learning to sight read

project_c · #1 12-07-2009, 10:13 AM

I'm finding that not having the ability to sight read is starting to really limit my learning. Almost all excercises in bass related books are designed for people who have a certain amount of sight-reading ability, and without this, the books become painfully slow to work through. So I would like to get up to speed with this skill as soon as possible. I can read bass clef, but it's a long process and certainly not something I can do with fluidity whilst playing.

I am practising reading a lot, and I'm getting better at it all the time. I'm aware that the best thing is to keep practising and allow this skill to develop naturally, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to speed things up.

A couple of questions:
- Is it best to practise reading without a metronome? I find that hesitating whilst finding certain notes means that my timing becomes awkward, which in turn makes me lose my place, which in turn makes me lose the will to practise. I use a metronome for everything else, but perhaps for this particular thing it may be better to turn it off?
- Can any good readers remember how long it took them to pick up this skill? Is there anything specific that really helped?
- My biggest problem is finding notes higher up on the neck, and anticipating where on the neck to play certain notes in relation to what's coming next. I think I need to become familiar with how intervals look to get past this hurdle - are there any excercises that specifically deal with this?

Any advice would be really appreciated. thanks!

shirky · #2 12-07-2009, 10:26 AM

There's probably already threads that deal with the issue, but here's my 2 cents...

Go out and buy a book of cello excercises...pick one that has a lot of notes (and is mostly written in bass clef). Bass instructional books tend to have fewer notes (you know, bass parts). If you just want a ton of notes to read, a cello book might be better.

You could also potentially just write a bunch of random notes without considering musicality, then go back and try to read it...I became a much better typist when I had to manually enter thousands of Japanese names and addresses...

Regarding getting higher on the neck - you could just force yourself to play in that position, as long as you don't pick songs with the lowest notes.

Regarding the metronome: probably ok to work things out without one first. Also make sure to start slow and work up to tempo.

Get a teacher to check your work occasionally, if you don't have one already. Sometimes you might find yourself practicing something that's actually wrong.

Good luck to you.

Shirky

Trapezius · #3 12-07-2009, 10:30 AM

My advice is to drop the metronome, it will only make you rush.. besides, time doesn't matter when you are learning to sight read. To quote our friend Jeff Berlin; separate practice from performance. It doesn't matter if you play in time when you are learning, you will play in time when you have learned the part well enough. It takes lots and lots of practice to sight read well enough to do this on stage, without practice first. Don't rush it, learn at your tempo, no matter how slow it is. It will go faster when you get more experience.

Speaking of practice, gotta practice what you preach.. *runs off to read*

MalcolmAmos · #4 12-07-2009, 11:53 AM

Yep drop the metronome and get yourself a deck of flash chords, cost about $4. You could just keep the bass clef cards and put aside the treble clef.

Yes ledger notes above and below the staff are a problem, put them into another stack and work on them separately. When you can identify and verbally say the name of the note on the card - in the same amount of time it takes you to say your name - then you are ready to play your instrument using standard notation. Which by the way is another learning curve - where is ledge note E on my fretboard?

Keep a book - your hymnal - will have hundreds of songs with the bass clef shown - by your easy chair and during the TV commercials get some reading time in.

Yep, you gotta read a bunch of standard notation to play from standard notation.

Marton · #5 12-07-2009, 12:01 PM

Yeah, playing is good, but just taking some random scores, and saying the notes name loud, slowly, and then as fast as you can. You really need to know the notes before knowing where they are on your bass, it makes much more sense.

BigOldHarry · #6 12-07-2009, 12:05 PM

AND... It's not like riding a bike. I used to be a good reader, and now I stink - - it's something you have to do continually to stay sharp (More like SCUBA than bicycling!)

Rebecca · #7 12-07-2009, 12:07 PM

I'm working on this, too. I can sight read really well on other instruments, but am new to bass and don't know the whole neck that well yet. I'm going to take some of the tips above, but I thought I'd throw in one more thing I'm doing: even if the part is written to play in the first few frets, I also practice it higher up the neck, trying to find multiple ways of playing the same thing. Getting used to the fact that I have the same note in a lot of places is one of the things I find most different about bass and challenging to sight reading (but also most useful for improv)

project_c · #8 12-07-2009, 12:36 PM

Thanks for all the great advice, it's much appreciated.
Having just played for the past hour or so, I can clearly see that my biggest problems are identifying the notes above the high C on the staff, and then finding them on the fretboard - it feels like I'm venturing into no-man's land up there. I'll try to add about 30 mins of practise time a day just to work on reading, I guess I'll just have to take it real slow and wait for my brain to soak it all up. (so much to learn, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day..)

dave64o · #9 12-07-2009, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by project_c

...
I'm finding that not having the ability to sight read is starting to really limit my learning. Almost all excercises in bass related books are designed for people who have a certain amount of sight-reading ability, and without this, the books become painfully slow to work through.
...

Actually, reading exercises are something I'm pushing my instructor into doing with me. He's kind of been resisting (he's not a great reader himself so I'm guessing he feels like teaching it would be tough, which I agree with) so I finally decided to look for books on my own and checked out bassbooks.com

Based on what I saw there, I had the opposite problem - most books were either based on tab or had both tab and standard notation. Because my focus is sight reading, I wouldn't look twice at a book if it contained tab - I didn't want to be tempted to "cheat". For the record, I am NOT trying to start any kind of pro/con tab debate. I have other books that include tab and I always find myself looking at that tab line instead. But in this case my personal goal is learning to read so it was important to me to buy books that aligned with that goal.

I eventually found a few that looked worth trying and I bought them. I'm working on one topic in my lessons right now and reading is supposed to be the next thing we move onto. We'll see how the books work out at that point, though I'll probably start working through them on my own before then. But whether we do it in my lessons or not I figured the only way to learn it is to do it. No such thing as a short cut!

odin70 · #10 12-07-2009, 02:15 PM

The most important is imo to read music you like. Without metronom in the begining and with after a while.

lolaviola · #11 12-07-2009, 02:44 PM

When reading the ledger lines... remember to study treble clef, too. EGBDF; FACE lines and spaces. Then you realize that everything after the first ledger line (C) is exactly like the treble cleff.

Also learn to identify the intervals by sight. If a note moves from a line to a line, or a space to a space, it is either a 3, 5, 7, or 9. If the note moves from line to space, or a space to a line, it is either a 2, 4, 6, or octave.

Danny Fox · #12 12-07-2009, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

AND... It's not like riding a bike. I used to be a good reader, and now I stink - - it's something you have to do continually to stay sharp (More like SCUBA than bicycling!)

I agree, I have to work on my reading all the time, I need to step it up a gear!

capnsandwich · #13 12-07-2009, 02:53 PM

I started off with a class on www.musicdojo.com with Joseph Patrick Moore teaching. It had a lot of good stuff to start with and had 2 other levels when you finished reading 101. It cost me $50 but it was well worth it to learn from such a talented guy.

deckard · #14 12-08-2009, 12:45 PM

Get "Sight Reading for the Bass" by Ron Velosky at Bassbooks.com...

Easily THE best of the various sight reading books I've purchased.

JMHO

p.s. for dave64o - no tabs in this one!

**nostatic** · #15 12-12-2009, 03:13 PM

Find a big band to join. You'll learn fast or die trying.

While that might sound flippant, I find that you have a tough time learning anything (a language, a software program, reading on bass) unless you have a project or situation that demands an outcome. For instance, I dicked around with trying to learn Final Cut Pro for years. Finally I had a project that required capabilities beyond iMovie. And I had a deadline. Magically, I was able to learn FCP quickly.

And as has been said before, use it or lose it.

Stumbo · #16 12-13-2009, 01:36 AM

Here are a few links to check out:
~Sight Reading
1 Learning
2
Improving
Practicing

Transcriptions to practice;many with .mp3 files
Beginner's Bass Clef tips
"Name that note" online SN game
Downloadable read "bass clef" software
Online bass clef audio/visual trainer
print bass clef flashcards/staff paper

~ Rhythm
1 Learn rhythm
2

dave64o · #17 12-13-2009, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deckard

Get "Sight Reading for the Bass" by Ron Velosky at Bassbooks.com...

Easily THE best of the various sight reading books I've purchased.

JMHO

p.s. for dave64o - no tabs in this one!

Hey, if you're REALLY trying to learn to read, why have the crutch (TAB) staring you in the face, taunting you you to come over to the dark side, right?

They didn't have a lot of sample pages for that book so it was hard to get a feel for the contents, but at least all 10 reviews were 5 out of 5 stars. It's now on my Chrsitmas list.