Sightreading music (NOTE: Bass Players: Go with the most-experienced in reading on bass: The decades-long top Studio Musician - experience counts, I dont work for magazines......... would suggest also, purchasing the inexpensive Elec. Bass Lines No.3 book for more note-reading and learning your whole neck, its also a great interval line book, fine ear-training. Guitar Players, reading is tough on guitar, yes, but with correct fingerings, and Jazz Guitar as well as possibly the Joe Pass/Herb Ellis Jazz Duets book, you will get sightreading a little at a time...remember, when notes are on space-space-space, thats usually a triad chord, same for when notes are on, line-line-line -- a guitar players sightreading trick..good for bassists too, either major or minor triads.) Aside from some who have asked me where I get my rhythmic ideas from (mostly latin music, some jazz riffs and even as far back as the famous arranged riffs of the great bands of Goodman, Shaw, Ellington when you dance, you automatically knew those rhythmic riffs....etc. - rhythm didnt just start in the 1960s, syncopation has always been around in music since the late 1800s - Ragtime - from what I know about and as some classical buffs will tell you, always in classical music too), there are many who would like to be able to read better so they can take advantage of the many books that are available to learn from. And the other advantage is to be able to read any music they may have to perform. Tablature reading implies subconsciously that one is not up to being able to read real music. Nothing could be further from the truth for reading bass music, its so easy its a crime not to teach it. Tablature is not used in the real music world. But learning how to read rhythms need not be that hard if you follow the easy rhythmic system of down-beats and up-beats in music - used widely by the finest of studio musicians and easy to learn. It makes all the guessing games of current teaching passe - no wonder so many fail at trying to learn how to read, theyre simply not being taught correctly. When I first teach a student (whether pro or good amateur), I put a piece of music in front of them just to quickly see what method or way they go about trying to read. They immediately jump on the instrument and begin playing away always missing the rhythm within 2 or 3 beats. Maybe a handful would read the 1st bar correctly but miss something very simple 2-3 bars later (this is out of about 4-5,000 that Ive taught). None took the trouble of looking at it first and mentally practicing it, thinking that sightreading meant just that, read without even looking at it - not true. If studio musicians did that, they might completely foul up a tough piece of music. Studio musicians always look over their music first, the skim through the cues (film word for pieces of music) - they look the cues over to see if theres a hard part, to mentally practice a minute first before ever trying to play it. Very rarely someone would pick up their instrument and play through a tough run without looking at it first tho of course, studio musicians are the best in the world (mostly symphony players). Everyone looked over their parts and some would even put in downbeat markings in tough 16th note parts to aim for the downbeats. The key? Looking for (and marking if necessary) the downbeats, and mentally doing a quick eye-practice with sometimes quiet duh-duh practice of the rhythm, so you can quickly familiarize yourself with the music, no problem. If you didnt do this and made a recording mistake, your movie and TV-film career could be over with in seconds. When music is engraved, copied etc. a bar is usually divided into 2 parts (assuming the time is 4/4 when signature sign is left without a time signature marking), that is, 2 beats of 8ths connected by a single beam and a 2nd two beats of another group of 8ths connected by another single beam, makes it easier to read. Copyists further sub-divide the bar in different combinations to make for easier reading too. With my students, I take out a fairly simple page of quarters, 8ths (1/2 beats) with varying combinations, add the downbeat markings (slashes) and make them read the rhythms by saying: duh for each note while patting their left foot (on the downbeat markings). The eye is then trained to aim for the downbeats, catching the notes between the beats as UPBEAT notes - you have only 2 choices. Reading 16ths as 1-e-an-a is handy at first, but this soon fails and becomes burdensome (youre busy trying to figure it out, vs. feeling it) as you begin to learn to really read rhythms. First you have to look at the 1-e-an-a, translating it, then try to figure out where the note fits with your foot. If you usually pat 8 beats to the bar for the 8/8 feel (instead of 4 beats) for the whole piece anyway, you can find the downbeats and be sure to write in the downbeats for the whole piece all the way through the tough part if there are many 16th notes. You can spot them as they have double-beams that connect the 16th notes, not single beams like in 8th notes. Usually the 1st note of every double-beamed group of notes is the MAJOR (1-2-3-4) downbeat if they are written correctly. (note: Ive never seen some of the odd forms, actually sort of ignorant-writings, of written music given in magazine examples! Of all the years Ive read music (50 plus years), these are very strange ways of inserting 16th rests everywhere, so dont practice those things - thats not how the real music business functions and is ignorance in print). Usually a piece has to have several double-beamed notes to warrant the 8/8 time signature, which can be quite common now in well-arranged and written music but probably not common outside of major music city centers. The approach is simple in practice, write in the downbeat slashes *directly* under the downbeat notes (get help with this as you may not know where the downbeats are - see my Music Reading DVD and Manual set in CATALOG), then: 1. With your left foot patting on those downbeats, and maybe the right hand patting along with your left foot (youre using your natural cross-crawl nerve pattern), get a constant beat established, and say the notes in a constant duh duh etc. as if doing a rap lyric. If the tempo is too fast, slow it down to a different tempo, but keep the beat steady all the time you practice it. Now say the rhythm (duhs) of either a 2-bar or 4-bar pattern all the way through 4 times, keeping the beat steady. You may memorize the rhythm, thats OK, just keep your eyes on the music, this is the visual training you need. 2. Now, pick up your instrument and play through the notes out of time - dont pat your foot, just play through the sequence of every note on your instrument 2 times. If youre really having a tough time searching for the notes, take your time, do it more than 2x but sounds like you need the heal of my Music Reading DVD course which can help you find the notes easily with the neck chart and simple easy lines to learn to read from. 3. Say the note rhythms in time again duh duh etc. 2 more times while patting your left foot (slowly in-time!). 4. Now....play the rhythm line in the same tempo (maybe slower but still with a steady beat) 4 times. You will feel like you know the pattern, that you are playing a memorized pattern, and this is OK. You are learning to focus your eyes and concentration towards the music, especially the downbeats - just keep your eyes on the music, thats an important technique to learn at this point. Youll soon start to play (and really read!) longer and longer patterns this way. Do several different patterns this way/. Mix them up, you will memorize many, thats fine, but keep your eyes on the paper anyway. For tied notes, you train your eyes to look past the tie to the next untied note - just skip over it visually, ignore the note the tie hooks onto. Youll form this habit quickly, no problem. There are many other tips in reading to do also, like when you have to look down at your instrument, you put a mental circle of where you are in your music, look down and somehow your eyes go right back to that mental circle....magic! A trick that studio musicians have used for decades, but not taught anywhere, no. This system will get you started on the right track and might seem a little hard at first because its a different (but successful) system than what has always been taught....it seems in most education systems, its simply easier to pass down some failure system than learn the right ways to teach. Ive had decades of tremendous success with this system and it works, without too much pain and in fact you can quickly learn well and have fun with it too...even little kids learn this system fast. ------------------------------------------------------------ Another quick tip: Carol Just a quick question. . . Sight reading is coming on very well.... all down to the way it is on your tutors... and have found myself, without even thinking about it reading many bars in one go. I knew it would get there but would like to ask how to keep focused when there is a difficult position switch as sometimes I lose my place. eg from 1st position to 12th etc... then looking back at the score. Would love to hear your views on this... shine some light..... (name deleted) Uk London ------------------------------------------------------------------ My reply: The quick trick of that when you have to look away from the music (usually to your instrument), is to mentally PUT a circle around the bar where you are in the music......amazingly your eyes go right back to that imaginary circle, its eerie but sure works. Another suggestion, when youre reading music from a music stand, keep the stand low enough so your eyes catch the conductors cues out of the top part of your eyes as youre reading, its easy to do - you just have to have the stand low enough. Thanks for your message, glad youre doing well! I knew you would, best, Carol Kaye --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more material to help you sightread music better, BASS players, please purchase the Elec. Bass Lines No. 3 book for more note-reading and to learn your entire neck (fingerings are marked). Also any of the other numbered books are excellent (#5 is the toughest!) for learning your rhythms and notes also. For Guitar players, please purchase the Jazz Guitar CD & guide, easy reading in that, as well as later, the Jazz Duets book and CD (Joe Pass & Herb Ellis) will help you sightread treble clef also. Its tough to learn how to sightread on guitar, remember FINGERINGs are the most-important to learn as reading on guitar is almost 1/2 fingering also. You will gradually get it just fine a little at a time. I dont teach Tab at all, its NOT a part of the real music world and will hurt your ability to eventually learn to sightread and is idiotic - youre destroying your inherent natural talents with tab....just slowly get your reading together the natural ways works, thank-you. Guitar Players: Learn your Jazz/Standards chords from diagrams, that will work to help you find the hip Jazz Improv Soloing lines fr Soloing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Recommended after Music Reading DVD w/Manual: for Standards & Jazz: Jazz Bass CD & Guide, Elec. Bass Lines No. 3 for more note-reading, and excellent interval ear training (helps to learn the whole neck also), Pros Jazz Phrases book and CD Bass, Standards I and II Bass Clef, Jazz Improv For Bass book and CD, and finally Jazz Improv Soloing DVD Course (has music in bass clef and guitar playing has a lot of playing on the 4 bass strings also). Guitar: Jazz Guitar CD & Guide has the 83-chord set needed for Standards & Jazz in diagrams), Pros Jazz Phrases book and CD Treble (also great for all treble clef instruments), Standard I and II Treble clef, Jazz Improv Soloing DVD Course, Joe Pass Guitar Style for more soloing training. See carolkaye/
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 20:03:08 +0000
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