Off Topic Learning to Read Sheet Music - Any Advice?

[ScoobySteve]

A question for some of the classically trained musicians here, I'm at a point now where I want to take my guitar abilities beyond ear training and tablature.

I really want to make a strong effort to learn to play the guitar with sheet music, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with instructions, books, or any other sources where I could learn to read sheet music on my own time.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[Larry]

Do you have any prior experience with sheet music? Piano? ect?

 

[ScoobySteve]

Yeah, I played piano when I was little, and play trumpet for about 5 years mid-high school.

I'm familiar with sheet music, just not how it correlates to the guitar.

 

[ivanmihaljevic]

Try with "A Modern Method For Guitar" by William Leavitt (Berklee Press)

 

[ScoobySteve]

Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out.

Would you happen to have any experience with this book?

 

[Jack FFR1846]

Any beginner book will give you what you need to read music. I've learned at least 3 times......(learned....didn't use for a long time, learned again....). Then it's just practice playing what's in front of you. I'm still re-learning. Fortunately, my 7 year old is learning for the first time, so I get to practice every night.



jack

 

[ScoobySteve]

Thanks for the replies so far!

sixtyfour: Yeah I definitely understand what you mean, but being able to read music is a huge personal goal of mine. Plenty of guitar greats couldn't read music (i.e. SRV) and were brilliant musicians, but for me, I've just been raised classically in music, and after a decade of tablature I want to take the time to actually read what's in front of me, expand my horizons.

P.S. Lucky man Jack, lol.

 

[edrod]

Try with "A Modern Method For Guitar" by William Leavitt (Berklee Press)

I have a question, I found two different ones. One is for $106 and the other for $20 would you have an idea why this would be the case

 

[puppyonacid]

I encourage all my students to learn to read standard notation. That said, I'm by no means a really good sight reader. But I can read well enough to learn anything from standard notation. Being able to pull out a violin concerto without having to rely on tab is useful as it enables you to explore anything you want to have a go at.

That said, being a guitarist, as far as I can tell there aren't many gigs these days that require amazing sight reading skills. But, try and never go over the same piece more than a few times. If it's a piece you want to learn to play then it's different. But for practicing sight reading, well you can only really do that a couple of times with a piece of music before you start to retain some memeory of what you're reading.

As long as you can already read, there are plenty of books out there with melody and piano notation. You could just buy a book of one of your favey albums transcribed for Piano and vocals and go through the melodies. It helps if you know the piece you're learning. But! When you get to a certain level, especially as far as reading rhythm is concerned, you learn to trust what the music is telling you and you'll find you get closer and closer each time to how the music is supposed to sound even without knowing the piece you're playing.

All that said, it's worth remembering that music on the printed page is only 10% of how it's supposed to sound (thats a quote from the Inner Game of Music by Barry Green). The rest is up to you.

 

[ScoobySteve]

Any other recommendations for books?

The Modern Method one looks promising, just wondering if anyone else had any experience with others.

 

[Meedleyx10]

Leavit's book are all good for reading practice. Get the following of his books:

-Modern method 1-3 (i reccomend these books for everyone...these aren't as good for direct sight-reading practice as they are for the skills that build a foundation for good reading skills. They'll get you used to reading scales, arpeggios, chords, and simple melodic figures all in positions....which is the quickest way to overcome the issue of having the same notes available in various positions. they also get you used to interpreting chord symbols and being able to voice-lead through changes musically...especially important since most reading you have to do as a guitarist will be accompaniment)
-Melodic Rhythms....this breaks down all the different ways 8th notes (and anything longer) can be played and gets you used to reading them. This is one of the best books you can get for sight-reading IMO. The chord changes to the studies are also really good workouts.
-Reading Studies and Advanced Reading studies....just a bunch of studies in all positions. I suppose the titles pretty much let you know what you're getting here


and now one from Mike Scymscak (that spelling is wrong, I'm sure...I'll check up on it later)
-contemporary rhythms for guitar: it's the same deal as Melodic rhythms, but further breaks it down to 16th notes

-Dictonary of Strum and Picking patters (i think that's the title) by Fred Sokolov: Lots of notated rhythm-guitar figures....good, because that's most of what you'll encounter in real life situations



Beyond all those, I reccomend just getting whatever study/etude books you can get for other instruments. Most guitar material is written for guitarists by guitarists, and thus the pieces are usually very well adapted for the instrument. Other instruments have different physical lendings and result in different melodic tendencies, so they make for great reading material for guitar in that they force you to read things that are harder to go to auto-pilot on. Another thing, which someone already mentioned, is to always...I repeat, ALWAYS...practice your reading to a metronome. This forces you to adhere to an unfaultering pulse, so you can't stop to fix mistakes. You need to train yourself to always move forward and play through mistakes.

Also, to the guy that said there aren't many gigs out there that require good sight reading skills...I have to disagree. Maybe not that many gigs require reading extremely hard material, but there are plenty that require reading easy to moderate material extremely well. Solid reading skills will push a player leaps and bounds above the non-reading competition. Speaking from my own experience, reading skills have been extremely beneficial. It's the guys with killer reading skills that usually get the first-call status with producers and musical directors...especially for last minute type things.

 

[guertzi]

What also helps is to transcribe music like i.e. solos from your favorite players.

Guitarists like Robben Ford or Scott Henderson often state that they learned a lot from transcribing saxophone solos from John Coltrane or Charlie Parker.

 

[Ponch]

Try to read Jazz Fake Book to practice, I guess it's more useful in terms of application in 'real' live situation, the notations usually pretty simple BUT freakin tricky.

Another technical difficulties, try to play a simple major and minor scale in 8va (1 octave higher), it's useful if you're in a band, and guitar definitely need to play higher than normal written notes, so you will not messing around with those trumpet, sax, keyboard or piano player in frequency wise.

since you already know how to read the notation, i guess that's my only humble opinion for now, just start reading as much as you can and play at the same time, happy reading my friend

 

[ScoobySteve]

Thanks for all the responses guys, much appreciated!