Standard notation

[GreenApollo]

Hi all,
I am trying to take everything up a notch with my bass playing and relearn standard notation. I learned to play music playing the flute and as such memorized "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" and "FACE" as the helpful reminders to know what notes where where. Aside from the eventual memorization what are any hints to know bass clef note placements?

[iamthebassplayr]

I was never good at memorizing with things like "FACE" or the such.

What worked for me was just having a couple of spots I knew and kept on working with. I knew that D was the center line, F was between the : of the bass clef (Why it's also called an F clef), B sits on top of the top line, and G is the bottom line.

From there I just kept going at it, began thinking in intervals and eventually didn't have to go through "Ok that is a third above..." and it just became whatever pitch it was...

Lots of online pitch recognition sites to help with a variety of clefs, as well as some phone apps if you have an iPhone/Blackberry/Android/Webos/ect smart phone.

Its great! I went from struggling to relearn this stuff when I got into college to being one of the best in my class!

Good Luck!

[skwee]

It's: "Good Boys Do Fine Always" for the lines, and "All Cars Eat Gas" for the spaces.

[GreenApollo]

Great advice from both of you. I'll try a combination of both.

[Rusty the Scoob]

I tend toward the method of skipping the mnemonic devices and just thinking of it intervallically.

I know where C is (or any anchor point(s) of your choosing) and that odd intervals are line-line or space-space and even intervals are line-space or space-line... if that makes sense. So you can easily visually spot a 3rd vs a 4th, or an octave vs. a 7th just by noticing if it switches from line to space or sticks with the original.

[onosson]

Originally Posted by GreenApollo

Hi all,
I am trying to take everything up a notch with my bass playing and relearn standard notation. I learned to play music playing the flute and as such memorized "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" and "FACE" as the helpful reminders to know what notes where where. Aside from the eventual memorization what are any hints to know bass clef note placements?

Also low E below the staff, lowest note on the bass, is equivalent to middle C on the treble clef - a good "anchor" position to work from.

I'm still working on rebuilding my bass clef skills (I studied keyboards until I was 14) which I didn't use at all for about 15 years - good luck!

[Fergie Fulton]

E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E-etc.
See it as the alphabet continuous across the line and spaces. When you leave the staff lines then they reverse and what was previously on lines are not in spaces.
If you want to split it, then it is every other letter.

So the above line becomes

E---G---B---D---F---A---C---E---G---B---D---etc
--F---A---C---E---G---B---D---F---A---C---E

As you can clearly see, it continuous.
FACE, becomes EGBDF for treble and ACEG becomes GBDFA bass.

I say learn what is happening....... and what is happening in reality is its every other note.
Learn in this way and transposing on sight becomes becomes a skill because you have learned to read as every other note, rather than rhymes, and acronyms. You just alternate from your root note and you have all clefs to read using the one technique rather than multi system acronyms for each clef.

[MalcolmAmos]

What helped me the most was reading with out an instrument in hand. Learn first what those fly specks are.

Have some sheet music scattered around so when you have a few moments you can grab some practice time reading standard notation. In your brief case, by your easy chair, in your lunch box, etc. etc.

When you can say the name of the note in the same amount of time it takes you to say your name - then and only then are you ready to take this skill to your instrument. That little bit of advise came from my piano instructor.

I used a combination of All cows eat grass, good boys do fine always and E is a ledger line below the staff, D is a line note in the middle of the staf -- so I would say use whatever sticks and works for you. Just do it.

Good luck.

[Eric Braunstein]

Originally Posted by MalcolmAmos

When you can say the name of the note in the same amount of time it takes you to say your name - then and only then are you ready to take this skill to your instrument. That little bit of advise came from my piano instructor.

I completely disagree. I don't think knowing the note names really helps with reading at all. For me, it's knowing where each note is on the bass that I use way more often than what the name is. When I see a note on the bottom line of the staff, I think "3rd fret on the E-string (or 2nd finger 1st position since I'm originally trained in classical urb)". While I obviously do no the note I'm playing is a G, is doesn't really matter at the time I'm playing it.

[EscapeNote]

Originally Posted by skwee

It's: "Good Boys Do Fine Always" for the lines, and "All Cars Eat Gas" for the spaces.

The variation my mom taught me on the spaces was "All Cows Eat Grass"...

[JTE]

Originally Posted by Eric Braunstein

I completely disagree. I don't think knowing the note names really helps with reading at all. For me, it's knowing where each note is on the bass that I use way more often than what the name is. When I see a note on the bottom line of the staff, I think "3rd fret on the E-string (or 2nd finger 1st position since I'm originally trained in classical urb)". While I obviously do no the note I'm playing is a G, is doesn't really matter at the time I'm playing it.

Once I got over the "this note note on the bottom line of the staff is 3rd fret on the E-string" my reading got a LOT easier. It's not a more complicated or coded form of tablature. The note means a SOUND, and learning that the top is the open G string (which is how most people learn at the start) seriously hampers learning. But learning that going from the second space (E) to the top space is a third (major or minor depending on key signature and accidentals) makes reading so much easier. Then I only have to keep track of position and intervals, not the note name nor a specific location. Reading and seeing notes on two adjacent spaces or lines tells me it's a third and I can find those without thinking of the name, and without referencing anything other than where is the nearest third from where my finger is now?

John

[JimmyM]

learn one note at a time. better to learn one note at a time and memorize it well than trying to learn them all at once and forgetting most of them.

[Crazyeelboy]

Don't worry about it - finding the notes is not that hard. Best thing to do is just practice it. Find several pieces of music and just name the notes on the page. Use a cheat sheet at first and eventually, it will become second nature.

[Art Araya]

you can do this bro.

do it consistently every day for 15 to 30 minutes and you'll see how quickly it comes to you. read everything you can find.

you can separate the rhythmic notation from the actual notes too to make recognition faster. work with drum books that teach syncopation reading.

i went from reading very poorly to being the best sight reader of my instructor's students.

[dpbass66]

Originally Posted by Eric Braunstein

I completely disagree. I don't think knowing the note names really helps with reading at all. For me, it's knowing where each note is on the bass that I use way more often than what the name is. When I see a note on the bottom line of the staff, I think "3rd fret on the E-string (or 2nd finger 1st position since I'm originally trained in classical urb)". While I obviously do no the note I'm playing is a G, is doesn't really matter at the time I'm playing it.

+1

Ultimately, reading music so we can perform that music is the process of translating a location on the staff into a location on the bass, quickly. I dont get the approach of injecting other concepts into to the process...ie intervals, and lines and spaces. Yes, one does need to know the note names on the staff, so just memorize them cold. Why do you need mnemonics? its not like you are memorizing human anatomy!

When I am reading a chart in a big band or a pit orchestra, and the performance is flying by, my brain just needs to know bass clef, top space, and "G" (wherever you decide to play it...open, 5 fret D string, 10th fret A string and so on...). I suppose in the back of my head, the morsel of information that I am playing "G" is floating around, but it isnt on the front part of the brain (metaphorically speaking).

The absolute best way to learn reading is to just read as much music as you can. Start out with very simple exercises which focus on low positions, first on one string, then moving across the finger board, then add notes up the fingerboard. Any good beginners bass book by MelBay or similar would work. Heck, you could get the Simandl method for acoustic bass. Book 1 starts out with such exercises, just ignore the fingering and positions, they dont apply to electric bass.

[Eric Braunstein]

+1 to Simandl! That's the book I used when I was learning urb.