Sight Reading/ Sheet music

[pes_laul]

So in jazz band today we actually started playing our instruments and being my first year I got the books everybody already had. Now I can read sheet music but I have to figure it out and stuff and I can't sight read while I'm playing. In our one warm up song I figured out like the first three notes then was just lost.

I need to work on it a ton but it should pay off in my musician ship.

Does anyone else sightread, or read music?

Any tips?

[duhvoodooman]

Does anyone else sightread, or read music?

Any tips?
I can't read a freakin' NOTE of music, but my daughter (college age now) is unbelievably good at it. She can sightread and play or sing pretty much anything you hand her. Even really difficult stuff. It's absolutely incomprehensible to me how anyone could do that, but it is apparently the rule with well-trained musicians. Of which I am most decidedly NOT ONE!

Tips? Just one--practice, practice, practice....

[sunvalleylaw]

Man, that is tough. Even when I had played years of piano, I could not sit down and sight read, and still play. I had to work through a piece step by step, and eventually memorize it to perform it well. I can "sight read" chord charts I suppose, but that is different. Let me know when you learn the secret and what it is.

[Childbride]

Kris, ironically, i have the opposite problem.

i can read music, no problem, in either clef. i know key signatures, timing of the notes, all of the italian... i can look at a sheet of music and see it in my mind.

my problem is mapping that on the fretboard, which i have been working on diligently and am now [hesitantly] making progress with.

get access to a keyboard. in my brain, i always go back to the piano, and the relativity of notes thereon. whole and half steps.

there are multiple ways to play a song on the fretboard. the key is where do you play it to maximize agility and access to the notes listed. how do you get the most economy, so that you have the most fluidity and can create the best music... not just playing the notes.

i'm still an ox in a china shop. but i am determined. b/c i know that once i get this mastered, i can quit thinking about my fingers entirely, and just play... memorize the muscle memory and play. make it my own, and evoke emotion.

[MichaelE]

Piano yes, guitar, no way. I don't even know where all of the notes of the fretboard are.

[jpfeifer]

Pes_Laul,

Huge applause to you for taking this on! I highly encourage you on this. I went through the same thing when I started playing in Jazz band during my high school years. Up until that time I had been pretty much a "play by ear" kind of guy. However I soon realized that I needed to get some skill at sight reading if I was going to play in Jazz band. It was also my dream to be a studio musician so I took it seriously for that reason too. Reading is still not my strong suit but I'm much better at it than I used to be. It's a skill that you need to practice a lot to get good at it, so be patient with yourself and start simple, but work on it every day if you can.

Here are some tips that helped me a lot:
1) get a good book on sight reading for the guitar. Guitar is somewhat unique in terms of sight reading. We have challenges that other instruments don't have to deal with such as being able to sound the same note on various places of the guitar neck. (when you're sight reading, half of the task is to figure out which position you should play out of to make it easier on yourself) For this reason, you need to practice reading the guitar in various positions to get aquainted with which keys work best in different areas of the guitar neck. The book that I would reccomend is this: "Music Reading for Guitar - The Complete Method by David Oakes" (http://www.amazon.com/Music-Reading-Guitar-Complete-Method/dp/0793581885) This is basically the sight reading course they teach at GIT. All students there have to learn to sight read. If you're thinking of playing guitar as a profession, it will greatly increase your marketability as a musician if you have some sight reading skills - go for it!
2) Sight read something (anything) every day. One of my early guitar instructors made me buy a basic clarinet book and practice sight reading from that as an exercise. He would randomly poit to a spot on the page and make me sight read it. This was great because the I couldn't use my ear to fake it, I had to actually read the notes on the page :-)
3) Learn to read in various positions on the guitar, and get a feel for which keys work better for various positions. For example, some places on the guitar neck work great for flat keys (like F, Bb, Eb) and other places work better for sharp keys (G, D, A, etc). I find that the 5th position of the guitar neck is pretty good for lots of keys, this way you can move up or down a few frets and catch most of the things you will need.
4) Start with simple tunes first and practice looking ahead in the music as you play. If you try to read everything at the instant you need to play it, it makes it much harder to stay with the music. Practice looking ahead slightly to catch the next few notes before you need to play them.
5) Practice reading rhythms separately (even just using a single note to sound out the rhythms), to get familiar with various phrases and how they look on the page. If you find a new phrase that you don't know, go through it slowly and work it out, then try to comitt it to memory so that it doesn't suprise you the next time you come across it.

Finally, never forget to use your ear! Even though you're sight reading always be listening so that you can make your playing sound natural (as if you're not sight reading), that's the main goal.

I hope this helps, -- Jim

[hubberjub]

I can sight read but that's just because I spent six years as a guitar major in college. It's not necessary but it will help you become a better musician in the long run.

[deeaa]

I can't read notes, nor understand any musical theory...I believe in VERY long run it'd be beneficial and I could soar to new heights...but having done it my way 20+ years, I know it'd also set me back for years and years if I started now...I'd have to re-think everything and I do feel I'd lose whatever mojo I've maybe collected over the years.

[markb]

You just have to put the hours in for sight reading. That's probably why I can't do it :D

[deeaa]

You just have to put the hours in for sight reading. That's probably why I can't do it :D

That, too. I play the guitar maybe 10 minutes a week outside band practice and not counting recording something maybe once a month. Basically I only play the guitar when I come up with a new song...sometimes, very rarely, I may play for a short while while watching telly alone late at night...also then, it usually ends up in coming up with a song or two.

But generally, I don't believe in practicing playing. I believe it gets better the less you do it - after a month's break I've always been able to play much better than before, and if I play a lot, i.e. almost every other day, it just kills my creativity and I start to feel my fingers get stiffer and stiffer.