Reading Music Rhythmic figures, tips, tricks?

[larrysb]

Is there a good tutorial on improving reading of rhythmic figures and note timing in music notation?

I'm a self-taught music reader. When I was a kid, I figured out how to read notation on my own, just from figuring out what a few old piano books had in them. I don't so much "read music" as I "decode music".

There wasn't an internet back then, certainly nothing like YouTube. That an not having anyone available to teach me, it left a lot of gaps in my knowledge and reading skills. I picked up universal key, and other working-musician's skills over the years. But never had any formal training.

Fast forward to today, and there's all kinds of tutorials on circle of fifths, intervals, melodic concepts and all kinds of music theory. That's been amazingly helpful.

Is there a good tutorial for getting better at reading the temporal aspect of music notation? I sort of figured out certain rudimentary concepts, but I'm sure there are better ways.

Decoding music notation, one note at a time...

 

[SteveCS]

Either or both of these should do the trick. The only 'pitch' is E in both books. You are encouraged to improvise melodies and lines using the rhythms, but none are given.

 

[WrapRough]

I'm learning to sight-read at the moment and took the advice to get the Modern Reading Text in 4/4. It's fantastic. Not much more to say. Buy it.

 

[larrysb]

Is there an audio that goes with the exercises?

 

[WrapRough]

Is there an audio that goes with the exercises?

No.

I've personally not found that a problem, at least not at the level I am at the moment

Another good book I have is Simplified Sight-reading for Bass by Josquin Des Pres. He covers rhythm and pitch separately and that does have audio.

 

[SteveCS]

Is there an audio that goes with the exercises?

No there isn't. But you can easily use something like MuseScore to copy the patterns and play them back at any tempo.

 

[BrotherMister]

Count out loud.

That's not a tip of a trick. It's an approach that is as old as the hills and is still recommended and taught for an extremely good reason, it works. You'll be surprised how many people can't play a pretty basic rhythm while counting out loud, but then tell you they have great time. If you can't keep time with yourself then you've got no chance of pinning down the rest of the band.

Counting out loud means you are responsible for actually generating a beat. Counting internally at the early stages you'll find you often lose count or miss beats because the focus is elsewhere. When you count out loud you'll hear that beat and hear when you ignore it because you've stopped producing it. A rhythm is basically a point of an attack and the duration of that note against a pulse. When you count out loud you'll be able to really hear how what you are playing fits into that. So the first thing you really need to work on is the ability to generate a steady pulse, which counting out loud does. I promise you that you will temporary stop counting internally as soon as the rhythm becomes even remotely tricky.

After enough practise you'll begin to just feel that pulse and won't have to count out loud. But you'll be surprised how many musicians (especially drummers) still go back and count out loud when working on complicated rhythms.

Oh, and clapping. Counting a clapping solves near enough everything.

 

[Snarf]

Count out loud.

That's not a tip of a trick. It's an approach that is as old as the hills and is still recommended and taught for an extremely good reason, it works. You'll be surprised how many people can't play a pretty basic rhythm while counting out loud, but then tell you they have great time. If you can't keep time with yourself then you've got no chance of pinning down the rest of the band.

Counting out loud means you are responsible for actually generating a beat. Counting internally at the early stages you'll find you often lose count or miss beats because the focus is elsewhere. When you count out loud you'll hear that beat and hear when you ignore it because you've stopped producing it. A rhythm is basically a point of an attack and the duration of that note against a pulse. When you count out loud you'll be able to really hear how what you are playing fits into that. So the first thing you really need to work on is the ability to generate a steady pulse, which counting out loud does. I promise you that you will temporary stop counting internally as soon as the rhythm becomes even remotely tricky.

After enough practise you'll begin to just feel that pulse and won't have to count out loud. But you'll be surprised how many musicians (especially drummers) still go back and count out loud when working on complicated rhythms.

Oh, and clapping. Counting a clapping solves near enough everything.

I'm one of those weirdos who cannot count out loud and play at the same time. I actually teach my students to do it, because I understand how useful it is to most people, but have real difficulty myself! Something about moving the lips and playing at the same time, there's a short circuit somewhere.

In a beat, I can just see the math of it: usually 4 pulses inside a beat, then the notes are started and/or ended on certain pulses. Just execute.

 

[SteveBassJr]

Count out loud.

That's not a tip of a trick. It's an approach that is as old as the hills and is still recommended and taught for an extremely good reason, it works. You'll be surprised how many people can't play a pretty basic rhythm while counting out loud, but then tell you they have great time. If you can't keep time with yourself then you've got no chance of pinning down the rest of the band.

Counting out loud means you are responsible for actually generating a beat. Counting internally at the early stages you'll find you often lose count or miss beats because the focus is elsewhere. When you count out loud you'll hear that beat and hear when you ignore it because you've stopped producing it. A rhythm is basically a point of an attack and the duration of that note against a pulse. When you count out loud you'll be able to really hear how what you are playing fits into that. So the first thing you really need to work on is the ability to generate a steady pulse, which counting out loud does. I promise you that you will temporary stop counting internally as soon as the rhythm becomes even remotely tricky.

After enough practise you'll begin to just feel that pulse and won't have to count out loud. But you'll be surprised how many musicians (especially drummers) still go back and count out loud when working on complicated rhythms.

Oh, and clapping. Counting a clapping solves near enough everything.

Absolutely! I have been filling in my reading gap by studying Jeff Berlins book. Every day since February. I count out loud and I have noticed that how quickly I have been able to feel the pulse and play the rhythm and pitch correctly. Most days I spend 15-20 min. That's it but, it's enough to make my brain understand.

 

[Mark White]

I've seen a few videos by Sahar Galt on YouTube and his approach to learning rhythms has helped me a bit. Might be worth giving a couple of them the once-over to see if there's anything there for you?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL_-wssODcBPiAtEQYgAMWLj2WJdMvYlm

 

[Matthijs]

I learnt reading the same way you did and had (what I think is) the same problem. I could do complex rithmic patterns by ear, but was stumped when I saw them on paper. What helped for me were several things. Practising paradidles was important. They are the basic rithmic building blocks in notation. Sight reading those and playing them to a metronome was good training. The other was to do it the other way around: listen to music and try to write down what I heard in notation software. But the most important part was getting a teacher (for the first time of my life) who told me to do those things.

 

[krimo]

Benny Greb’s “Gap Clik” metronome app is invaluable with helping players get their internal clock well established. Check it out!

 

[Groove Master]

For the Bellson book or any books on rhythm here is the way I make my students practice that:

1) Tap your foot on all the beats and read or tap the rhythms straight feel

2) The same thing but swing the rhythms

3) Tap the 2 and 4 and read swing like in jazz

4) Tap the 3 and read straight. Samba feel or half-time feel straight

5) Tap the 3 ( hip-hop feel or half-time feel) with swing feel

You'll improve all kind of stuff with that.

 

[IvanBassist]

The book “simplified sight-reading for bass” by Josquin des Pres (Hal Leonard) really helped me. Every exercise is shown using only one note (D) so that you can focus on the rhythm. I found it very helpful to internalize how each rhythmic figure actually sounds like.

Later in the book there are other examples with more notes, though.

 

[BrotherMister]

I'm one of those weirdos who cannot count out loud and play at the same time. I actually teach my students to do it, because I understand how useful it is to most people, but have real difficulty myself! Something about moving the lips and playing at the same time, there's a short circuit somewhere.

In a beat, I can just see the math of it: usually 4 pulses inside a beat, then the notes are started and/or ended on certain pulses. Just execute.

Despite many protests from students over the heads I’ve yet to meet someone who couldn’t do it. It’s can be hard to do if you never ever done it but can play. You just have to dial it all the way back to the start and play whole notes and learn how to do it.

Not particularly exciting but you’ll be surprised what is revealed by actually doing it.

 

[onda'bass]

There are 4 areas of music reading that can be worked on separately.

1. the note recognition, if you pause due to recognition, it will reflect in reading. so work on just note reading till you don't pause to name the note.

2. rhythm just like notes, if you look at a rhy figure and can't play it, you should practice just reading rhythms till you hear them just by looking at it. counting...just gets in the way eventually.

3 solfege, yea reading and that are connected. If you can't steadily name the solfege again isolate it.

4 time keeping, after all that I've said this is where it is all put together. If you can't do this with one other element mentioned, you found a weakness and that's where you need to work.

 

[mambo4]

• Isolate the rhythm, ignore the pitch : it turns any notation you can find into a rhythm exercise, and you don't need an instrument in your hands to practice.
• I use this pdf from Cliff Engle to practice rhythm reading 4/4 down to the sixteenth notes. starts easy gets gradually harder, and covers almost every permutation of 8th & 16th rests and notes
• I would vote against accompanying audio: do the decoding work as slow as necessary
• Pre lock down, I took my pdf to the treadmill at my gym. My feet became the metronome., and a 30 minute run flies by when you are focused on reading.

The other was to do it the other way around: listen to music and try to write down what I heard in notation software.

I think this is important to do. So does Anthony Wellington



find bass liens you like and try to write them out!

 

[TheLowDown33]

While understanding rhythm notation and being able to count using universally recognized rhythm solfege is absolutely fundamental, the goal should be to get to a point where you see rhythms like words, and instinctively know what it sounds like just by sight.

The books mentioned above are all great resources. I'd recommend having Musescore open next to you, so when you get to the trickier rhythms you can double check yourself. Obviously don't cheat, but it can be helpful in making sure you aren't creating a false connection between the visual and auditory patterns if you happen to be incorrect.

 

[31HZ]

I've been using this to sharpen my skills:

Complete Rhythm Trainer App

 

[mambo4]

While understanding rhythm notation and being able to count using universally recognized rhythm solfege is absolutely fundamental,

I don't recognize what you mean by "universally recognized rhythm solfege."
do you mean "1 - e - and - a" ?
because there is also "ta ka di mi" / konakal which some have suggested in other threads


I started with ta ka di mi on my sixteenth note figures to get the displacement down with the various rests and 61th/8th note combinations

ta ka di mi = 4 16ths
ta - di mi = 8th + 2 16ths
ta ka - mi = 16th + 8th +16th
etc..

it is functionally the same as "1 - e - and - a" , but a little easier to vocalize for me

there's also plenty of images like this floating around

the goal should be to get to a point where you see rhythms like words, and instinctively know what it sounds like just by sight.

Agreed. eventually, one should abandon unique syllables for each beat or words for each rhythm and just read the figures.