Tips to avoid losing place in music

[skycruiser]

I'm looking for some tips on how to avoid losing my place while reading music.

I'm playing with a big band jazz group and we play from sheet music (not charts). The music is written out with some places for improvised walking bass. 2 to 3 pages is typical.

I have done 3 gigs so far with the group and my biggest problem I have is losing my place in the music. I think I may be skipping a line, probably when I look down at my left hand to check my position. I can't always hear the group well due to poor sound conditions in the room, so I need to be able to stay on track measure-by-measure. Recovery by listening won't always work. I don't have severe nerves but that does contribute some to my difficulty playing live. I'm actively working on improving my concentration while playing, but have a way to go. So looking for any techniques to help.

I thought maybe I could color code the rows sort of like a spreadsheet with alternating white/gray rows.

Maybe just numbering the rows with a marker, 1, 2, 3... could help as well.

One of those might help track where I am when I look away and return.

Any other ideas?

 

[turf3]

No, just stay at it. All those color coding etc. things won't really help that much and they'll get in the way pretty soon.

And if the parts are original, or owned by the band, DO NOT mark them with ANYTHING except a #2 pencil!!!

 

[skycruiser]

No, just stay at it. All those color coding etc. things won't really help that much and they'll get in the way pretty soon.

And if the parts are original, or owned by the band, DO NOT mark them with ANYTHING except a #2 pencil!!!

Thanks for the advice!

I'm working with my personal copies so I can add any markings I need. Currently I highlight key changes and repeats/codas etc.

 

[jallenbass]

I don't see any reason not to try color coding or using numbers. We all process information differently. But with time you'll get better regardless.

 

[Slevage]

I usually circle the codas and DS’s in red.
I highlight the repeats in yellow.
I often write in cues like “saxes enter” or “bones” or “pno” above sections.
I’m not aware of the difference between “charts” and “sheet music”. Please explain.
The best way to get good at reading is to read.
Method books (I like Carol Kaye’s books) are a great way to learn to play without staring at the fingerboard.
I was fortunate to learn from a great teacher from day one, reading standard notation. You can also write out , then play your own exercises, string by string. The first string to learn is G, then D, then A, then E, but it sounds like you are past that.

 

[Wasnex]

I'm looking for some tips on how to avoid losing my place while reading music.

I'm playing with a big band jazz group and we play from sheet music (not charts). The music is written out with some places for improvised walking bass. 2 to 3 pages is typical.

I have done 3 gigs so far with the group and my biggest problem I have is losing my place in the music. I think I may be skipping a line, probably when I look down at my left hand to check my position. I can't always hear the group well due to poor sound conditions in the room, so I need to be able to stay on track measure-by-measure. Recovery by listening won't always work. I don't have severe nerves but that does contribute some to my difficulty playing live. I'm actively working on improving my concentration while playing, but have a way to go. So looking for any techniques to help.

I thought maybe I could color code the rows sort of like a spreadsheet with alternating white/gray rows.

Maybe just numbering the rows with a marker, 1, 2, 3... could help as well.

One of those might help track where I am when I look away and return.

Any other ideas?

This is a skill that requires time to develop and practice to maintain. Temper your expectations and understand there will always be room to improve.

• Make sure you can see well. Good glasses if you need them, stand light if necessary, stand position, cleanly printed music with good contrast. If necessary and permitted, edit the part to make it clear.
• Know the places where you tend to get lost. Consider adding a mark if necessary. Practice looking away and quickly looking back to find your place. The point is to identify the necessary skills for success and then isolate and practice those skills in order to develop your ability.
• Make sure you understand the road map; add markings as necessary.
• Look at your hand less. When you are improvising a walking line, it's better to play simple and keep your place, rather than get to creative and get lost
• Play the music in so you can hear what comes next. You want to be able to play by ear long enough to find your place. Also if you are struggling to improvise the bass line, that is less mental focus available to keep your place.
• Get in the habit of reading ahead.
• Before you start playing, quickly review your mental notes about where you have problems. Scan the music to look at the trouble spots.

I am a big fan of color coding, but I don't necessarily thinks it's a good idea here. Playing music involves integrating a bunch processes. Many of these processes have to be automated, because there is too much going on to keep track of everything. Keeping track of the color coding is just another log on the fire.

Color coding could potentially help; especially after you learn to use it automatically. But it's a crutch. You won't always have the opportunity to color code and doing an entire piece of music would be time consuming. Also, frequently we are not allowed to modify music with permanent markings. Better to develop the necessary skill.

 

[skycruiser]

I usually circle the codas and DS’s in red.
I highlight the repeats in yellow.
I often write in cues like “saxes enter” or “bones” or “pno” above sections.
I’m not aware of the difference between “charts” and “sheet music”. Please explain.
The best way to get good at reading is to read.
Method books (I like Carol Kaye’s books) are a great way to learn to play without staring at the fingerboard.
I was fortunate to learn from a great teacher from day one, reading standard notation. You can also write out , then play your own exercises, string by string. The first string to learn is G, then D, then A, then E, but it sounds like you are past that.

Thanks for the advice. Sorry for the confusing wording - I meant "lead sheets" vs "sheet music". Basically, written out bass parts, not Real Book type stuff.

I have basic reading down pretty well now, but I'm starting to see new weaknesses as I'm getting a little experience performing. Looks like I've already adopted some of your advice about repeats, codas/DS etc. Good advice to also note cues in the music - haven't done much of that yet. (But that may not help if the sound is poor and I can't hear the instruments)

 

[mambo4]

I am always annoyed at my real book charts for the condensed "fit as many bars on the page as possible" layout.
I tend to lose my place when the "wrap around" is random
I have been known to rewrite charts handed to me so every line starts a 4 or 8 bar section.
In a pinch I'll grab a fat sharpie and make BIG bar lines at bar 5,9,13 etc
I always mark the Verse , chorus , bridge
since most of my chart work has been standard 32 bar forms it worked well.

Also: knowing the melody helps tremendously in keeping one's place.

 

[skycruiser]

This is a skill that requires time to develop and practice to maintain. Temper your expectations and understand there will always be room to improve.

• Make sure you can see well. Good glasses if you need them, stand light if necessary, stand position, cleanly printed music with good contrast. If necessary and permitted, edit the part to make it clear.
• Know the places where you tend to get lost. Consider adding a mark if necessary. Practice looking away and quickly looking back to find your place. The point is to identify the necessary skills for success and then isolate and practice those skills in order to develop your ability.
• Make sure you understand the road map; add markings as necessary.
• Look at your hand less. When you are improvising a walking line, it's better to play simple and keep your place, rather than get to creative and get lost
• Play the music in so you can hear what comes next. You want to be able to play by ear long enough to find your place. Also if you are struggling to improvise the bass line, that is less mental focus available to keep your place.
• Get in the habit of reading ahead.
• Before you start playing, quickly review your mental notes about where you have problems. Scan the music to look at the trouble spots.

I am a big fan of color coding, but I don't necessarily thinks it's a good idea here. Playing music involves integrating a bunch processes. Many of these processes have to be automated, because there is too much going on to keep track of everything. Keeping track of the color coding is just another log on the fire.

Color coding could potentially help; especially after you learn to use it automatically. But it's a crutch. You won't always have the opportunity to color code and doing an entire piece of music would be time consuming. Also, frequently we are not allowed to modify music with permanent markings. Better to develop the necessary skill.

As usual, great advice @Wasnex - thanks!

I'm coming around to the idea you and @turf3 suggest to avoid developing new crutches and improve skills to work with the sheet music with as minimal modification as possible.

I have been improving my playing without looking at my hands a lot, really out of necessity. I sometimes surprise myself that I jump up or down multiple fret positions and land correctly without a glance. Definitely building the muscle memory through a lot of practice and rehearsals. Reading ahead is something I need to improve, and now I have identified that I need to do a better job of mentally tracking my position on the sheet music to be ready for any needed hand position jump at any time, especially when I'm less familiar with a piece.

Before I joined this group honestly I didn't have a lot of experience or familiarity with big band jazz music and didn't realize the importance of the stability of the bass part. It is really a unique component of this type of music and when it falls out of the mix or hits a few wrong notes it can really cause trouble. I also think it's a difficult part to play. There is often very little or no repetition. The horns are resting all the time and often play the same notes! Very little rest for the bass.

Hopefully my group will continue to tolerate my deficiencies for awhile longer as I work on these new skills! They had to put up with too many mistakes from me last night, but hopefully I noticed them much more than everyone else.

 

[turf3]

I am always annoyed at my real book charts for the condensed "fit as many bars on the page as possible" layout.
I tend to lose my place when the "wrap around" is random
I have been known to rewrite charts handed to me so every line starts a 4 or 8 bar section.
In a pinch I'll grab a fat sharpie and make BIG bar lines at bar 5,9,13 etc
I always mark the Verse , chorus , bridge
since most of my chart work has been standard 32 bar forms it worked well.

Also: knowing the melody helps tremendously in keeping one's place.

Yes, I have a lot of tunes on index cards, and when I started making these I'd break lines into odd numbers of bars, and even after YEARS of looking at some of those they still confuse me. 4 bars per line (or 8 sometimes) for me, thank you very much!

 

[Rich-Cincy Kid]

This is a skill that requires time to develop and practice to maintain. Temper your expectations and understand there will always be room to improve.

• Make sure you can see well. Good glasses if you need them, stand light if necessary, stand position, cleanly printed music with good contrast. If necessary and permitted, edit the part to make it clear.
• Know the places where you tend to get lost. Consider adding a mark if necessary. Practice looking away and quickly looking back to find your place. The point is to identify the necessary skills for success and then isolate and practice those skills in order to develop your ability.
• Make sure you understand the road map; add markings as necessary.
• Look at your hand less. When you are improvising a walking line, it's better to play simple and keep your place, rather than get to creative and get lost
• Play the music in so you can hear what comes next. You want to be able to play by ear long enough to find your place. Also if you are struggling to improvise the bass line, that is less mental focus available to keep your place.
• Get in the habit of reading ahead.
• Before you start playing, quickly review your mental notes about where you have problems. Scan the music to look at the trouble spots.

I am a big fan of color coding, but I don't necessarily thinks it's a good idea here. Playing music involves integrating a bunch processes. Many of these processes have to be automated, because there is too much going on to keep track of everything. Keeping track of the color coding is just another log on the fire.

Color coding could potentially help; especially after you learn to use it automatically. But it's a crutch. You won't always have the opportunity to color code and doing an entire piece of music would be time consuming. Also, frequently we are not allowed to modify music with permanent markings. Better to develop the necessary skill.

This is really, and I mean very useful guidance! I’m going to apply these lessons to my own practice sessions and playing! Thank you so much!

 

[RGerhart]

Just keep at it, and it will get easier with time. Reading music is just like any other skill--it takes practice. When I was doing jazz band in my college days, I found that being able to navigate the fretboard without looking was helpful. Are you playing electric, or double bass?

One helpful tip that my teacher taught me about sightreading and just reading sheet music in general is to check your lowest note and highest note for the piece of music. Depending on the key and amount of notes, you can determine what position is best to play in (for electric). Once you have your position, knowing all of the notes in reach will make it easier to read the music without looking at your left hand position.

 

[cubanbass]

A lot of great advice. I'll add, practice recognizing how 4, 8 12, 32 bars feel.
It helps navigate the form, or if you stray, you know more/less where to jump in at on the chart. Also learn the melody (sing it, listen to the songs a lot), it helps to internalize the song so you can figure out where you are when you get lost.
If you are able to scan the charts and have a digital device, a tablet with a bluetooth page turner foot pedal also helps.

But keep at it!

 

[Bass4ThePublic]

Practice every day. Record yourself playing the material and rehearse throughly the parts you aren’t satisfied with.

 

[skycruiser]

Just keep at it, and it will get easier with time. Reading music is just like any other skill--it takes practice. When I was doing jazz band in my college days, I found that being able to navigate the fretboard without looking was helpful. Are you playing electric, or double bass?

One helpful tip that my teacher taught me about sightreading and just reading sheet music in general is to check your lowest note and highest note for the piece of music. Depending on the key and amount of notes, you can determine what position is best to play in (for electric). Once you have your position, knowing all of the notes in reach will make it easier to read the music without looking at your left hand position.

Thanks for the tips!
I'm playing Electric Bass, playing casually since 2019 and got serious about reading a couple of years ago.

With this group I don't have to do much sightreading since I have the full book of charts and usually get a list with some time to work on it before we rehearse. But we might play 40 charts at a gig so it's a lot to be thoroughly familiar with. I'm running into these issues even with music I have practiced 10 or 20 times. I think it is partly the pressure of performance (both at rehearsal and at gigs).

Since I play a 4 string I pretty much have to jump up to at least the 7th to 9th fret position and down to the lowest frets to play down to E or F for each chart. The only ones I can think of where I can hold a solid position for much of the time would be something like "In the Mood" that just doesn't require much movement. In general I try to work around the 3rd to 5th fret positions until I'm forced to go lower or higher. At this point I have solid familiarity with all the notes up to the 8 or 9th fret on all the strings. In the very few places I need to go higher, I put in extra practice for those sections and anticipate them in the music.

 

[micguy]

I avoid being on the wrong page by memorizing everything.

 

[dfp]

some reading situations won’t give enough repetition to internalize the music to overcome the problem of visually losing place on a chart where the staves all kinda look alike. Handel’s Messiah sheet music for example… maybe you aren’t a classical specialist, you play it once every few years, with maybe a couple rehearsals… then life goes on and you have other things to work on… the playing itself may not be too hard but one glance away to check out your left hand and suddenly you’re playing the wrong stave…. And it can be murder trying to jump back in on those Baroque run-on sentence bass lines… maybe not unlike big band bass! For parts like that I sometimes lightly pencil in a horizontal line across the whole page every 2, 3 or 4 staves (depending on the page formatting), just so my peripheral vision is a little more precisely aware of where I am on the page if I glance down at my left hand then return my eyes to the page. It hasn’t hurt anything for me, it only helps. And music with DS’s, codas, etc, color coded highlights are useful. Easier to spot on the fly than pencil marks. Less struggling with the chart frees the mind for more musical decision making. At least for me! This is not to say don’t also practice playing the music as well.

 

[AndyMopley]

This is a skill that requires time to develop and practice to maintain. Temper your expectations and understand there will always be room to improve.

• Make sure you can see well. Good glasses if you need them, stand light if necessary, stand position, cleanly printed music with good contrast. If necessary and permitted, edit the part to make it clear.
• Know the places where you tend to get lost. Consider adding a mark if necessary. Practice looking away and quickly looking back to find your place. The point is to identify the necessary skills for success and then isolate and practice those skills in order to develop your ability.
• Make sure you understand the road map; add markings as necessary.
• Look at your hand less. When you are improvising a walking line, it's better to play simple and keep your place, rather than get to creative and get lost
• Play the music in so you can hear what comes next. You want to be able to play by ear long enough to find your place. Also if you are struggling to improvise the bass line, that is less mental focus available to keep your place.
• Get in the habit of reading ahead.
• Before you start playing, quickly review your mental notes about where you have problems. Scan the music to look at the trouble spots.

I am a big fan of color coding, but I don't necessarily thinks it's a good idea here. Playing music involves integrating a bunch processes. Many of these processes have to be automated, because there is too much going on to keep track of everything. Keeping track of the color coding is just another log on the fire.

Color coding could potentially help; especially after you learn to use it automatically. But it's a crutch. You won't always have the opportunity to color code and doing an entire piece of music would be time consuming. Also, frequently we are not allowed to modify music with permanent markings. Better to develop the necessary skill.

• Before you start playing, quickly review your mental notes about where you have problems. Scan the music to look at the trouble spots. - This.

 

[JamesGrant]

Where tunes have popular sung parts, I write the first two words of the verse/chorus/mid8 etc at the appropriate point. I find that helps me to remain confident in where I am and if (heaven forbid) I slip a 1/2 bar or and feeling a bit wobbly, it’s a big comfort to hit the boundary as you’d hear the melody. On purely instrumental music, good luck!!

 

[bassbrad]

Having a reference recording is always helpful to me especially with more complicated charts. When I was struggling with jazz song forms it was a drummer that suggested keeping the melody and or lyrics to keep in step.