• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Sight Reading

#3
I used Simplified Sight-Reading For Bass by Josquin des Pres. It's a pretty good book that encompasses a lot of different aspects to sight reading and is a pretty good book to get the fundamentals down. You may want to check that out.
 
#6
Yes, that is a great suggestion, however, The bass Clef Real book(as are all 'the real book' series) are illegal and hard to find.

Your next best bet if you can't find a bass clef real book, would be to check out the bass clef version of 'the new real book' I think that currently volume 3 is the only one in bass clef, which is lame because volume 3 is more moving into blues and soul standards than jazz standards(not that I'm complaining, but I would like the bass clef real book) Fake books are expensive though! :hmm: I was at the Berklee bookstore today, and they are all like $40, pretty lame, but then I guess it's a small price to pay to learn some stuff.

the best suggestion is to transcribe though, that will do wonders for your understanding of music, your ability to read, and your ability to play a chart.

An exercise I used to do, that really helped my reading(which isn't that great admittedly, but it'd be a lot worse if I never did this exercise, and a lot better if I hadn't stopped)

take a piece of sheet music, and basically just fill in note heads, don't worry about stems, just do the heads, fill up the whole page in randomized note heads then just read through it verbatim, throw in some rests here and there once you start getting comfortable just reading notes, now, once you have exhausted that page, turn it over and read it that way. It may not be very musical, BUT, it will help get your reading 'chops' down somewhat.

but yeah, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe
 
#7
Wrong Robot said:
the best suggestion is to transcribe though, that will do wonders for your understanding of music, your ability to read, and your ability to play a chart.
Click to expand...

I disagree, to get better at reading you read, to get better at hearing stuff and transcribing you transcribe. Nothing improves your reading more than repetition and that means reading everyday stuff that you haven't already read and doing it slowly. You need to be able to recognize notes on the staff and map them to your instrument and you also need to recognize rhythmic patterns and get them under your fingers. Reading in an actual playing situation helps a lot as well.

If the only music you can find is in treble clef, read that, it will come in handy when there is no bass clef part. I say read, read, read, that's how you get better at reading.
 
#8
Wrong Robot said:
take a piece of sheet music, and basically just fill in note heads, don't worry about stems, just do the heads, fill up the whole page in randomized note heads then just read through it verbatim, throw in some rests here and there once you start getting comfortable just reading notes, now, once you have exhausted that page, turn it over and read it that way. It may not be very musical, BUT, it will help get your reading 'chops' down somewhat.

but yeah, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe
Click to expand...

Thats what I did with Bach's Prelude In C Minor (located at Lucas Pickford's site). I transcribed like 1 whole line,and learned each measure's notes first...and then the timings.
 
#9
Phil Smith said:
I disagree, to get better at reading you read, to get better at hearing stuff and transcribing you transcribe. Nothing improves your reading more than repetition and that means reading everyday stuff that you haven't already read and doing it slowly. You need to be able to recognize notes on the staff and map them to your instrument and you also need to recognize rhythmic patterns and get them under your fingers. Reading in an actual playing situation helps a lot as well.

If the only music you can find is in treble clef, read that, it will come in handy when there is no bass clef part. I say read, read, read, that's how you get better at reading.
Click to expand...

Yes,I am interested in taking Piano class next year in school,so I'ma learn Treb too,but I'd like to master F clef first :D
 
#10
Everytime an issue of BlassPlayer magazine appears in my mailbox, I photocopy all pages that have paragraphs of sheetmusic. There are usually 3-5 pages that I can photocopy and throw into an ever-growing binder.

Whenever I need some sight-reading exercises, I reach for the binder instead of rooting through back-issues of BassPlayer magazine.

It's worked pretty well so far,

Rob.
 
#11
rodoherty1 said:
Everytime an issue of BlassPlayer magazine appears in my mailbox, I photocopy all pages that have paragraphs of sheetmusic. There are usually 3-5 pages that I can photocopy and throw into an ever-growing binder.

Whenever I need some sight-reading exercises, I reach for the binder instead of rooting through back-issues of BassPlayer magazine.

It's worked pretty well so far,

Rob.
Click to expand...

I wanna subscrive to BP mag :hmm:
 
#12
As always...

I recommend Mel Bay's "Note Reading Studies For Bass" by Arnold Evans. :)

Besides that book, what has also helped me with my sight reading skills learning etudes from Simandl et al. You can probably find some books in a music store that sells stringed instruments. My teacher has books upon books of music for the upright bass. Doesn't matter if it's for upright. It has done me worlds of wonder. :)
 
#14
All of these real books, fake books and aebersold books etc etc can be found on KaZaA or other share programs. Search using appropriate name via documents....they're all out there (bass clef too!!) if you feel ok about using that type of program.... ;)
 
#15
stephanie said:
As always...

I recommend Mel Bay's "Note Reading Studies For Bass" by Arnold Evans. :)
I definatly 2nd that recomendation.

Another thing you could do Osama, is do a search at www.msn.com and type "staff paper" in the search engine. I do that to get paper for my students and one thing I noticed was it also links you to sites that have sight reading instruction.

http://www.sheetmusic1.com/ns.bass.html
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
#16
cassanova said:
stephanie said:
As always...

I recommend Mel Bay's "Note Reading Studies For Bass" by Arnold Evans. :)
I definatly 2nd that recomendation.

Another thing you could do Osama, is do a search at www.msn.com and type "staff paper" in the search engine. I do that to get paper for my students and one thing I noticed was it also links you to sites that have sight reading instruction.

http://www.sheetmusic1.com/ns.bass.html
Click to expand...
thanks Cass,happy birthday by the way:)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
#18
What has worked well for me was paying some cash for Sibelius.

I don't know if you know what Sibelius is but its a notation program. You can download midi files and convert them, strip out the bass part, alter the tempo and play along.

Or scan some music in, and play along

Or point and click some sheet music in and play along.

I haven't tried converting tab to notation though - it might need some tweaking as I haven't spotted bass tab in Sibelius.

I found it gave me a chance to set up some simple rhythms and notes to listen to what it should sound like, then to make some changes, listen to the changes etc etc.

And of course you can play your bass along with the computer.

Worked for me anyway :)
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back