Reading bass clef made easy

[BillyRay]

I had a musician friend ask me tody how come he never could learn to read bass clef properly. Since I started on trombone and then later picked up keys, my bass clef reading is a lot stronger thn my treble clef.

I thought I'd share some drills and methods my high school teachers gave me.

1) Engrain the little tricks in your head (Good bassist deserve fudge always, etc.) but more importantly, know where the B is. I don't know why, but the B and F are easier to remember for most students and they help with ledgers later on. They are also the notes where natural half-steps occur, so accidentals and key flats and sharps will be easier to play later on.

Stare at the staff. Learn the relationships, but more importantly, look at a lot of sheet music. It's not important right now to read it, but it'll be less intimidating later on when you do.

2) Forget flash cards. Get yourself a workbook or sheet music and time yourself. You need to sing the note name and write it underneath the staff. Once you can read/sing/write well, get your trombone, bass clarinet, bass, etc. and "fret" the note while singing it. As always, time yourself.

3) Once you can do the reading/singing/fretting, stop singing and just sight-read. This is also when you should start transcribing to staff a lot (scales, licks, chord voicings, etc.).

4) Accustom yourself to accidentals/ different rythmns. This is probably where reading becomes more difficult and a lot of practice is necessary, but you'll have a very strong "feeling" for the bass clef.

He gave a student if his on trumpet a whole binder (plus a couple of sheets of grandstaff for good measures) of sheet music to write the notes under. This insured that:
a) The homework was done.
b) He gave the guy a week to do so.
c) He got real familiar with the stage band material real fast

Making photocopies of the same piece helps a lot as you won't have to erase your marking every time

[Mark Wilson]

Great advice!!!

I'd like to add something that helped me a lot..

I grew up playing Flute. Treble Clef instrument.

I learned, when I got to university for bass, that BASS clef is Treble clef moved down one space or line!!

example...

B in treble clef - Middle line
B in Bass clef - One line down!!!

Simple, eh?

[BillyRay]

Great advice!!!

I'd like to add something that helped me a lot..

I grew up playing Flute. Treble Clef instrument.

I learned, when I got to university for bass, that BASS clef is Treble clef moved down one space or line!!

example...

B in treble clef - Middle line
B in Bass clef - One line down!!!

Simple, eh?

I figured the similarities between treble and bass clef when I picked up keys, but let me tell you, it's HARD to read it on the fly since I pretty much always default to it when I see a staff.

Another tip to add : clapping to the metronome. Once you get your pitch recognition down, rythmn is pretty much the "meat" of sight reading. Everything goes so fast and if you have to go from reading a bassline to improvising one (in an original or fake book context when you have lifted the chorus run from a famous bassist).

I like to clap my way through a tune a few times if there's a lot of challenging aspects to it, especially if I have never heard it before (wich happened more than I care to admit, I'm not that well versed in jazz).

[BigKahuna13]

Originally Posted by BillyRay

I figured the similarities between treble and bass clef when I picked up keys, but let me tell you, it's HARD to read it on the fly since I pretty much always default to it when I see a staff.

Another tip to add : clapping to the metronome. Once you get your pitch recognition down, rythmn is pretty much the "meat" of sight reading. Everything goes so fast and if you have to go from reading a bassline to improvising one (in an original or fake book context when you have lifted the chorus run from a famous bassist).

I like to clap my way through a tune a few times if there's a lot of challenging aspects to it, especially if I have never heard it before (wich happened more than I care to admit, I'm not that well versed in jazz).

+1000

Remembering which notes are on which line / space is easy - there's only 8 of them not counting accidentals. What really
worked for me initially was thinking in terms of scales. For a piece in "C" I didn't initially think of the note one space up from
C as "E" - rather I thought "3rd note of the C scale." Eventually
the note names stuck but thinking in terms of playing scales made things much, much simpler.

That said learning to read rhythms is much harder. Rhythm studies books like Books "Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms" are really useful for learning to read rhythms. I'll normally play the rhythm of an unfamiliar piece by just plucking an open string.

[lovernotfighter]

this is realy helpfull

[Evo 911]

WOw! Been looking for such stuff! Very well put, all of u. Another thing that I learned was that treble clef is the relative minor or bass clef, given exactly the same position on the staff. For example, the lowest line of Bass Clef is G while that of Treble Clef is E, relative minor! Not really gonna help u in reading, but helped me in transition from the treble clef to the bass.

[LzeroKI]

Originally Posted by Mark Wilson

I learned, when I got to university for bass, that BASS clef is Treble clef moved down one space or line!!

example...

B in treble clef - Middle line
B in Bass clef - One line down!!!

Simple, eh?

Ive been able to read bass clef since I was in 6th grade, but that trick got me through most of Theory I in 11th grade.

[BillyRay]

Glad I could help. Reading is very useful, as was pointed out, in relation to actual note content (and not just intervalic content) of scales, arpegios and chords. For most rock, blues and folk material, it doesn't matter if you can't name every note of the Gb key since there's not a lot of inversions and substitutions (and Gb isn't all that common...): the bass player's role is to hold down the root and usually hold it low. Rythmn, timbre and time keeping are usually much more important than note choice or a complex harmonic support: the guitard is there to fill that role. I'll very rarely sub a dominant chord in a rock setting for example (due to the riffy, reptitive nature of rock). But in other genres (jazz), where you get through a 32 bar chorus 8 times during a song to allow everyone to solo, it might be nice for a change of pace (since the soloist or piano is not always playing the same thing either). Then it become simportant to be able to name every note of every chord you play in order to "keep it honest" and not always resort to formulas or licks.

In blues, formulas or tricks are basically (at least in bass playing) a necessity or at least somethign that will still sound super in a band setting.

[Smallmouth_Bass]

One thing I like to do is scan a piece of music for high and low notes in order to know if or when there will be any position changes. For example, low Fs mean you'll have to play in first position and D one step above the first high ledger line will mean that you'll have to go to at least fourth position. Then you can plan when to do the position switches; either a long note or an open note before.

[BassChuck]

Once you have a basic knowledge of the Bass Clef get with other musicians and read together. Find another player who reads bass clef (ideally one who reads well) and play duets, or if you don't have duets, just read lines in unison. They don't have to be difficult, just having another player next to you makes all the difference.... its far, far better than a metronome. Do it... its fun.

[capnsandwich]

Subscribed!!!

Great advice. I can never get good enough at sight reading, not that I've ever been any good at it.

[Smallmouth_Bass]

Another thing: do not get into the habit of writing all the accidentals in for the key signatures. I used to do that for a long time and it was a hard habit to get out of. I still tend to think of notes instead of keys (another bad habit), but going through the entire music and writing in all the flats and sharps is a real crutch. Not to mention, if it's not your sheet music, you're writing all over someone else's music!

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by BassChuck

Once you have a basic knowledge of the Bass Clef get with other musicians and read together. Find another player who reads bass clef (ideally one who reads well) and play duets, or if you don't have duets, just read lines in unison. They don't have to be difficult, just having another player next to you makes all the difference.... its far, far better than a metronome. Do it... its fun.

When a friend and I were working on reading we took the Louis Bellison book Exercises in 4/4 and each week we took a page and rewrote it putting pitches to the rhythms. Really drilled in the rhythms making melodies out of them then playing them with someone else.

[jweiss]

If you are looking for great sight reading material, check out the transcriptions of walking lines in this thread:

Bass Lines On Jazz Standarts

There are over 400 transcriptions.

About an hour a day for the last month has been enough to make some great progress. Plus you get to hear and play some of the best walking lines ever played!

[BillyRay]

^^^^

Are you kidding me ? This is probably the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. No wait, I think it's better than sliced bread

[Karl Harris]

So I take it, it's a waste of time learning tab.

[jweiss]

Originally Posted by BillyRay

^^^^

Are you kidding me ? This is probably the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. No wait, I think it's better than sliced bread

Yeah, I was pretty damn stoked when I finally had all of it

[BillyRay]

Yeah, tabs are useless. They are even worse than useless, they are dangerous to a young musician's coneption of music. If all you ever look at are tabs, you'll have a hard time learing:

1) Where the notes on the fretboard are located.

2) What music actually is. It's not just a series of fretting positions/formulas, there are methods and reasons to its madness. Not that you can't learn what a major traid is without knowing how to read music, but usually, musicians who read music tend to ALSO take an interest to the underlying logic of music.

3) Rythmic figures. This is also why many, many, many musicians in garage band aren't tight. They don't only lack metronome practice, they lack knowledge of time subdivision.

[Smallmouth_Bass]

Yeah, I second that. Playing with TAB is not really a good idea if you want to be serious about reading music. It's the equivalent to learning to read with cartoon drawings.

[bassist15]

I started out reading treble clef for 4 years then I just decided I HAD to learn bass clef so I just figured out a C major scale in bass clef and my whole freshman year in high school I just kept trying in the High School Jazz band. I was terrible and and was struggling the whole year. The director was very patient. Now Im going into my senior year and can sight read most anything. Just throw yourself into it and give it time. As my Jazz band director would tell me when I apologize for not being able to read...he would say "Rome wasn't built in a day."