These are not books, but what helped me was playing as many musical theater gigs as I could get and playing gigs with good singers who have charts in their keys.
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Progressive sight reading books in bass clef?
- Thread starter Fray Arsenio
- Start date
This is a great idea, although most musical theatre bass parts (score and everything else) are normally rented. There's nothing better (or worse) for your concentration than having to sink or swim in sight-reading a two hour long musical, ballet, opera, or show with your reputation and money on the line in front of a live paying audience.
In these situations there aren't "do overs." It's the true test. Key changes, meter changes, dynamics, and following the conductor all on the fly since the book is usually too large to memorize except to prepare selected "hot spots." Another good experience is to take a gig playing the Handel "Messiah" oratorio basso continuo part. After two+ hours of that you'll be experiencing sight-reading hallucinations.
