Reading Music Rhythmic figures, tips, tricks?

[WrapRough]

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One way for me to remember anything is to associate it with food

This is amazing.

 

[TheLowDown33]

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

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

You got it! 1 e & a for a single 16th subdivided beat. There are certainly others, but the one that I've encountered most in the wild (between rock/big band/symphonic/etc.) is 1 e & a. Doesn't really matter what one chooses as long as it's comprehensive and understood by both parties.

 

[Bob_Ross]

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.

+1. The "word" analogy is spot-on: You don't read a sentence like this one I've typed right here and identify the individual letters (L, E, T, T, E, R...oh, that's 'letter') you just instantly recognize that ordered combination of individual characters as the word 'letter'. By the same token, your rhythmic sight-reading needs to get to the point where you're not looking at the individual attacks, referencing them against the underlying pulse, and figuring out what it should sound like; you want to be able to spot patterns, especially those that can cover the space of several beats. Because that then allows you to read ahead.

 

[MCS4]

Is there an audio that goes with the exercises?

Separate from instruction that was prepared for the specific purpose of teaching rhythmic notation, you might find it helpful to simply make sure that some of your reading practice comes either from sources that include audio with the book/software, or that include transcriptions of easily available music. This would include practically anything that covers popular bass players or tunes (e.g. books of Motown tunes, etc.). Then you can simply periodically check the source, or play along with it, to confirm the correlation between the marks on the page and the rhythm as it is actually played.

 

[MCS4]

Another alternative is to look at instructional manuals for percussion, if you really want some extra volume. Given that many percussion instruments only have one note (snare drum, bass drum, etc.) or a small number of notes, a lot of these materials will be almost entirely focused on rhythmic concepts. I got started in music by playing percussion (primarily snare drum) in marching and concert bands in a very small school that had only a single music instructor at any given time, who was rarely interested in working much with the drummers, meaning that I was "taught" to read and play rhythms almost entirely based upon whatever entry level written materials we had access to. Once I started to pick up the bass I found that sight-reading rhythms for bass was a breeze after reading percussion materials, with the exception of a few types of rhythmic concepts that weren't used as much in percussion due to the lesser emphasis of the duration of a single "strike."

 

[SteveCS]

Another alternative is to look at instructional manuals for percussion, if you really want some extra volume. Given that many percussion instruments only have one note (snare drum, bass drum, etc.) or a small number of notes, a lot of these materials will be almost entirely focused on rhythmic concepts. I got started in music by playing percussion (primarily snare drum) in marching and concert bands in a very small school that had only a single music instructor at any given time, who was rarely interested in working much with the drummers, meaning that I was "taught" to read and play rhythms almost entirely based upon whatever entry level written materials we had access to. Once I started to pick up the bass I found that sight-reading rhythms for bass was a breeze after reading percussion materials, with the exception of a few types of rhythmic concepts that weren't used as much in percussion due to the lesser emphasis of the duration of a single "strike."

This is a good steer, if only to see how the backbones of typical or idiomatic drum/percussion patterns hang together and how one might conceive a bass part to fit. I continue to get mileage from this little number:

 

[WrapRough]

I always thought solfege was "do re mi..." ?

 

[larrysb]

Separate from instruction that was prepared for the specific purpose of teaching rhythmic notation, you might find it helpful to simply make sure that some of your reading practice comes either from sources that include audio with the book/software,

Yeah, that's sort of where I'm going.

Lacking formal training, I basically "decode" timing. I can read the notes on the clef pretty well, and that's just a matter of computing where to finger the melodic expression.

Timing is something that I have to slowly "sound out" like a kindergartener working on vowels. I do count out "1-e-and-a" and so on. And sadly, I get it wrong, or I don't capture the "feel" of the notation.

I think some practice materials, with audio, so I can do the "I think I read it/Did I get read it right?" better. This is probably stuff that a capable teacher would point out and say, "when you see this string of notes, it will play out like this..." or help point what the student didn't read well.

Don't have time for that in my life now that I'm old.

 

[75Ric]

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

I've done this a couple of times. It's an excellent idea. Bellson is a great book but there is no instruction. Putting it into Musescore and then having it play back is useful when you're not sure of the rhythm and timing. It's got a metronome, too, so you can get really clear on when the notes fall.