| Sightreading for any instrument is all practice; there's no "jump-start" to doing it. Bass and guitar are harder in that there could be half a dozen fingerings for one note; as a sightreader you have to read ahead and figure out where you're going to want to be on the fretboard next so you don't jump when you should slide and vice versa. There are also different expectations based on the genres and environments you play in. If you like rock, you need to be able to sightread both TAB and lead sheets. Wanna play jazz, you learn how to read jazz charts (generally similar to lead sheets but it's mostly chords and rhythm). Country? You need to know the Nashville Number System. And if you're planning on recording movie soundtracks or playing in big-band situations, you learn standard music notation like it's a second language.
There are sightreading method books for standard notation, but if you're serious about technical ability, buy a book of etudes for trombone or baritone horn. There's no transposition involved (a trombone's C is a true C as opposed to say a bari saxophone, whose written C may actually be a Bb or Eb) and the range is generally comparable. Make sure you have your patterns DOWN; you should know at least three basic ways to play the major scale and should be able to switch patterns halfway through the scale. You should also have your Dorian and Mixolydian modes down pat to the same degree, and have a good grounding on other modes. Otherwise practicing from an etude book is just an exercise in rote memory. The stuff you'll play in a book designed to increase technical ability will far outstrip ANYTHING you'll see as a bass player in terms of playing one note at a time, and forcing yourself to read from music will increase eye-hand coordination between seeing a note and playing it. Really you'll be learning more about what intervals look like and how to reproduce that interval while leaving room for future movement in the direction the line goes; that will be more help to you on a stringed instrument than pounding fingerings for note values into your muscles like a woodwind or brass instrument player is taught.
Of course you should also learn to read lead sheets (melody in a staff with chord changes above). This is a radically different way of thinking about playing. You're given a chord; you must immediately know the notes in that chord. Then, because you know your scales, you know how to construct a line that doesn't include any minor seconds or notes that will drastically change the quality of the chord. Notes that lead from one chord to the next generally work in addition to the ones in the chord. This kind of reading requires intimate familiarity with your fingerboard, to the level where if I were to call out a note you should be able to play it immediately.
Last edited by Liko : 03-12-2008 at 02:58 PM.
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