Reading music

[dreamadream99]

Excuse me, reading music certainly DOES have tempo constraints.

Do yourself a favor and refer to sight reading as sight reading.

Wow. Snarky. Do you have something against me that I am not aware of? Or are you just really that opposed to my contentions?

And I promise I will “do myself a favor” and refer to sight reading as sight reading. I’m sorry if my text-to-speech program offended your grammatical sensibility.

 

[BrotherMister]

This is a really good point. We tend to retain information better if we write it down rather than simply read it.

At some stage I always try to get students to handwrite stuff. Obviously as a way to improve the reading but it’s interesting to see that even after having some fluency in reading that they will often out accidents or stems in the wrong place. So it does help deepen the knowledge.

 

[Paul New]

Wow. Snarky. Do you have something against me that I am not aware of? Or are you just really that opposed to my contentions?

And I promise I will “do myself a favor” and refer to sight reading as sight reading. I’m sorry if my text-to-speech program offended your grammatical sensibility.

Yes, I do disagree, but sorry for the snark. I’m old and…wait a minute… GET OFF MY GRASS!!!…. OK, sorry again.

 

[dreamadream99]

Yes, I do disagree, but sorry for the snark. I’m old and…wait a minute… GET OFF MY GRASS!!!…. OK, sorry again.

No problems, man. Even though our opinions differ, I can tell by your responses that your opinion is educated. I may not always agree with your opinion, but I do respect it, and you. Rock on old dude!

 

[porkynuggets]

I can very painstakingly read standard notation, but would like to improve a bit.

My question: when sightreading, do you look at a note, say to yourself internally the note name and then find it on the fretboard?
Or can you go straight from the note on the staff to a note on the fretboard?

I can imagine seeing the low E on the staff and going straight to the open E string, but beyond that it seems like a challenge.

Any suggestions for working on this?

Thanks!

Michael

The ONLY time I'm thinking about the name of a note is to communicate to someone else.

Associate the note on the staff with the feeling of your hand and the resulting sound. Stick with it, remember to take breaks.

 

[Groove Master]

Make sure you master your rythms reading. To me it is the most important aspect of sight-reading. You shouldn’t have to count at all to succeed reading. So spend some time on rythmic reading first.

 

[fdeck]

My question: when sightreading, do you look at a note, say to yourself internally the note name and then find it on the fretboard?
Or can you go straight from the note on the staff to a note on the fretboard?

The ultimate destination is straight from the note to the fretboard.

Meanwhile... it's a process. I actually recommend classical etudes or method books because they're designed for this purpose, and are "graded" in the sense that they start out basic and get progressively harder.

There's two translations going on. The first is recognizing the note. The second is going from the recognized note to the place on your fretboard. The etudes work on both things at once and getting rid of the middleman.

It's a lifelong process. Your reading keeps improving, meaning you can play more complex stuff, and devote less of your attention to it. The more you do it, the more you read and plan ahead so your lines are more fluid and involve fewer awkward shifts.

I've been reading for 50 years, including big-band and orchestra, and I still consider it to be something that I need to keep improving. There's a book of etudes on my stand right now!

 

[JimmyM]

The more layers of translation you can remove from between your eyes and hands, the easier sight reading gets. It sounds daunting, but the more you read, the easier it becomes. So don’t force it as it’ll happen with experience, but that’s the goal you should strive towards.