Sheet music, reading it and where to start?

[FretsOnFire]

Ever since I've been playing an instrument from guitar and for the last 12 or so years the bass I've only ever used and really understood tab.

 

I'm now at the point in my journey I want to learn to read and understand sheet music but I've no idea where to start.

 

Can anyone point me in the direction of a few YouTube vids, articles etc to set me off prepared in the best direction to achieve my aim?

Edited Tuesday at 22:44 by FretsOnFire

[Geek99]

I’d start by learning the rhythm symbols first, not least as there are fewer than the pitch symbols 

[Geek99]

I’d get an app for the pitch symbols so you can practice whenever 

[Mrbigstuff]

As @Geek99 suggests the rhythm is the foundation and where I’d start if I had to again. I didn’t learn it well until someone started to write out rhythmic connotations. Once you’ve got rhythms move on to scales.

 

Once you feel ready to read some songs, try and make them ones you don’t know so you’re not sub consciously using your ear. 

[chris_b]

I learnt scale shapes, the names of the notes, where they were on the neck and where they were on the clef, and played along, with sheet music, to various simple pop songs at the time.

 

That was in pre computer age.

 

These days all you need to do is search for "Reading bass clef on youtube". There are a lot of choices. I just looked at the first few on the list and the introductions look pretty good.

[Downunderwonder]

59 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

 

Once you feel ready to read some songs, try and make them ones you don’t know so you’re not sub consciously using your ear. 

That is good advice for wanting to learn to read before you can learn to read and play walking bass parts.

 

On the other hand I had the rhythm and chart conventions down fine enough from sightreading pretty advanced treble cleft in my school days. It didn't stop me from "reading" bass clef 90% by ear live at rehearsal. I couldn't read the actual notes.

 

I didn't even know the tunes intimately or at all but I could follow the chart.

 

Can't beat that for getting up to speed. So I think using material you know to get playing along isn't such a bad idea for making progress more enjoyable and probably not slower overall. If you find yourself earing it too much it is time to play it solo.

 

A lot of written bass charts for pop tunes are pretty basic arrangements so you can be a bit hardarse about playing what is written to slow your ear down a bit too.

 

 

[Steve Browning]

Then work up to some Sammy Nestico big band bass parts!! 😄

[Burns-bass]

There are two books I would recommend my students:

Simplified Sight Reading by Josquin De Pres

 

and

 

Modern Reading Text bus Louis Bellson

 

I used to use it alongside Walking Bass by Ed Friedland. (It contains loads of simple, clear and accessible sight reading examples and because it’s jazz it uses lots of chord tones as well).

 

These will help you build a great foundation for reading. Then check out @Bilbo archive and work from there.

 

Working with a teacher is best, but the principles are simple enough to learn. 
 

I used to do 15 minute focused practice every day. You’ll crack on really, really quickly.

 

[Burns-bass]

The advice I gave is what I used to teach my post-16 students. They all went on to read much better than I do!

[BigRedX]

IMO there are two important things:

 

1. You need to practice your reading on things you actually want to play. IME nothing puts people off learning quicker than having to do something they don't like.

 

2. You also need to practice your reading on tunes that you don't already know how to play and ideally are not familiar with. If you know or have some idea of what you are supposed to be playing you'll find that you are by-passing the actual reading.

 

Also if I found that I need to be able to sight read I'd learn both the bass and treble clef.

[Burns-bass]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

IMO there are two important things:

 

1. You need to practice your reading on things you actually want to play. IME nothing puts people off learning quicker than having to do something they don't like.

 

2. You also need to practice your reading on tunes that you don't already know how to play and ideally are not familiar with. If you know or have some idea of what you are supposed to be playing you'll find that you are by-passing the actual reading.

 

Also if I found that I need to be able to sight read I'd learn both the bass and treble clef.

It’s good advice, but going too fast (trying to sight read a Motown bass line, for example) before understanding the fundamentals will lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

 

When it comes to sight reading - like anything else that’s both cerebral and physical - it’s better to build the fundamentals slowly and properly.

 

My view, of course, but based on experience. 

[Owen]

Reading is big and clever.

 

However an awful lot of written bass guitar parts are written by people who are not bassists and do not understand the function of bass. Expect lots of left hand piano parts etc. Reading for popular music is sometimes about taking the pitch but editing the busyness.

[chris_b]

When you've got started, try some of the various Bach for bass YouTube videos.

 

Bach is very good. Rhythmically it's simple, mostly multiples of 4 in the bar. There are a lot of notes to read, so Bach is very useful for recognising the notes on the stave and translating where they are on the bass. Also you won't recognise the tunes so you'll have to be reading the dots.

[diskwave]

Agree with Bach, tons of appegio type stuff. Dont overlook Jazz too. Super useful to study. Play jazz, play anything.

[Steve Browning]

3 hours ago, Owen said:

Reading is big and clever.

 

However an awful lot of written bass guitar parts are written by people who are not bassists and do not understand the function of bass. Expect lots of left hand piano parts etc. Reading for popular music is sometimes about taking the pitch but editing the busyness.

 

Yes. I found you have to slightly turn off your bass player head to play arranged bass parts.

[chris_b]

3 hours ago, Owen said:

However an awful lot of written bass guitar parts are written by people who are not bassists and do not understand the function of bass. Expect lots of left hand piano parts etc.

 

It was like that in the 60's and 70's. Sheet music was written out by piano players, who were paid by the song, so the bass parts were an afterthought, about 20% correct, if that!

[lksmks792]

A couple of years ago I took the 'Simple Steps to Sight Reading' course at Talking Bass (just the volume 1 I think). Helped me out a lot in learning to recognize different rhythms etc. 

Mind you, I did learn to read music as a kid decades ago, so not all of it was new to me.

The Talking Bass course isn't free (and not exactly cheap), but Mark is great and there's a ton of material. He does do discounts now and again.

I'm learning the double bass now and I'm reading both treble and bass clef regularly, so I'm very happy I did learn back then.

[fretmeister]

Stuart Clayton has an excellent series of bass reading books - they really helped me when I started doing this.

Ed Friedland has a great one too

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bass-Guitarists-Guide-Reading-Music/dp/1912126435?crid=3CZFEX7IRCGYR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xpFsn7OUe28I47Kz9OxezivGCPTIWXdAeO1NsTGrM34tYiyjPop_7F8Mxwxy9Vj9kUc0ok1IchLdVU908iuOPtEPKeFXZQjM_rGnFi0m3CfndhEwUQL4E8vgN72hONLpyNwc6bqi1fNDbhgykhlyNZyGC8ok1THp4Ewslhsm6YQ8j2UKKjABXQTo69mDFIHqWn2Mu343G876gpDjSRNzL3qj_vkEeB7ZS9kmA4wk4A-UFgzKP291Y9tcW2aMPGLZ0dHmRHSpJYlLSEdXD6xx__nPJlFlolUWg5JgrDTI4gOFmI3dx4nTAZbD6UmsKI_DAWAzMTcZdan65dcPgLxLZHmvnhrjQcpitbDLKRb2IgSAqnsLcj_o0p_hazlwxEjFpXhjJvbGm6dvSO_CJ0aVtChjObnWd7Lfb_o0ynrWtgD5vqA8kIRPa120nIO51gcj.fkPNu6SGXyE68VslNB9mWsxvLG4bWAjZrI1h4V4qfos&dib_tag=se&keywords=stuart+clayton+bass&qid=1742993633&sprefix=stuart+clay%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-9

 

 

 

Then as BRX said - you must make sure you are reading and not remembering. For that I got a load of double bass and bass clef trombone example exam pieces. They are available for a few quid on Amazon - Grades 1-5 come in one book and then 6-8 in another. They are sightreading tests / examples of about half a page each in various key and time signatures. Very easy at Grade 1 and get harder from there. There's loads of them in the book so you can be sure you are reading them and not remembering them. I use these:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1860960340?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1848493606?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3

 

I just ignore any mention of bows. The notes are the same after all. A lot of trombone is written in bass clef too.

 

When you start you kind of play phonetically like learning to speak words. Sounding out longer words in sections. Just like a kid learning to speak. Then as you get better you don't have to do that anymore - you have built a memory of a pattern that makes an entire word. The same happens in music. So if you see a 4 note run in a particular key eventually you'll see it as a single task rather than 4 individual ones.

 

Practice frequency is vital. So many people do 2 hours on the weekend but nothing else. That doesn't work well. Doing just 10 mins a day is far more productive as it is constant reinforcement - just like learning English. The brain is far better equipped to learn that way as it keeps drip feeding the information and habits into the memory. 10 mins dedicated reading practice every day is perfect to begin with.

 

Very best of luck - learning to read really opened up all of music for me and eventually got me in a 25 piece big band where reading was always needed.

It's a brilliant skill, and it means you can pitch up and play with far more people, there's far more music published in standard notation that tab and you can dip into the bass clef of piano pieces too - I have to do that a lot.

 

 

[alibabu]

There are a couple of apps available where you can input music by tapping on a virtual guitar or bass fretboard, and have the result transcribed to standard notation or tab.
It could be a good start to use bass lines you know, see how it looks in notation, and eventually you will be able to go the other way around.

I do not have any special recommendations, but I think Garageband and Guitar Pro are two options. There is also an app called Notion that can do this.
As several others have suggested, reading rhythm is a good start, and then move on to reading note values.

Good luck!

[BigRedX]

As someone who understands the various musical notation symbols but can't actually sight read, when you are practicing how do you know if you are doing it right?

 

If you have even a passing familiarity with the music your are trying to read then it could be argued that you're not always actually reading but relying on previous knowledge of the piece along with some musical conventions that you have picked up along the way in regard to key etc.

 

And when you have a new piece of music to practice your reading from how many times can you use this before much of it becomes playing from memory rather than playing from the score?

[fretmeister]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

As someone who understands the various musical notation symbols but can't actually sight read, when you are practicing how do you know if you are doing it right?

 

If you have even a passing familiarity with the music your are trying to read then it could be argued that you're not always actually reading but relying on previous knowledge of the piece along with some musical conventions that you have picked up along the way in regard to key etc.

 

And when you have a new piece of music to practice your reading from how many times can you use this before much of it becomes playing from memory rather than playing from the score?

This is why there are different expectations of playing ability linked to the grade the player has achieved.

 

For example, a grade 6 player ought to be able to play grade 6 pieces with practice and that includes memorising / being familiar with them. It’s the difficulty of the piece that makes it grade 6. A grade 6 player would not be expected to sight read a grade 6 piece to performance standard the very first time they see it but they would be expected to be able to do that with a grade 3 or four piece.

 

There is always memory involved. Just like when you are reading a book you are not reading individual letters or even phonetics anymore because you have a memory of how the word looks as a single piece of information. That happens in Music as well.

 

As for the question, how do you know if you are playing it correctly? If there is no access to a teacher, there are some apps available that will scan standard notation and play it back to you. They are not always the most accurate things in the world but certainly for simple pieces they do very well.

[petebassist]

I learnt using simple walking bass lines for jazz and blues - even if I don't know the particular tune I can tell when I'm hitting the right notes as they harmonize.

Also, Bach pieces for bass are brilliant for this. 

[jonno1981]

I learnt to read using this book. There may be better options on the market now but it did the trick for me. I gave my copy away a few years but if I remember correctly, at least the first half is just reading rhythms only, no pitches. 

https://amzn.eu/d/3fZme6k

 

[fretmeister]

26 minutes ago, jonno1981 said:

I learnt to read using this book. There may be better options on the market now but it did the trick for me. I gave my copy away a few years but if I remember correctly, at least the first half is just reading rhythms only, no pitches. 

https://amzn.eu/d/3fZme6k

 

I forgot about that. I have it too.

 

Great book.

[Downunderwonder]

20 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

Then work up to some Sammy Nestico big band bass parts!! 😄

Good call. Sammy Nestico bass parts are really nicely written for anyone who isn't up for ad lib walking off chords for awhile yet.

 

They make sense to a bass player unlike some other people's that seem to be written by someone without a clue what a real bass player is doing. Sure they are right notes, but not the right ones!