Oh, here's a good one. This was a time when I WASN'T looking ahead. I think we were playing Rigoletto. Well, the first time through a line repeats except the last measure on the second time is a "grand pause." That means no one plays a note. Except I did! AT THE CONCERT!! OMG!!! Yep, I sure did. I apologized to the conductor during intermission. He just stared at me. Oh man, never have I felt so humiliated.
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Long time player learning to read question(s)
- Thread starter bobyoung53
- Start date
Not on the same level at all but I had a gig on my 24th birthday and although I very rarely drank a lot at gigs, this night I did. I went through the whole song playing OK although I forgot I had a harmony part. The song ended but I didn't and started singing the harmony too
.
I had to go back to your part 1 excercise 2.
Excellent course by the way. Thanks so much.
I have the utmost respect for orchestra players........tough task.
The Who is touring the states this year.
From what I've read, they're hiring local orchestras to play with them.
So maybe someone on this forum will be in it. How cool would that be?
I wonder how far ahead of time you'll get the scores to practice with?
A lot of great advice thus far. I'd like to re-iterate to look ahead and increase the bpm once you are comfortable with the notes on the staff. A couple of bmp every other week is a good approach.
I've been struggling to get through Etude #5, page 74 in Sight reading for the Bass- Ron Velosky for a couple pf days now, Help!!!!!. OK I feel better now, I know just keep slogging through. My uptempo funk tempo has been 40 bpm so far. I am doing pretty good on page 72 though although it took me about a week. I am also studying jazz charts which is a lot of fun and reading online YouTube play-alongs. Tom Bornemann and others.
. I am doing pretty good on page 72 though although it took me about a week. I am also studying jazz charts which is a lot of fun and reading online YouTube play-alongs. Tom Bornemann and others.
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One question, the book says to count sixteenths 1 e + ah, is there a reason for that? If you get real good at that is that an advantage over numbers? So far I find it distracting to count that way and have just been counting 1, 2, 3, etc.
Just the traditional way people are taught to subdivide a beat into 16ths. Rolls off the tongue easily and accomplishes the goal. Using 1 2 3 4 can create confusion with the actual beats. Btw, it's pronounced "1 e and ah". The plus sign might confuse some.
- You have to practice sightreading. Just like you practice anything else. You have to do it frequently.
- Do not slow down at difficult parts. The aim is play as if you are playing with a band, and you must stay on tempo with them.
- Do not stop if you make a mistake. Again, as if you are playing with a band. There is no stopping and starting over. If you make a mistake, you keep going, in tempo. If you get lost, regroup, skip a few beats if necessary, find your place and continue, in tempo.
- Read ahead. This is the most important and overlooked aspect. During rests and long notes you are looking ahead, sorting out the next few beats. Good sightreaders are consistently a measure or more ahead in their mind. If you don’t see the note on beat one till beat one, you are already too late.
Exactly what I was trying to say about turning to a page you don't know and having at it. Sightreading is a craft that has to be practiced for what it is, reading something that you haven't seen before. Sure, it's helpful to go back and see what tripped you, but that's after the fact. Although, you can use that info to perhaps help you on your next sightreading venture. But sightreading is, well, sightreading, first time ever.
A strong case can be made to learn the neck to the point where you no longer have to look at it. It's one less thing that your brain has to deal with not to mention the possibility of losing your place in the music as you constantly shift your eyes between the two. Trombone players don't have fret markers. They rely on muscle memory and their ears.
This is a great idea - unless you sing like I do. The last time I did sight singing, I was studying with Vincent Van Gogh. You know how that turned out.
In all seriousness, I’ve seen many good suggestions in this thread. The key is to figure out which suggestions work for you and keep practicing your sight reading.
Good luck!
Yep, timing's a lot harder than notes, IMO. Stick with it though, it gets easier.
I once watched an interview with Will Lee who said two of the smartest things I ever heard about reading music:
1) He remarked that once he could read, he could walk into any gig with charts and play RIGHT NOW: No learning it by ear, no endless rehearsals, just play it right now as you read it.
2) He also spoke about how he 'backed into' learning to read: He'd find transcriptions of popular songs, listen to the record and watch the chart, and the 'light went on' as he knew the part in his head and could match it to what he was looking at. Brilliant !
1) He remarked that once he could read, he could walk into any gig with charts and play RIGHT NOW: No learning it by ear, no endless rehearsals, just play it right now as you read it.
2) He also spoke about how he 'backed into' learning to read: He'd find transcriptions of popular songs, listen to the record and watch the chart, and the 'light went on' as he knew the part in his head and could match it to what he was looking at. Brilliant !
If you learn 1 e and ah 2 e and ah etc...
A quarter is four 16ths wide.
An 8th window is two 16ths wide.
It makes dotted/odd patterns easier to see...
A dotted increases duration by half. So think a dotted quarter and an eighth. Now think dotted 8th and a 16th. They gotta go through the 16th note windows... Think it out where each lands...
After a while of counting the divisions, you will 'hear' the phrase and just play it... It will help develop your internal clock....
If you can envision four 16th windows on every beat, mixing different duration notes can be much much easier because it is like laying the written music over a grid and every note MUST line up with a 16th window as far as time. (Disregarding trips and odd note groups like fives/sevens/nines... forget I said that... Dividing a beat into five/seven/nine is not the easiest to feel. You MUST have a stable internal clock to feel those)
Always remember: If you can count the rhythm, you can play it. It is usually rhythms that causes one to dick up....
A quarter is four 16ths wide.
An 8th window is two 16ths wide.
It makes dotted/odd patterns easier to see...
A dotted increases duration by half. So think a dotted quarter and an eighth. Now think dotted 8th and a 16th. They gotta go through the 16th note windows... Think it out where each lands...
After a while of counting the divisions, you will 'hear' the phrase and just play it... It will help develop your internal clock....
If you can envision four 16th windows on every beat, mixing different duration notes can be much much easier because it is like laying the written music over a grid and every note MUST line up with a 16th window as far as time. (Disregarding trips and odd note groups like fives/sevens/nines... forget I said that... Dividing a beat into five/seven/nine is not the easiest to feel. You MUST have a stable internal clock to feel those)
Always remember: If you can count the rhythm, you can play it. It is usually rhythms that causes one to dick up....
