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Learning to read the dots - Sheet music to learn with

Grangur

By Grangur,
in Theory and Technique

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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Hi All,
I've been learning to read and I've found so much of the music you see for bass either has tabs under it, so it pulls your eyes down and you go back to playing-by-numbers, or the score has no rhythm or tune to it.

I saw Jaco Pastorius in a video saying that to learn you should read and play anything and everything, well I got started and here's a few I've been using. I thought others may find it useful:

If others are interested I could post more

Beginner:
Amazing Grace - easier than Victor's version
Autumn Leaves - G Major - The bass line to the well known jazz standard. To play the "tune" see the score in the "Advanced" section - it's not too advanced really
Frere Jaques - Traditional French song
God Save the Queen - Uk National Anthem - various keys
Happy Birthday
Ode to Joy - Beethoven
Silent Night - Christmas hymn
Streets of London - Ralf McTell
The Star Spangled Banner - USA national anthem
Walking Bass Blues - a cool walking bass line from Stuart Clayton's book "Crash Course Bass". - A good book, worth a good read, like all of Stuart's books.
Wedding March - Wagner


Intermediate:
Beauty and the Beast - G Major
Crash Bass Timed Ex, Day 21 - This is a cool simple bass line from Stuart Clayton's book "Crash Course Bass" (reproduced with the kind permission of Stuart Clayton)
Crash Course Bass Exercise 38 - This is one I find challenging as there's a few places on the fretboard you can play it and it makes you move about a bit - Thanks Stuart. (reproduced with the kind permission of Stuart Clayton)
Good King Wencaslas - Christmas Carol with no reference to Christianity that I know of... strange that.
I Could Have Danced All Night - C Maj - From the hit Musical "My Fair Lady" - (This calls for a low C. If you don't play a 5, play it on the A string)
Minuet En Sol, by JS Bach
Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens / Traditional
The Blue Danube - Johann Strauss. This gives you an intro to ledger-lines and octaves; forcing you up the dusty end.
The Sound of Silence - Paul Simon
She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain - Traditional song
Simple Gifts - A Quaker hymn.

Meet me on the Corner - Lindisfarne - bass part Transcribed by MrCrane


Advanced:
Autumn Leaves - This is the score of the tune, not the bass line. To hear what this is meant to sound like, click here and listen from 0.50 onwards.
Colour My World - Chicago
On this one the chord names shown may not be right. They relate to the piano score which I worked from and simplified somewhat.
If you don't know this one, you can click here to get the youtube It's really only arpeggios, but not the most obvious ones on the fretboard.
La Marseillaise - French National Anthem


Groups and others:
Sunshine of Your Love - Cream (Bass - Beginner)
If others can post more links that would be great.

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cybertect Enthusiast

cybertect

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I've been having fun with this little app for IOS: Sight Reading Machine

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sight-reading-machine/id662692296?mt=8

Handy sight reading practice when I have a bass to hand or just on the train. It generates a tune and plays it; you can configure it to select a wide range of parameters such as tempo, key, note lengths, etc. Notably, it comes with presets for both 4 and 5 string bass.

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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When I first posted this I had great intentions of re-writing and transposing and getting a better library of pieces together. Since then life at home got complicated for a while and I've been working myself on only a few pieces and in a different vein to the first ones.

The first 2 are from a book by Stuart Clayton. I'm not going to reproduce loads of his pieces. The guy has to make a living and, in any case, he's a member here.
These are 2 I've been working having re-typed them to remove the tabs. I don't know about others, but I find tabs a bad distraction, slowing down the reading of the dots as you try to read both at the same time. So here they are in the "clean" versions.

Crash Bass Timed Ex, Day 21 - This is a cool simple bass line.

Crash Course Bass Exercise 38 - This is one I find challenging as there's a few places on the fretboard you can play it and it makes you move about a bit - Thanks Stuart. (reproduced without Stuart's permission at the time of writing, but I'm about to mail him)

The other I've worked on is the intro section from a great track from Chicago. If you don't know it, you can click here to get the youtube
I've not done the bass part, that's not challenging at all, but the keys line is better. It's really only arpeggios, but not the most obvious ones on the fretboard.

Colour My World - Chicago
On this one the chord names shown may not be right. They relate to the piano score which I worked from and simplified somewhat.

I hope you like these. In the meantime I'm about to get stuck into another of Stuart's books - The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music. Damn I hate the lack of rhythm; but it works - you actually learn to read better that way. Stuart knows his stuff and drags you yelling into the world of reading. I just can't wait to get to the stage where Tabs don't distract because the dots score is easier to read than counting frets.

I hope others enjoy this.

You may also find this thread useful too - http://basschat.co.u...__fromsearch__1

Cheers

Grangur (Edited to correct a link - Thanks Bagsieblue)

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bagsieblue Veteran

bagsieblue

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[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1378770381' post='2204617']


[url="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=88014765C749B87!220&authkey=!ACPJOveRC5_dK7s"]Crash Course Bass Exercise 37[/url] - This is a cool simple bass line.

[url="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=88014765C749B87!220&authkey=!ACPJOveRC5_dK7s"]Crash Course Bass Exercise 3[/url][url="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=88014765C749B87!219&authkey=!AAuwWooA3NQtnu0"]8[/url] - This is one I find challenging as there's a few places on the fretboard you can play it and it makes you move about a bit - Thanks Stuart. (reproduced without Stuart's permission at the time of writing, but I'm about to mail him)


[/quote]

These link through to the same file mate.

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ambient Grand Master

ambient

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I found that walking bass lines were a good thing to read, the rhythm is usually quite simple, but when there is a change it throws you 'cos you've gotten used to the quarter notes.
The important thing is that the lines usually move around a lot, you often get a lot of none diatonic notes so you have to move around and it can get tricky when you get a lot of accidentals suddenly appear.
The key's are sometimes awkward too.

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bagsieblue Veteran

bagsieblue

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[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1378809011' post='2204803']
I found that walking bass lines were a good thing to read, the rhythm is usually quite simple, but when there is a change it throws you 'cos you've gotten used to the quarter notes.
The important thing is that the lines usually move around a lot, you often get a lot of none diatonic notes so you have to move around and it can get tricky when you get a lot of accidentals suddenly appear.
The key's are sometimes awkward too.
[/quote]

yep - I find the rhythms harder than the notes, obviously especially so with trick rhythmns and heavily syncopated stuff.....

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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[quote name='bagsieblue' timestamp='1378804286' post='2204736']
These link through to the same file mate.
[/quote] Link corrected. Many thanks Bagsieblue.

[quote name='bagsieblue' timestamp='1378809656' post='2204817']
yep - I find the rhythms harder than the notes, obviously especially so with trick rhythmns and heavily syncopated stuff.....
[/quote] +1
The thing I find hardest is finding the notes on the FB fast enough to keep to the rhythm you know you should be playing. Only after that can you then play the CD or switch on the drum-machine and try to get the timing right. So each one takes some time.

Here's another :
[url="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=88014765C749B87!225&authkey=!AKnCt3nt3WXG7mw"]Scarborough Fair[/url] as this is meant to be a song from a girl about her love for a man, God help any woman singing it to the bass. But WTH

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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BTW how I do this is I write them using Musescore (free software). I type up scores I have, or download some others have done. Change the clef and the key in the software and save them as a Musescore file and a PDF.

If anyone wants the Musescore files I can load those too. I can load them to the Musescore library and you can then get them from there if you follow me there.

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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[quote name='JamesFlashG' timestamp='1378811271' post='2204837']
might have to check that program out i use Sibelius, is it similar?
[/quote]
It's similar. For the money I guess [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibelius does more, but "you pays your money and takes your choice". [/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I don't know how [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibelius First compares to Musescore. Until just now [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I didn't know about [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibelius First. I'd been looking at the full blown one - £459![/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]For light use [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibelius First at[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] £99 might be good. But Musescore is still there for free.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]What format you save files in for Sebelius? I'll check if the other is compatible (unlikely)[/font][/color]

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JamesFlashG Contributor

JamesFlashG

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Sibelius you can save as PDF, midi, wav, mp3 ( as it has built in sounds to play you r scores back) as well as a few more different ones. But i have old version and want to upgrade however i feel its a bit of a rip off and a free scoring software would be fine i think as i only use it for transcribing exercises rather

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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[quote name='JamesFlashG' timestamp='1378813612' post='2204879']
Sibelius you can save as PDF, midi, wav, mp3 ( as it has built in sounds to play you r scores back) as well as a few more different ones. But i have old version and want to upgrade however i feel its a bit of a rip off and a free scoring software would be fine i think as i only use it for transcribing exercises rather
[/quote]
Musescore saves to
.mscx
.mid (midi)
.wav
.xml
.mxl
.pdf
.png
.flac
.ogg

So it lacks the MP3, which is a shame.

[quote name='MoJoKe' timestamp='1378814867' post='2204907']
just downloaded it... looks great! just what I need!
[/quote]
Which one?

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lowdown Grand Master

lowdown

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[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1378811605' post='2204841']
[color=#282828][size=4][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]For light use [/font][/size][/color][color=#282828][size=4][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibelius First at[/font][/size][/color][color=#282828][size=4][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] £99 might be good. But Musescore is still there for free.[/font][/size][/color]
[size=4][/quote][/size]

[size=4]For £83.00, Notion 4 is a better bet.[/size]
[url="http://www.notionmusic.com/products/notion4.html"]http://www.notionmus...ts/notion4.html[/url]
[size=4]Much, much more to it, and comes with a great bunch of play back sounds (around about eight gigs) and more expansion packs avaiable.[/size]
The articulation markings work a treat and give a real human feel when playing back the score.

[size=4]You can export as PDF, Wav, Music XML, import/export Midi as well as bunch of other formats.[/size]
[size=4]The learning curve is very, very easy, and also there is an iPad version.[/size]
[size=4]You can transfer files between Desktop and Ipad.[/size]

Plenty of tutorial videos on their support page.
[url="http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html"]http://www.notionmus.../tutorials.html[/url]


Garry

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Grangur Mentor

Grangur

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[quote name='bagsieblue' timestamp='1379346217' post='2211526']
Yes, it is a good thread.
Can I nudge you to put some more links up please. It's good to be surprised by a piece of music and to try and sight read it first off without knowing what's coming.
[/quote]
OK. Bagsie. I want you playing ALL of Sunshine of your Love straight off. Enjoy yourself.

Others added today:
Good King Wencaslas
She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain
Wedding March - Wagner

Cheers

Rich

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lowdown Grand Master

lowdown

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A transcription I did a couple of years ago "Lets Hear It For The Boy"
Original was played on Synth Bass, but still a nice read for Bass Guitar.
[url="http://www.pdf-archive.com/2013/09/17/lets-hear-for-the-boy/lets-hear-for-the-boy.pdf"]http://www.pdf-archive.com/2013/09/17/lets-hear-for-the-boy/lets-hear-for-the-boy.pdf[/url]


Garry

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bagsieblue Veteran

bagsieblue

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[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1379358979' post='2211790']
OK. Bagsie. I want you playing ALL of Sunshine of your Love straight off. Enjoy yourself.

Others added today:
Good King Wencaslas
She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain
Wedding March - Wagner

Cheers

Rich
[/quote]

Great - should there be some links for these?

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1379400298' post='2212089']
A transcription I did a couple of years ago "Lets Hear It For The Boy"
Original was played on Synth Bass, but still a nice read for Bass Guitar.
[url="http://www.pdf-archive.com/2013/09/17/lets-hear-for-the-boy/lets-hear-for-the-boy.pdf"]http://www.pdf-archi...for-the-boy.pdf[/url]


Garry
[/quote]

Superb Garry - anymore???

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