Help me learn how to sight read

[Ralph124C41]

I would like to learn how to read music ... nothing elaborate or detailed ... just enough for me to be able to look at some fiddle tunes and play them on the guitar.

I know the notes. I know the time element of the notes ... but I am sooooooo slow. A good example (or a bad example) may be comparing hunt-and-peck typing to touch typing. You both get to the same destination but the time it takes to get you there is vastly different. (Btw, when I was a newspaper reporter my boss used the former and was quite adept at it. Plus, you know, he was my boss ...)

Can you suggest some (hopefully free or low cost) materials and/or videos to help me? Years ago I tried some online course designed for children, or so I thought, only to be rewarded with spam, spyware and maybe a virus.

I've also used some software and websites discussed here to "translate" the sheet music into tabs which I use ... but it takes time and I really need to be able to do some basic sight reading myself.

Plus there have been a couple occasions where I wanted to join a community or church music group but I was required to be able to do sight reading on the spot ... or at least "encouraged" to learn how to do that task.

[jseth]

Ralph;

I'm no big sight reader, but I have done some in the past... currently, I'd say my sight reading is at the level of "See Dick chase Jane... Run, Jane, run!". I get there eventually but it's a slow process.

I can say that the times when I've been doing more frequent forays into sight reading, it has gotten much better and faster, the more I did it. Like most things...

I remember sight reading songs in my 7th grade choir; I could follow very well, after repeated attempts... and my own sensibility about melody and harmony helped me when there was a wider 'leap" between notes that I wasn't totally certain about.

Just dig in and work with it... the more you do, the easier it will become. Learning to "read ahead" was very helpful for me...

[rick-slo]

Likely you will just be looking at treble staff lines ("every good boy does fine") and fretting the notes indicated.
Timing note durations can be easy or a challenge depending on the score. Much needs to be memorized if you
are to have much facility. Like most things gets easier with practice but maintenance needs the continued activity
of sight reading.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

You just have to roll up your sleeves and get into it. I'd suggest a beginner type book which gradually builds from the first string to all six.

[ssjk]

Back in my mandolin playing days I got a copy of this book.

http://stringthingm.com/Standard_Not...ing%22%20(Bach).

I thought it was pretty good, but am not sure it translates well for guitar (other than the concepts and approach of course). I no longer have the book so I can’t check.

Here’s what I suggest that worked pretty well for me

Pick a set of tunes you know (any fiddle tune, ode to joy, pachelbels canon)
Learn that tune by ear
Then play that tune while you are looking at the standard notation version
For a while, say the name of the note while you play it

After a while you will see the note on the staff and your fingers will know what that means on the fretboard. Takes a while but not as long as you think.

By the way, I can sight read for voice pretty well after years in choirs and choruses. I don’t find that helps me much at all when sight reading for instruments. My brain knows what a C# is when singing in context with other notes. Doesn’t translate that to the second fret, second string for a guitar.

[TBman]

Bite the bullet Ralph.

https://www.thisisclassicalguitar.co...thod-book-pdf/

This guy Brad Werner has lessons on Youtube and you can get the notation. Reading and seeing where he is would be a great help I would think.

I really have to buckle down and do this too a lot better than I do now, it's just really helpful in every respect to a guitar player to be able to read.

[rmp]

I wish I had the patience, maybe upon retirement?

I worked with a music director I could not believe how good he was at sight reading.. (OK --- he was a Julliard guy but still)

Put anything in front of him, and it was like he was reading the sports section on the daily news paper.

"It's easy" he'd say...

[ljguitar]

Hi Ralph
I have a degree in vocal, and instrumental music education, both elementary and secondary levels. Full-blown sight reading is similar to knowing how to read words/passages aloud at a proficient level, and pronounce words with proper punctuation and inflection…reading things which you never heard before.

For what it sounds like you want to do, a beginner or intermediate book which contains simple and familiar fiddle tune melodies would be sufficient for you to begin sounding out and figuring out how to play them with some proficiency.

Working out simple tunes from a book or internet site which you want to play at full speed starts with being able to locate them and learning to play the notes and rhythms perfectly. Then you need to increase the speed while performing them start to finish without hesitation or halting. Perhaps the group will point you to some books of notation which contain fiddle tunes.

If you are wanting to play spontaneously on-the-fly, that is a skill which takes time and organization, and practice to put under your belt. It starts by figuring them out on your own and playing them till you don't have to think about the notes any more.

I hope you find the help you need to develop your skills to a satisfactory level. Good on you for continuing to grow your gifts…

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Ralph
I have a degree in vocal, and instrumental music education, both elementary and secondary levels. Full-blown sight reading is similar to knowing how to read words/passages aloud at a proficient level, and pronounce words with proper punctuation and inflectionÂ…reading things which you never heard before.

For what it sounds like you want to do, a beginner or intermediate book which contains simple and familiar fiddle tune melodies would be sufficient for you to begin sounding out and figuring out how to play them with some proficiency.

Working out simple tunes from a book or internet site which you want to play at full speed starts with being able to locate them and learning to play the notes and rhythms perfectly. Then you need to increase the speed while performing them start to finish without hesitation or halting. Perhaps the group will point you to some books of notation which contain fiddle tunes.

If you are wanting to play spontaneously on-the-fly, that is a skill which takes time and organization, and practice to put under your belt. It starts by figuring them out on your own and playing them till you don't have to think about the notes any more.

I hope you find the help you need to develop your skills to a satisfactory level. Good on you for continuing to grow your giftsÂ…

^^^^^This.

"Sight reading" does suggest playing direct from a new score (as a proficient classical guitar player would) - and I'm not sure that reading guitar notation is really what the OP is aiming at (yet).

So just get some easy fiddle tune books and learn how the tunes go from reading the violin score - then find the tunes by ear on the guitar. It's not "sight reading" but I used to often read fiddle tunes in bed and hum the melody (or hear it in my head as I read). This helped me get the tune wired so that I could play it by ear when I picked up my dulcimer the following day.

I do the same now with the choir scores I have (I sing in a Welsh MVC). I can't tell you what the note names are without laboriously working each one out, and I certainly don't know the names of the notes on my guitar fretboard. But I can darn well tell you how the tune or harmony part goes!

So I sort of see reading music like listening to the tune. I'm still playing/singing by ear but seeing the written music for me is just like listening to a recording of the piece. I'm following the note intervals and note durations as I scan the pattern of the score.

All the old time tune clips in my signature below I learnt through a mix of hearing the tunes being played and reading the tunes notation away from my instruments - which I think of as hearing the tunes off the paper.

I don't know if this is a "thing" within the music teaching world? I can usually "hear" a tune when I look at a piece of music (just a melody line), but I can't tell you what the notes are or where to find those precise notes on my guitar..........because I don't have to know that.

I think that if I had to know the note names off the music and where to find them on an instrument - in real time (i.e. sight reading), I think that it is a skill I could learn. But, at present, that skill is beyond my needs.

[rick-slo]

Obviously if you want to practice sight reading standard music scores to play on your guitar those scores should have been arranged for
playing on the guitar. Transposing is rarely part of the job of learning to sight read a score - especially for a novice.

[Mandobart]

I learned to read treble clef as an elementary school kid playing violin in orchestra. Later in junior high I played bass guitar in jazz band so I had to learn bass clef.

All through school from grade 5 through 12 I had an hour of orchestra and an hour of band daily. That consistent repetition playing in an ensemble from sheet music with a leader really worked for me.

How does a lone adult student without in-person guidance replicate this experience? Only way I can imagine is if there is a local teacher who is willing to do it with you and a few others.

As a primarily bluegrass player now, I learn most new tunes the traditional aural/oral way where one person who knows the song runs through it while the others listen, watch then join in. In jams or gigs we don't use any tabs or notation.

I have several books with notation versions of bluegrass, swing, latin, folk, Irish etc. songs. I make it part of my regular practice to spend time sight reading from these. Even though I don't need it for my music currently, it's a valuable skill worth keeping.

Get song books or download files that have songs you recognize so you know how they're supposed to sound. Then hunt 'n peck your way through them. Spend a little time every day on this.

[Brent Hutto]

If you just want to read and play single-note melody lines, such as fiddle tunes, just buy some books with a few hundred fiddle tunes transcribed and play through them. Start with the easy guitar keys.

IMO that sort of sight reading (as opposed to reading more elaborate arrangements like you might find in the classical guitar repertoire) doesn't so much need a method or teaching as it needs practice. And patience. Patient practice.

Playing guitar from sheet music is to me so much harder than other instruments. I've spent many, many happy hours just playing through (sight reading) fiddle tunes on mandolin. But with guitar it's still more like work than play for me.

But if you can read a simple tune and play it with the correct notes and beat counting (even very, very, VERY slowly), even if it takes you a couple or three tries to get it right, then you have the cognitive understanding of how to play from sheet music. It's just down to repetition to learn how to do it faster IMO.

[k_russell]

https://www.alfred.com/sight-reading.../p/00-EL02942/

This book might help if you are looking for a systematic approach. The author wrote it with the classical guitarist in mind, but most of the exercises would apply to your needs.

Site Reading for Classical Guitar

by Robert Benedict

[tbirdman]

I'm a retiree. I've been playing he classical guitar for 3 years and the piano for a year. I still can't play and read at the same time. However, I'm getting better. It will just like an effort, but you eventually get there.

I can read fairly well. I don't have to rely on acronyms to remember the notes though notes on the ledgers trip me up. Then I forget I'm looking at the bass clef and come up with the wrong note. I just memorize the piano pieces although I can play slowly and read a piece that I'm familiar with.

I'm still waiting for the time I can read and play at the same time. Unfortunately it's just time and effort. It just like the notes of the 6 strings. I don't have to think what they are. Triads notes that start on white keys on the piano are burned into my brain. A lot of the triad knowledge is because I know which fingers are on black keys. Ask me me triad of C#, and I fall apart.

[GCWaters]

If they're still available, the first 2 or 3 Mel Bay instructional books are great for reading on the first five frets....