off-the-cuff... His players would be expected to read it on the spot.
Point is, you ought to be able to sight read if you are interested in jazz (yes, there were/are people unable to read, but they are exceptional and no excuse IMO)...
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Sight reading music is just like sight reading a book... A person can live their lives just fine without being able to read a book, but being able to read makes for a more enriched and enjoyable life. The same is true for sight reading music...not required, but being able to do it enriched my musical life (in my opinion)
-Charley
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Sight reading can be fun; you get a sheet of music and then you get to hear what it sounds like, instantly.
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Well, that was refreshing. A bit dicey in parts but we got through it. But I'm not sure I actually learnt anything from it. And the thought of having to do it in every other key is a bit depressing really. I'd rather do different tunes and broach new ground.
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Oh! You mean not just guitar? Moment's Notice by Coltrane got its name because they played it at a moments notice, with crazy changes. While it is. harder on guitar because of the many choices to play the same note, I sight read on sax, clarinet and flute all the time.
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JGF Post of the Day! Originally Posted by Reg
Marinero
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I like this, its very nice. Fair play to you for having the guts to post it given the large amount of assholes on here ready to rip people to shreds. Originally Posted by ragman1
I can tell that you're not a fluid pro ( no offence intended) , BUT, if that were shared with another instrument like a trumpet and your solos were intermingled you could play that to people no worries and they'd think u were great!
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Many, if not most of the charted commercial recordings you’ve ever heard were sight read by the studio players who were brought in to augment or ghost the named artists. Many famous bands had / have different touring and recording personnel so they could record new and “B” tunes perfectly to fill out an album. The touring bands then had to learn how to cover “their” tunes live. Fagen and Becker were famous abusers of studio guitarists - they either wrote or expected improvised solos that few could play. So they pieced together parts of a solo from multiple takes by the best in the business just to get one that satisfied them. Originally Posted by KingKong
Before jingles, commercials etc were recorded part by part on computers, they were made live in studios by players who’d never seen or heard the material. Back in the spring of 1968, I was fortunate enough to have met and played one concert with Stan Free. He was a leading session keyboardist in NY and played everything from Canada Dry commercials to rock and roll. He played the pipe organ solo on Del Shannon’s “Runaway”. He told me that studio time for live recording with a band plus engineers etc cost the sponsor or producer of a session thousands of dollars an hour. If you couldn’t play your parts perfectly, including all written dynamics etc, even one mistake cost too much money and you’d never be hired again for top level work. This is why there were / are so few top studio pros and why they’re in such demand. They can play anything right the first time they see the score or get specific instructions from the producers.
The comparison between reading music and reading books is apt. Reading proficiency is usually described in terms of that expected from a student at a given grade in school. Sight reading music is equally definable, but we don’t do that. A lot of players have trouble with simple chord symbols. Some can comp very well from symbols but can’t read a note from a score. There are those who can read well enough to use a lead sheet to remind them how to play a melody they know or with which they’re at least familiar. Very few can play melodies from a score that’s brand new to them, and even fewer can play chords from notes on a score.
Today, there’s electronic correction of pitch, timing etc that lets engineers fix imperfections in playing that would have stopped a session years ago and required a retake. But at the top, the best are as good as ever.
As I said in the thread that spawned this one, you only need the skills to play what you want to play the way you want to play it. But many out there can read a score well enough to put it on a recording without a run-through or with only a quick take before capture. And you’ve heard thousands of such performances without realizing it.
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This is how most professional jazz recordings are made when someone brings an original tune or arrangement to the recording session, that is certainly the impression I get from interviews, biographies and other accounts I’ve read over the years. Maybe they’ll do 2 or 3 takes sometimes, but that’s usually just to iron out a few details of interpretation or something. Originally Posted by KingKong
I don’t really understand why you don’t think professional jazz players can do this. I have seen players on a gig subbing for someone else and playing a chart flawlessly first time. It’s the same for professional orchestral players.
Don’t forget a lot of jazz players (e.g. the famous ‘Wrecking Crew’) made good money on the side by doing session work for film, TV, other genres etc. In those jobs you usually did not get called again if you messed up, time was money.
Of course if you are an amateur still learning, that’s different, you may want to prioritise other skills. But ability to read is incredibly useful.
My own sight-reading is not particularly great, but that’s mainly because I don’t do enough of it.
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One of my students is with me because he went to a jazz camp where they put music in front of him and he was expected to read it.
I've got two other students who are classical guitarists doing exams. They have to read. In fact you are missing out on so much beautiful music, such as baroque, by not reading.
Then I have a few other students who I'm getting to read so that they can play melodies from sheet music without any outside help.
Coming from a rock background I had to learn to read for my own classical exams. I read through the Leavitt volumes twice and it set me up for life.
Recently I got asked to duet on a piece and they send me notation.
So for me personally reading is important. If you are on a different path and don't need to read that's cool too.
Also in order to read you need to know the notes on the fretboard which is also very handy for writing, improv etc.
However having said that when I improv when playing solo guitar live I don't think of the note names as I know where the notes are.
When thrown in an unfamiliar situation though you'd best know where those notes are.
The majority of my income comes from music so I have to read.
Try some of those baroque pieces. They are very beautiful
Edit; If you like take a listen to A Kind of Blue. That's all reading and charts. Such a great album.
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None of the settings I mentioned hand out the charts or even pick the tunes in advance.
You're expected to read the stuff cold. And a lot of the material is original, not familiar songs.
That's two big bands I play in regularly and two more in which I sub. Also, an octet and some small groups. Sight reading is expected in every one of those situations and there are a lot of players who can do it. Mostly, but not entirely, the stuff sounds good the first time.
I played one last night. The leader rifled through his book and picked a tune. I then had to look for the guitar chart and sometimes it wasn't there. So then I have to see if it got in the piano book (one pianist apparently preferred reading guitar charts when there was no guitar and left the charts in the piano book). If not, the pianist took a picture of the chart with his phone and gave me the paper copy.
For several tunes, by the time I'd spread out the chart on my stand, the leader was starting to count it in. I didn't have time to even glance at anything. The pianist, who typically has the hardest chart to read, did it from his phone and nailed everything. It all sounded good.
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Almost every commercial agency that books multiple bands under its name for weddings etc uses a set of charts common to all its bands. Apart from the absolute top tier, most use straightforward charts with no tricky bits, so that subs and new members can jump in cold without altering the sound. Originally Posted by grahambop
I’ve played for several years each with 3 of our region’s top wedding agencies since 1969, and none ever had a rehearsal. Many of the sidemen on those dates were seasoned touring pros. I played weddings and society balls with greats like Eddie Green, Tyrone Brown, and once or twice with Al Grey on the stand! Lou Del Negro (who was Anna Moffo’s accompanist) played piano for the band in which I played guitar at Music Associates. Even today, the few top bands still in that business are that good.
And after 65+ years of playing, I’m still not that good. But playing with people at that level was an inspiration and a true joy. They made me a better player, and for a while in the ‘70s and ‘80s I was beginning to approach a high skill level. Since I left that circuit years ago, I’ve gotten sloppy and am very grateful to have a weekly date now backing different vocalists using their charts. Reading well is a valuable skill for those who want to be able to play with and for a variety of people in their chosen keys.
Reading and playing new material perfectly the first and only time you see it is the pinnacle of proficiency and unattainable for many. I knew as a teenager that I probably wouldn’t achieve it even with ten hour practice days. It’s a main reason I didn’t pursue music as a full time career - I knew I’d never be a top studio musician, and if I was going to be a musician that was what I really wanted to be. But you can come close with enough patience and determination, if you need it to play what you want to play.
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OK, so here's 2 real-life examples:
1) I play in a good amateur level big band. We do a concert every 2 months and work on about 20 tunes for each. We play them each week and get to take home the pads so we can work on them, but generally the horns don't need to. They can play them all pretty well first time except some of the most demanding stuff. After we've done them a handful of times even those are pretty smooth. After the first time through it's mainly more attention on dynamic markings, ralls, etc. My sight reading isn't great so I work on some of the single note stuff in the guitar charts if I need to, though there's not that much - maybe in about only 10% of the charts. Where there is no guitar part I copy the piano chart and bodge a guitar version of that.
2) I also play in a big band that's mainly pro players that come along just to keep up their reading chops. No gigs, lots of challenging charts, each just pulled out and played through once, with next to no preparation time. They pretty much nail everything, but then they've been doing that all their working lives. I do alternate weeks with the pianist. There are guitar parts for about 60% of the charts, the rest I do what I can from the piano charts. Most at least have some chords written otherwise for me it's impossible to mentally edit piano notation on the fly for guitar.
Most of the time the guitar is really treated as an optional luxury so you can get away with 'informed busking' until something comes along you can actually play. On occasions they even have to do without guitar and piano and don't complain if it's just a bass and drums rhythm section.
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The usual disclaimer applies double here: I'm not a jazz guitarist*, and I can't read standard notation. On the other hand, I've been playing along with pretty able professionals in a range of genres for 25 years, so I've observed who knows what and how it works out on the bandstand. And I spent a couple decades teaching other skill sets--writing and reading--at the college level. So.
What I've observed is that "sight reading" is both a talent and a skill-set, and that the highest level of competence really is expected in a number of settings, most of which have been pointed out upthread. And the similarity to reading English is apt--for those who have thoroughly mastered the skill, it's automatic and apparently effortless, at least from the outside. (I suspect that there are some neurological and developmental machineries that govern this, but they're outside the immediate scope of this conversation.)
Nevertheless, not everyone attains that highest level--I know plenty of musicians who would not make the cut as first-call studio players despite their skill and musicality on their instruments. Others get hired for, say, pit bands but do need some rehearsal to get through the score. And so on.
I suspect that that is just the result of the inevitable uneven distribution of "talent," reinforced by an uneven distribution of experience/hard training. The guys who tolerate me every Thursday all sight-read well enough to get through a Real Book chart when a patron requests something outside their usual repertory. Everybody in the band has had conventional college-level music training, and the sax player is a veteran of the Air Force bands, while the keyboardist spent his undergrad years doing solo piano-bar gigs. (His day job: physicist/rocket scientist.) On the other hand, I'm not sure that their reading skills account for their musicality--that's a different set of traits, which also are rooted in the intersection of talent and acquired skills.
If I were to redesign my life with music in mind, I'd arrange for my parents to have a piano and for me to be introduced to standard notation by, say, age seven, which is also right in the middle of the language-acquisition/reading-skill sweet spot. Then I would not only acquire the ability to construe the notational language of music but would connect it with hearing the notes/chords/harmonies and a set of physical activities (hitting the right keys). Just as my English-reading skills connected a notational system with reading aloud (old-fashioned phonics) and an understanding of grammar and rhetoric. Adding guitar on top of piano-based reading skills would make for an interesting set of complications, but it would probably be easier than what actually happened: trying to retrofit conventional music-reading onto an ear/hands-based set of guitar skills, especially outside that neurological-developmental sweet spot. I don't know whether it would have made me an adequate soloist/improviser, but it would have gotten me farther along earlier than I have in my actual life.
* I am an unapologetic, enthusiastic, and reasonably competent swing rhythm player. Just don't ask me to solo. But jazz has had a huge effect on my singing.
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"I’ve played for several years each with 3 of our region’s top wedding agencies since 1969, and none ever had a rehearsal. "
Nevershouldhavesoldit
Hi, N,
I never heard of that concept when I was playing full-time. What we did in Chicago was the usual word-of-mouth referrals through your associates or, in desperation, called the Union for a player when everything else failed. The former was always successful since you knew the guys or trusted the referral. However, you could get some real "boners" from the Union and I threw a couple of musicians off the stage during a gig when they couldn't read the charts and were ad-libbing. Your system also sounds like a great way to know who the top players were in your area. Interesting.
Marinero
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Reminds me of an old story - not sure if anyone remembers it but me - but it made a huge impression at the time. This was back in the day when Johnny Carson moved to Hollywood and had a stellar band led by Doc Severinson. This particular night, one of the guests happened to be Buddy Rich from the days when he was touring with a big band with a lot of young, college trained monster players using some fairly sophisticated charts. After the usual conversation, joke telling session, Rich was asked to do a number with the Tonight Show Band. I'm sure there might have been some slight rehearsal earlier but not sure. Anyway, Rich goes up, sets behind the drums and tears it up for about 5 minutes on one of the tunes from his band. Finishes up to wild applause, goes back to the couch and tells Carson that his band has been playing that chart on the road for 6 months and these guys (Tonight Show Band) just sight read it better than my guys who play it every night.
So, yes Virginia, there are people that skilled out there - you are just probably not running into them in your circles.
As another example: For many years, I've made a large part of my musical income from playing local (amateur) and Equity (professional) theater. First show I ever did was 'Evita' (Andrew Lloyd Webber) and it about scared me to death! After that was numerous runs of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', 'Best Little Whorehouse In Texas', 'Little Shop of Horrors', and somewhere approaching 600 performances of 'Always..Patsy Cline' playing lead guitar and doubling on pedal steel. I got these jobs because I could read the notes and, trust me, most theater arrangers really like writing stuff in Db and Eb as well as changing time signatures several times in a line to make things work with the dialogue. The last 'Patsy' show I did a couple years ago had a band made up of myself, a drummer, a bass player and a musical director/pianist, none of whom had ever met. We talked/played through the score once, played through once, played through with the lead vocalist (Patsy) once, did one day of tech rehearsal for staging and lighting, then opened the next night to a standing ovation and rave reviews. Oh, and there were quite a few tunes in Db and Eb with modulations - and you couldn't just move up two frets and play the same thing. It sounds to me like you've never been exposed to any musical situations requiring a higher level of skill.
Personally, I like a challenge and by meeting these challenges, I've been called back for more work because they know they can depend on me to deliver what's required in a professional manner. I mentioned on another forum recently in a discussion of someone wanting TAB for classical guitar tunes, that, you'll never be an adequate classical guitarist without knowing how to read. The person replied that he had no interest in being a professional player but, to me, there's absolutely no need to play if you're not striving to play at a professional level but, I guess, if you want to be a campfire player, that's up to you.
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There's the old joke about the guitarist who says "I don't see what the big deal is about sight reading. I've only been called for one reading gig, and that was thirty years ago.."
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As a hobby player, I get to enjoy playing music that would otherwise not be accessible to me.
As an example, I have all of Stan Ayeroff's books of arrangements, and none have TAB because that was from the days before all guitar music included TAB.
I also have other books containing arrangements of pop tunes arranged for classical guitar and again, no TAB. So, to me, not being able to read eliminates much enjoyable music.
Of course, not everybody would be interested in playing this music. For me, the more different arrangements I am exposed to, the better my own vocabulary for arranging.
Tony
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Well, times have changed, and the likelihood of a guitarist being able to make a decent living playing jazz becomes smaller and smaller each year. I played a lot of jazz over the years, it's what I relished and what I listened to the most, but my classical guitar studies early on opened a door into making a living that really enabled me to play jazz for the terrible pay that usually went with it. I also played classical gigs, and eventually flamenco, along with the various reading situations that came up, such as a last-minute sub doing Man Of La Mancha with the national tour starring Robert Goulet, great book for someone like me who was into flamenco but, unlike most flamencos, could read the score. I was able to score some nice studio work during the daytime, doing commercial jingles and even doing some writing, which payed better than playing. I still take an occasional Broadway show gig, and I have spent the last 12 years as Music Director for a very versatile singer, writing his arrangements and hiring the players; I don't know how many gigs we've done, hundreds for sure, but we never had a single rehearsal except for the two of us getting together to work out the keys and structure of a new tune. I always hired experienced jazz players: they could read and swing, and I left space for them to improvise, even on the Italian or rock tunes we did, along with the Sinatra/Bennett tunes. The guitar makes is easy to ignore many of the skills other instrumentalists take for granted, because it's so easy to play a popular tune and sing along with your accompaniment, but the exploration of the reading and theoretical aspects of applied music is what made me a professional, thus giving me my lifelong work-avoidance program.
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