Sheet music, reading it and where to start?

[Downunderwonder]

12 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?

What you may not realise is players on stages often aren't reading the music hardly at all. It's a memory jog and backstop failsafe unless coming in cold.

 

I saw a jazz concert once where it was a pickup band for the touring artist doing his original material. The bassist mainly had his head in the book because they only put it together a couple of days prior. He was an absolute animal.

[BigRedX]

13 hours ago, fretmeister said:

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.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication I get from people advocating being able to read (meaning sight read) is that you can play any score, so long as it is within your technical ability, on first look and not make any glaring errors. AFAICS the only way you can get up that standard of reading is by practicing using pieces that you don't already know. Otherwise the music is just a memory aid.

 

The other thing about reading I never understand is those people who play multiple instruments, but can't read for all of them. How does that come about?

[Downunderwonder]

17 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication I get from people advocating being able to read (meaning sight read) is that you can play any score, so long as it is within your technical ability, on first look and not make any glaring errors. AFAICS the only way you can get up that standard of reading is by practicing using pieces that you don't already know. Otherwise the music is just a memory aid.

 

The other thing about reading I never understand is those people who play multiple instruments, but can't read for all of them. How does that come about?

Indeed, sight reading is a skill of its own that can be developed. You are reading in shorthand when you are at your limit. There isn't time to read the actual dots. 

 

Additional instruments played but not reading have been learned by ear.

[diskwave]

5 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

What you may not realise is players on stages often aren't reading the music hardly at all. It's a memory jog and backstop failsafe unless coming in cold

Yep, cite Andre Rieu...Theyre playing tricky classical pieces which need to be bang on yet you see them looking at each other laughing and having fun which is part of the shtick. I think being a competent reader comes into its own if your a pro and doing different stuff day in day out. You wont get any theatre work unless you can read like a book.

 

Just found that Stu Clayton book, forgot I had it. Its good and pretty funky too which is fun.

Edited Thursday at 09:13 by diskwave

[fretmeister]

21 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication I get from people advocating being able to read (meaning sight read) is that you can play any score, so long as it is within your technical ability, on first look and not make any glaring errors. AFAICS the only way you can get up that standard of reading is by practicing using pieces that you don't already know. Otherwise the music is just a memory aid.

 

The other thing about reading I never understand is those people who play multiple instruments, but can't read for all of them. How does that come about?

 

You're half wrong / half right

 

If you read a novel you've never seen before you can read it. If it's a kids book you could go stand at speakers corner and read it out first time to performance level.

If it was a technical manual for something you have no experience of, containing words that you have never seen before, then there's a good chance you'd stumble over the pronunciation of those unfamiliar words. You might recognise parts of the work, like a prefix that is used for many things but perhaps not the entire thing. But for that kids book you are still remembering that when you put the letters "RALLIPRETAC" in the right order it says Caterpillar. Memory is necessary for reading.

 

When you sight read something you have already played you are doing multiple tasks:

 

1: Reinforcing things you already know. Reading, even English, is a perishable skill given enough time. Reading things you know stops the memory files from degrading.

2: Building confidence in reading things you haven't seen before but have common elements. A common beginning or ending of a phrase or word (music or English) narrows the unknown element down.

3: Increasing your pattern vocabulary. Within a set key signature there are a limited amount of correct notes and so within a bar there is a limited way of setting them out. So just as every novel will use the word "and" there will be very common note progressions in a wide variety of music. "And" is a pattern of 3 phonetic sounds that your brain knows how to say as one word. A run of Root, 5th, Octave is a pattern that once absorbed as a pattern and the brain just plays it effectively as one instead of loading up the brain file for Root then 5th, then Octave.

 

Reading or memorising is a bit piece dependant. Reading a Uriah Heap (or U2!) bass line is probably all memory after a few goes, so at that point the player is probably using it as a crutch or building confidence. Reading a Kyle Eastwood bass line is going to be more reading than memory, at least for a longer period. A Paganini violin piece is going to take even longer to remember.  It's just more complex. We can all memorise a 4 line limerick. Not many of us can memorise The Odyssey, but we might remember little bits of it, here and there.

 

The entire point of sight reading practice is not just the "reading" bit - it's to develop an internal vocabulary of phrases that can be accessed accurately and quickly and with enough confidence for performance. When you read a novel for the first time you are still using your memory - you know every word already but not the order that they will appear in, and this is the thing - your brain can predict future patterns. It knows that "and" is not going to be the end of a sentence. It knows that if there is a sentence of "It was the opinion..." then there is a really high chance that the next word is going to be "of" and the brain preloads that word before you get there. The same happens in music with practice. 

 

Music is a language just with different symbols for the alphabet and different rules of grammar and syntax. People progress with learning music in this way make far quicker progress - they know how to do it as they did it already for their primary spoken language. Bedtime reading with kids for 10 mins a day rather than just doing 2 hours in a Saturday is far better and it is for music too.

 

As for different instruments, a lot of that is the instrument itself or the limited range of an instrument. Most bass transcriptions are just in bass clef even when playing high up the neck, the sheet will just have a load of ledger lines on it instead of showing the treble clef as well. Just because I know where the B is on a bass doesn't mean I know where it is on a tuba - reading on a particular instrument is not just reading the notes, it is the link between the page and the movement of the fingers or mouth or both. Without that link the reading skill is weak: it needs to become as instinctive as catching a ball. I can play a little piano and I can read the bass clef for piano, but I stumble on the treble because I don't do it enough. So my left hand is pretty accurate but my right is a disaster.

 

A classical composer can read and write to an astonishingly high level: on the paper. That does not mean they can walk over to the violas and play their part on that particular instrument, even though the composer could play it perfectly on the piano or something else. Pushing the novel analogy to frankly idiotic levels: I can write an exciting ninja story. Doesn't mean I can pick up a sword and fight. But there will be a martial artist who can't write a good story but who could act out what I wrote, perfectly.

 

 

I think a lot of people who do play many instruments who say they can only read for 1 of them are probably applying a personal standard to it. I'm sure a lot of them could sit down with the part and work it out by reading it, but not to a standard equal to their main instrument.

 

It does remind me of a thing Marcus Miller once said - that in his experience the very best bassists he every worked with were all great piano players. The piano really is the biggest teacher of theory and harmony there is because of the vast range of the instrument and that 10 notes can be played at once.

 

A final thought: There are pieces that exist that even Yo-Yo Ma couldn't perform perfectly the very first time he saw the sheet. Just like the Technical Manual example above there will be many phrases (words) that he can do easily, maybe even 95% of the tune and then there will be something that is brand new to him, or has a pattern/progression that he's never seen and is outside his personal prediction vocabulary for that key signature so he'd really like to practice before getting on stage. 

 

 

 

 

[alibabu]

19 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

The other thing about reading I never understand is those people who play multiple instruments, but can't read for all of them. How does that come about?

 

Firstly, there are multiple clefs, and for brass and wind instruments, the staff is often transposed. This means that the same written note can produce different sounded notes.

Secondly, when learning an instrument, you must first interpret the actual note and then determine how to play it on your instrument. As your reading improves, you begin to bypass the note interpretation step, transitioning directly from the written note to its corresponding fingering or position. With further progress, you no longer read individual notes but recognize sequences, allowing your hands to instinctively find the best positions and fingerings for familiar patterns.

 

[fretmeister]

57 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Indeed, sight reading is a skill of its own that can be developed. You are reading in shorthand when you are at your limit. There isn't time to read the actual dots. 

 

 

Yup - it's all pattern recognition at that point.

 

To quote Billy Sheehan "If you're thinking, you're stinking!"

 

 

 

That is the best modern translation of the old "Amateurs practice until they get it right, professionals practice until they can't get it wrong" saying.

[fretmeister]

It might sound like I'm an awesome reader or something - I'm far from it.

 

I have had piano and sax lessons in the past but for bass I'm self taught.

I only started learning to read for the bass when I got press ganged into helping out at a music trust my kids attended as students.

 

I would be given the music and have very little clue but with several hundred covers band gigs under my belt I could wing a lot of things at rehearsal and then I'd go home with the sheet and write all the note names on it - for every bar. I'd practice at home so I could play it properly at the next session.

 

Then over time I would only write the name of the first note in the bar so at least I'd land on the 1 accurately each time. Then only for notes that were outside of the key signature as a reminder and for the ledger line stuff.

 

 

[fretmeister]

Actually - this thread has dredged up a memory.

 

At one gig for the Music Trust for the younger students one of the about 15 years old students from the rock band came up and said "Our bassist is sick and can't come. Can you fill in?"

 

I said "Depends whether you've got the sheet and I can muddy through, or if it's something I know already" They had played a lot of new modern metal stuff I'd never heard before.

 

He said "It's from a really old song called "Enter Sandma....."

 

I said "Don't worry, I've got this."

While dying inside at the "old" song bit!  

 

(Obviously the 15 year old drummer was better than Lars  )

[chris_b]

My band had a gig in Leeds, and the trumpet player dropped out on the day of the gig. We phoned the Leeds School of Music and got a young student to sit in. We had a partial run through at sound check. He read the parts without a hitch, but it was a Soul band so ABC stuff compared to what he was used to.

 

Reading music is like reading a book. You can be at "Janet and John" level or "Hamlet" level. Depends on the requirements of the gig and your ability. Ideally you want to be reading stuff that's below your maximum level, but I've seen interviews with Laurence Cottle and Chuck Rainey relating stories about sessions where they couldn't read what was put in front of them. Cottle said the arranger told him afterwards, "That's not what I wrote, but I like it, so we'll keep it." 

 

Very few people are going to need to play a piece at first sight, even in the West End they get practice and rehearsal time, as do symphony orchestras, but reading, at any level, is a great skill for a player to have.

[fretmeister]

3 minutes ago, chris_b said:

My band had a gig in Leeds, and the trumpet player dropped out on the day of the gig. We phoned the Leeds School of Music and got a young student to sit in. We had a partial run through at sound check. He read the parts without a hitch, but it was a Soul band so ABC stuff compared to what he was used to.

 

Reading music is like reading a book. You can be at "Janet and John" level or "Hamlet" level. Depends on the requirements of the gig and your ability. Ideally you want to be reading stuff that's below your maximum level, but I've seen interviews with Laurence Cottle and Chuck Rainey relating stories about sessions where they couldn't read what was put in front of them. Cottle said the arranger told him afterwards, "That's not what I wrote, but I like it, so we'll keep it." 

 

Very few people are going to need to play a piece at first sight, even in the West End they get practice and rehearsal time, as do symphony orchestras, but reading, at any level, is a great skill for a player to have.

 

 

That was far easier to read than the outpouring of drivel I wrote!  

[Owen]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication I get from people advocating being able to read (meaning sight read) is that you can play any score, so long as it is within your technical ability, on first look and not make any glaring errors. AFAICS the only way you can get up that standard of reading is by practicing using pieces that you don't already know. Otherwise the music is just a memory aid.

 

The other thing about reading I never understand is those people who play multiple instruments, but can't read for all of them. How does that come about?

Yep, sight reading is constantly reading new stuff. Which, if you are a "trained" classical player, you are doing all the time. Many orchestral concerts are likely to be a 3-hour rehearsal in the afternoon and then a show in the evening, and that is it. It might be repertoire you are familiar with. It might not be.

 

I do not play multiple instruments. But for me, sight reading is tied into the physical parameters of the instrument I am playing. I started reading on a 'cello. The top string on a 'cello is A. I have not played the 'cello in any meaningful way for over 40 years. When I am under pressure and not thinking, I have been known to read A at the top of the bass clef but play my open G on the Double Bass. But not on bass guitar.

 

I have also started playing a 6-string bass with a bottom F#. This means that what my hands are used to has changed, and I cannot sight-read reliably on this. I can follow chord charts when I concentrate, and it is getting easier - but I would not take this 6 string to a paying reading gig because I know that the pathways between my brain and my hands are not in tune with each other.

 

The older I get, the more I realise that none of us perceive music in the same way. I have some students who listen to ......... stuff I would not choose to listen to. But they REALLY relate to the energy and noise coming off what they are hearing, which does nothing for me. I know people who are multi-instrumentalists, and their approach to any instrument is that they pick it up, and it makes sense to them (Keys, Bass, Guitar, Drums, Reeds and Brass), so the reading is an extension of that for them. I am not wired that way, so relating the written to the instrument would be a whole new learning process.

[chris_b]

I taught myself to read music in my school band. We were a prototype Blues Brothers, and that started me off slowly. I progressed and my "peak" was being asked to do some proper commercial reading sessions. All simple pop stuff but it's a great feeling to create music from a few dots on a paper.

Edited Thursday at 10:24 by chris_b

[BigRedX]

It seems to me, and again correct me if I'm wrong, but many readers are doing the thing that Tab is criticised for which is to go directly from a note position on the stave to a finger position on the fretboard without consciously identifying the note name. And I suppose that for complex pieces this is a requirement or you simply wouldn't be able to play them. And which is why for some people reading for one instrument is not a transferable skill to another even if it uses the same clef and transposition. Also makes sense for transposing instruments where the fingering is the same but the actual note produced is different. You're not actually reading the notes per se, you are reading a fingering position and blowing technique.

 

As a composer I think the reliance on scale shapes and muscle memory limiting, and as far as possible if I find myself repeating note patterns from one composition to another (even if they are different keys) I will do my best to try something else and only revert to the original already used idea if I really can't come up with something different that is at least as good. Maybe that's why I'm not impressed with a lot of playing technique, because it often sounds like regurgitating the same thing over and over, particularly when we are looking at solos.

 

Also I find a lot of the suggestions for music to use if you want to learn to read, very uninspiring, and as exercises that would put me off very quickly. On the other hand it seems that most of the people who want to learn to read need to do so in order to land paying gigs, which I suspect will involve performing some music that they have little interest in.

[Owen]

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

which I suspect will involve performing some music that they have little interest in.

Without a doubt. But very few of us are paid exclusively for things which only bring us joy. I am actually in the privileged position of enjoying my job, but there are many aspects of it which I would happily trade for sitting in a theatre pit playing Fame.

[Burns-bass]

21 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It seems to me, and again correct me if I'm wrong, but many readers are doing the thing that Tab is criticised for which is to go directly from a note position on the stave to a finger position on the fretboard without consciously identifying the note name. And I suppose that for complex pieces this is a requirement or you simply wouldn't be able to play them. And which is why for some people reading for one instrument is not a transferable skill to another even if it uses the same clef and transposition. Also makes sense for transposing instruments where the fingering is the same but the actual note produced is different. You're not actually reading the notes per se, you are reading a fingering position and blowing technique.

 

As a composer I think the reliance on scale shapes and muscle memory limiting, and as far as possible if I find myself repeating note patterns from one composition to another (even if they are different keys) I will do my best to try something else and only revert to the original already used idea if I really can't come up with something different that is at least as good. Maybe that's why I'm not impressed with a lot of playing technique, because it often sounds like regurgitating the same thing over and over, particularly when we are looking at solos.

 

Also I find a lot of the suggestions for music to use if you want to learn to read, very uninspiring, and as exercises that would put me off very quickly. On the other hand it seems that most of the people who want to learn to read need to do so in order to land paying gigs, which I suspect will involve performing some music that they have little interest in.

 

Reading music is like reading, well, anything. You have to build the fundamentals and for lots of people that can appear boring. 

 

Where music notation trumps tab is that you can provide details of expression and it's able to convey much more complex rhythm patterns.

 

There's no hierarchy here. Music readers aren't going to be more or less creative, they just want to learn the skill of reading music.

 

Some of it is to get work, I guess. But it doesn't have to be. Can just be for the love of doing something. (My dad started to learn Latin at 70, for example.)

[Crusoe]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

Actually - this thread has dredged up a memory.

 

At one gig for the Music Trust for the younger students one of the about 15 years old students from the rock band came up and said "Our bassist is sick and can't come. Can you fill in?"

 

I said "Depends whether you've got the sheet and I can muddy through, or if it's something I know already" They had played a lot of new modern metal stuff I'd never heard before.

 

He said "It's from a really old song called "Enter Sandma....."

 

I said "Don't worry, I've got this."

While dying inside at the "old" song bit!  

 

(Obviously the 15 year old drummer was better than Lars  )

That was released 34 years ago. When I was 15 a 34 year old song would have been "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley 😭

[chris_b]

17 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Also I find a lot of the suggestions for music to use if you want to learn to read, very uninspiring, and as exercises that would put me off very quickly. On the other hand it seems that most of the people who want to learn to read need to do so in order to land paying gigs, which I suspect will involve performing some music that they have little interest in.

 

You will only play music you are interested in? OK.

 

Personally I don't see any benefit in a player placing such restrictions on themselves.

[fretmeister]

1 minute ago, Crusoe said:

That was released 34 years ago. When I was 15 a 34 year old song would have been "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley 😭

 

You are not helping!  

[fretmeister]

31 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

 

Also I find a lot of the suggestions for music to use if you want to learn to read, very uninspiring, and as exercises that would put me off very quickly. On the other hand it seems that most of the people who want to learn to read need to do so in order to land paying gigs, which I suspect will involve performing some music that they have little interest in.

 

Every covers band on earth has songs that a member doesn't want to play.

Even in originals bands there will be songs that are favourites and those that fall down the desirability list. I saw an interview with Metallica recently when they were saying that they didn't really want to play "Seek and Destroy" anymore but the crowd wanted it so they played it. The band's enjoyment was not a factor in putting it in the set list. And for non-writing members of an originals band - it's no different to being in a covers band.

 

Paying gigs have very little to do with enjoyment of the music. It's a job like any other and that comes with both boredom and excitement. If a person is really lucky - the excitement might even reach 50% of their day.

 

But anyway - there is a necessary split between learning music academically and creating art. They are different things and require different approaches. I'm sure there's loads of kids who hate caterpillars, but they read "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar" because it's been carefully written to be a good training book. Every surgeon learns how to remove an appendix on the way to be being good enough to go digging around in a brain.

 

We all learn the rules of our primary language as an academic subject while enjoying art that was created by that language along side. But they are not the same thing.

 

[diskwave]

Back to multiple instuments and any chart. I play bass well and can read it up to a point, but Im learning cello and Im darned if I can read between the two. Both bass clef but different tunings so different finger placings....Its really confusing.

[fretmeister]

47 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It seems to me, and again correct me if I'm wrong, but many readers are doing the thing that Tab is criticised for which is to go directly from a note position on the stave to a finger position on the fretboard without consciously identifying the note name. And I suppose that for complex pieces this is a requirement or you simply wouldn't be able to play them. And which is why for some people reading for one instrument is not a transferable skill to another even if it uses the same clef and transposition. Also makes sense for transposing instruments where the fingering is the same but the actual note produced is different. You're not actually reading the notes per se, you are reading a fingering position and blowing technique.

 

 

 

You don't consciously identify the letters in a word either. You recognise the whole word.

 

That isn't the main problem with tab. Tab is usually lacking rhythm information and other things like accents and so on.

But worst of all it has no genuine pitch information. E string 3rd Fret is only a G if the guitar is tuned that way. A G on a stave is always a G.

 

Guitarists (and bassists) are particularly bad for this. "Play a G" - "that's not a G, we are in drop D Tuning!"

It's a small wonder that piano / keys players haven't killed us all.

 

Standard Notation provides a common language that can be used by everyone on any instrument. Tab does not. Tab can be a barrier to effective communication. Not a problem in a small band or one where all the instruments are guitar based, but as soon as any other instrument is added then the problems are there. Can't hand Tab to a keyboard player and ask him to sight read it!

 

Don't get me wrong - Tab is a useful tool to get beginners playing something they recognise quickly. That's inspiring, and inspiration and encouragement is vital for progress, but it's limitations are massive.

[fretmeister]

15 minutes ago, diskwave said:

Back to multiple instuments and any chart. I play bass well and can read it up to a point, but Im learning cello and Im darned if I can read between the two. Both bass clef but different tunings so different finger placings....Its really confusing.

 

I tuned a bass in 5ths after seeing some pro do it that way.

 

I lasted about 3 days before putting it all back!  

[BigRedX]

2 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

You don't consciously identify the letters in a word either. You recognise the whole word.

 

That isn't the main problem with tab. Tab is usually lacking rhythm information and other things like accents and so on.

But worst of all it has no genuine pitch information. E string 3rd Fret is only a G if the guitar is tuned that way. A G on a stave is always a G.

 

Guitarists (and bassists) are particularly bad for this. "Play a G" - "that's not a G, we are in drop D Tuning!"

It's a small wonder that piano / keys players haven't killed us all.

 

Standard Notation provides a common language that can be used by everyone on any instrument. Tab does not. Tab can be a barrier to effective communication. Not a problem in a small band or one where all the instruments are guitar based, but as soon as any other instrument is added then the problems are there. Can't hand Tab to a keyboard player and ask him to sight read it!

 

Don't get me wrong - Tab is a useful tool to get beginners playing something they recognise quickly. That's inspiring, and inspiration and encouragement is vital for progress, but it's limitations are massive.

 

The only printed tab I have come across was in a book I got in my early days of learning the guitar, back in the 70s. It included rhythm information and because it was aimed at slide guitar had the tuning for each piece as many of them were in open tunings. It also had traditional musical notation above the tab. Until I saw tab on the internet I assumed that all tab was done like this.

[fretmeister]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

The only printed tab I have come across was in a book I got in my early days of learning the guitar, back in the 70s. It included rhythm information and because it was aimed at slide guitar had the tuning for each piece as many of them were in open tunings. It also had traditional musical notation above the tab. Until I saw tab on the internet I assumed that all tab was done like this.

 

 

I think it used to be. I've got loads of books that contain both - all bought before the internet. Same for the guitar magazines of the day. 

Doesn't seem very common these days.

 

I haven't bought a tab book for donkeys so I don't know about newer published books. Or even if books like that are still published in light of all the free stuff on the web.