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[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 18, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Bilbo]

It is a common problem. Bass parts are written an octave higher than they sound and MDs are often forgetting this fact and writing well below the range of the instrument. It is an occupational hazard, I am afraid, one that you will need to cope with as your career as a reader moves forward.

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 18, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Gareth Hughes]

Sadly piano scores are more frequent that I'd like - which is a real pain when there's a repeat of several pages!!! One way to get used to it is to practice them on a five string bass as these below-the-stave notes are (with the exception of Bb and A) all found on the B string up to the fifth fret.

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 18, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Bilbo]

I think there is a question about how much time you are able or willing to invest in this. One of the attractions of reading gigs is the 'turn up and play' element, even with band calls/rehearsals. If I was doing a show and had to spend a fortnight rewriting/reducing the charts to make them readable or suitable for a small music stand, I might as well just learn the whole pad and do it without the charts

The issues you are dicussing are occupational hazards. Sometimes, if you work with someone often, you can talk to the MD so that future charts are better prepared. You can learn to read the extra ledger lines or refer to the chord symbols that are often present and 'approximate' the groove (depends on the piece being performed). 30 years of experience of this tells me that the lines you actually play are seldom that far from the well trodden paths of popular music and are easy enough to find, in spite of careless/poor presentation by an MD (remember, they are often doing a massive amount of work on a show 'gratis' (they often rehearse the chorus for weeks before the band are called) and have no more time to spend rewriting your charts that you have). It's a team effort.

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 18, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[SteveO]

Don't people use sibelius/ finale etc to prepare scores these days? Shifting the part up an octave is all of 30 seconds work. Mention it to the md, it's in his interest to give you something you can read easily.

[Grangur]

[quote name='SteveO' timestamp='1367244882' post='2063058']
Don't people use sibelius/ finale etc to prepare scores these days? Shifting the part up an octave is all of 30 seconds work. Mention it to the md, it's in his interest to give you something you can read easily.
[/quote] Another option is Musescore ([url="http://www.musescore.org"]www.musescore.org[/url]) this is similar and is free

But re-typing the whole of the score for a show could be one hell of a task if you're working on a 5 night run of a show.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Grangur

[Bilbo]

A lot use stock parts.

[scalpy]

This was really getting to me a while back too! Aside from trying to read the ladders the main issue for me is that often any runs don't fit bass the same way as it does on the piano. You end up effectively doing three jobs, reading what's obvious, decoding the illegible and improvising an adequate bassline. I now ask MDs to order a bass part if the budget allows it, you get a better arranged and more coherent part to play, you don't have as many page turns and you don't have to try and remember what you decided the night before as much. The one advantage of having the piano score is that you get way more cues, particularly useful with one male lead around this way!

[ubassman]

I have just got used to the fact that the 'bass parts' that I get with Wind Orchestra are rarely in the right range for the DB - comes with the patch ! I play a 4 string DB and frequently seem to get given Tuba parts as its a C instrument requires mental gymnastics if you have a 4 string DB as the Tuba has a much lower range and a 5 string is essential ( ...i know, I know GAS - 5 string is on the list !). Also get the odd bars in Tenor Clef and occasionally in treble. The absolute trick I have learnt is that when the reading gets tricky , I aim to just hit the first note of each bar or skip it entirely if I can't transpose fast enough but then hit the next bar I recognise .. knowing where you are in the flow of the music is vital.

Currently really lucky to working with some brilliant musicians in a 7 piece and in the process of transposing a repertoire of over 150 tuba parts . Writing music has really sharpened my reading and transpositional skills ...particularly those long staves and ledger lines.

At the end of the day if its a matter of playing specific dots for a specific piece of music the only way really is write out your own part from what ever you get given - it doesn't half improve reading and transposing skills having to write things out!

Edited April 30, 2013 by ubassman