sightreading

[marine18]

what is a great way to practice sightreading

[M0ses]

Sightread.

[MalcolmAmos]

Yep, it's that simple. Flash cards cost $4 and can be taken with you. When you can identify and verbalize the name of the note in the same amount of time it takes you to say your name, then you are ready to start reading and playing from sheet music, i.e. identify and then find the note on your instrument.

Spare time now entails reading sheet music instead of flash cards. Lead sheet books, church hymnals, etc.

You learn to sightread by reading sheet music.

[Stumbo]

You might want to check out the links in my sig. below for some great TB learning opportunities that might help you along the way.

Here are few to start you out:
~Sight Reading
Read music,lessons, online metronome,bass clef tutor & more
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

One way to look at it to separate the notes and the rhythm. Clap the rhythm with a metronome to properly count. Learn the notes. Do each slowly. Then put together and do it slowly until you get up to speed. Use a metronome to check your counting and playing.

Good luck.

[M0ses]

I guarantee there is no way to get good at reading and sightreading music other than reading a sightreading music.

About two weeks ago I got involved in the school musical, playing bass in the pit band. Until then, I'd hardly looked at any bass sheet music at all (although I am very fluent in trumpet and other brass reading), just tabs and playing by ear, mostly to rock and blues tunes. It's been two weeks, and I'm already reading this sheet music with relative ease (relative to when I started, that is =P ), and these are songs that change keys constantly, I have to go from three sharps to five flats, and other awkward changes constantly. Granted, the keys don't give me as much trouble since I'm so used to seeing them in brass music, but still my fingers did not use to know where to go just looking at a note.

So yeah. Just play. A bunch. You'll get it eventually.

[Chris K]

IMO the thing is to both be able to read music as a visualized series of intervals and to be able to finger those intervals in any key. To me anyway.

Others will have to mentally name the note and know where it could be on the fretboard... on different strings. That is the slow way. It might lead to unnatural fingering when sightreading, because you might know where the note is on the D string, but not on the A string, so you go to the D string, which might not be the best option from the point of fingering.

So... the intervals rule.

[odin70]

Start with Bachs two handed inversions. Pretty easy and nice music. Advice: Dont look at the notes you are already playing. When you play your eyes should prepare you for the next bar or at leat the next quarter note.

[cnltb]

Originally Posted by M0ses

Sightread.

That's the one.
Just read (not necessarily SIGHT READ)anything you get your hands on.
With time you'll sight read without even noticing it.

[Asher S]

From one of Jeff Berlin's impromptu forums on TB earlier this year:

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

“The best way to learn how to site read is to not do it in time, but play your music repeatedly until you learn it well and then go to the next page. Some people have the idea that you learn sight-reading by, well, sight-reading. You don't! You BECOME a good sight reader, you don't really practice it except to continue reading new music until you have learned it and then go to new stuff and learn THAT.”

[Bruce Lindfield]

Singing bass in a choir is a good one - hear it as music!

So most choral pieces are split into Soprano,Alto, Tenor and Bass - choose to be a Bass and sing that part - it's great fun as well as good practice!

[mambo4]

One approach that I found helpful is to separate thinking about pitch from thinking about rhythm.

Rhythm is the hard part, IMHO. and most 'how to read music' guides are sorely lacking in useful rhythm exercises.


Latin music is excellent practice for reading, because it's quite syncopated and rhythmically sophisticated, but rarely gets more granular than an eight note.note wise you are most often dealing with root-5-octave. so you won't be struggling with dotted sixteenth figures and tons of accidentals and such.

[cnltb]

Originally Posted by Asher S

From one of Jeff Berlin's impromptu forums on TB earlier this year:

That kind of goes without saying, no?

[SteveC]

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin
“The best way to learn how to site read is to not do it in time, but play your music repeatedly until you learn it well and then go to the next page.”

That sounds like regular practice to me. Am I an idiot?

[Billnc]

Originally Posted by SteveC

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin
“The best way to learn how to site read is to not do it in time, but play your music repeatedly until you learn it well and then go to the next page.”

That sounds like regular practice to me. Am I an idiot?

No, it is regular practice. You pick a piece that is just above or at your technical ability. This allows you to make corrections. You stop if you have to. You gradually get more adept at reading music. You are also to review material.

I and many others had been taught to sight read by putting music in front of us, playing through it and not looking at it again for a few days. This does not work, I never got better after many years. Now I have been able to read music, but I never got better at it using the old method like that. After a few months using Jeff's and I'm guessing, your way, it is getting better.

[M0ses]

Originally Posted by SteveC

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin
“The best way to learn how to site read is to not do it in time, but play your music repeatedly until you learn it well and then go to the next page.”

That sounds like regular practice to me. Am I an idiot?

There's the thing. The skills you use to read music and to sightread music are basically the same thing. If you're really good at reading music in general, sightreading isn't going to be hard at all for you. You really need to be able to read music before you "practice" sightreading music. Sightreading is just reading music you've never seen before: you don't know what's coming, meaning you can't prepare for it, so you have to react faster. If you can't already read well, you won't know HOW to react, and therefore cannot possibly do it fast enough.

[cat_saltnpepper]

in terms of reading actual note by note, I think all the members' post pretty much explains all, if I have to add something to that I'd say good sight reading means not reading a note fast but also with your own articulation. basic practice method such as chromatic playing and such can be boring and quite time-spending but you should do it more than you can with various combination so when you read, so your technical part won't be a problem when you read.

also, if you breath and give yourself some room to relax and think, it should help a lot. most of the notes and rhythms are fairly familiar stuff but when you are in a hurry or if there's someone giving you pressure, it can affect you psychologically. so, if you have been practicing sight reading, be confident.

in addition, try to see big picture every time when you get the new charts or musics. Be aware of D.S., D.C., and repeat sign and pay attention to the side note on the charts so you can get the form right. if it's more like pop, you should be able to set-up the next section of the song, if it's more of improvised music, you should be able to develop dynamic.

listen to a lot of genre that you don't usually listen to, just in case if you get the lead sheet. everybody interprets the music differently when you should be able to adjust your playing accordingly while you are reading. vocalizing is also great way to get comfortable with written music.

finally, get some rest and keep you mind clear so you can focus. work out so you can keep that focus for a while. no matter how good you are, if you are not thinking straight you'll end up doing something not well.

like all the others, I should say there's no shortcut and must read music constantly to keep and to develop your sight reading up to certain point. try to read anything that comes in your hand, then it shouldn't be a problem.

[TimoMetzemakers]

Originally Posted by Billnc

No, it is regular practice. You pick a piece that is just above or at your technical ability. This allows you to make corrections. You stop if you have to. You gradually get more adept at reading music.

Very well put.

A teacher once told me that sight-reading is never about discovering new stuff. It is really about recognizing stuff you already know. So if you read music as slowly as you need to, and take the time to work out everything that you don't get at once, you will increase the amount of stuff you know. For example, if there's an intricate rhythm you don't quite understand, and you really take the time to work it out, you will eventually add it to your "mental repertoire of rhythms", and the next time you see it, you'll just know how it sounds, without even having to think about it.