sight-reading

[bloke]

I occasionally grow weary of discussing bag colors, new Chinese tubas, and such, and attempt to bend the topics towards playing music.

TOPIC: "SIGHT-READING"

It's either this complex, or this simple, or it's not. (Others are welcome to explain what goes on in their heads.)

This is what I have discovered that I do:

I look (probably "glance") at two or three (or more or maybe even only one, depending on how complex) measures, "play" them in my head, mimic what heard in my head - ACTUALLY playing on an instrument (or singing, though I rarely sing), and - while playing or singing that - look at the next two or three measures.

If I catch myself being VERY lazy (and only playing in my head in real time - rather than reading ahead) there's a chance that I will make errors the first time though (as "sight-reading" - technically - is playing something - read off a piece of paper or screen - the first time through, yes?)

If I hear some portion of one/two/three/four measures wrong in my head, I'll likely play that segment precisely as I mistakenly imagined it.

Immediately imagining rhythmic figures and pitch intervals is really important. It defines playing others' music as fun, vs. being a dreadful chore (dreadful - until trial-and-error finally wins out).

I probably would analogize this to hunt-and-peck typing, as opposed to knowing the keyboard.

[Bassboner]

When I was a young player (say high school), I had a lot of trouble with sight reading. I was in a very small bubble mostly of my own invention, and in that bubble there were a couple of things that didn't matter, such as sight reading, playing or reading rhythms and intonation. Any time I left that bubble for all-state or all-regional stuff, I struggled with these skills that I never had to learn because all I did was wood-shed. I developed some really nice skills, but sight reading, rhythm and intonation weren't among them. Imagine my surprise when after all that individual practice time, I realized that the skills I had didn't really allow me to do much except play solos at auditions, and then only to a certain level because some of the essentials were totally left out.

If I had it to do again, I would make sure my teachers did a few things differently with me:

- played duets in my lessons so I would learn time, intonation and ensemble playing.
- forced me to just read new music and taught me pattern recognition and looking ahead (I had ALL of the LaFosse School of Sight Reading and Style books, but I practiced the exercises repeatedly until I got them right instead of just tried to read them.)
- taught me techniques like looking over a piece of music before trying to play it, maybe marking key or time changes with a highlighter
- worked with me on playing by ear, and by extension improvisation
- introduced me to some music theory of which I was ignorant until 1st year college

I could play the hell out of Rochut and whatever solo I was working on, but I don't think I had any idea of what intonation was, and rhythm was just a vague concept for me. I played everything like it was a solo at church - very rubato. It could sound beautiful even if I essentially no idea what I was doing.

The inability to sight read cost me some early auditions and opportunities that I took. I had to make a lot of public mistakes before I started to figure out that sight reading was about pattern recognition and looking ahead. Hammering Arbans did help me with pattern recognition, but the looking ahead part really escaped me.

Back then they didn't diagnose kids who weren't perfect. Part of my problem with sight reading even now has to do with concentration. I'll get thinking about something related to the music, but not really concentrating on reading the music, and I'll blow it. If I can continue to really focus, I can read and play accurately. My actual reading comprehension scores were good, but not stellar, and I'm sure that had something to do with it all as well.

Do teachers actually teach sight reading to younger kids these days?

[bloke]

From July to December, the overwhelming majority of American instrumental music students are outdoors and learning through repetition/rote/trial-and-error, yes?

Additionally, they are convinced that these are the paths towards "winning".

Something that's a little bit more "heady" (do any of them still do this?) is something we used to do outdoors, which was to keep our eyes closed (honor system) play and move through every 16 beats, stop, open our eyes, and see how far off our feel/imagination was from reality.

[UncleBeer]

Sea-change for me was playing bass trombone in the 4 o'clock lab band at NTSU several decades ago. Each class, we'd just read down 10-12 charts out of their enormous library. No going back; no commentary; onward. You quickly learned to read 4 bars ahead.

Since then sight-reading's been no trouble whatsoever.

[Mary Ann]

I run into this sometimes with some of the people I join up with to fill a slot. I simply explain that sight reading is a separate skill that has to be learned through doing it, a lot, just like anything else. The second time you play a piece, you are no longer sight reading it.

[bloke]

Sea-change for me was playing bass trombone in the 4 o'clock lab band at NTSU several decades ago. Each class, we'd just read down 10-12 charts out of their enormous library. No going back; no commentary; onward. You quickly learned to read 4 bars ahead.

Since then sight-reading's been no trouble whatsoever.

Playing a secondary instrument and a big band will get you going (sink or swim) pretty quick.
I've talked about playing nylon-string guitar solos at cocktail parties and such when I was in high school... But those were solo pieces that I had worked out in a "repertoire", whereby all the technical challenges have been drilled and worked out.

Admittedly, bass guitar is a bunch easier, but sight reading four to the bar at pretty good clips - and playing those old Nestico (et al) charts defined "sink or SHIFT".
In other words, if I did not QUICKLY learn how to shift neck positions on the fly - and be able to read ahead that I was going to NEED to shift positions on the neck, the bass part was going to end up having gaps in it, and that's just not acceptable... equally as bad as the drummer stopping for a few beats.

bass trombone:
I used to work my tail off to play that thing, and finally decided that it required too much of my time (away from my main profession, as well as from practicing the tuba enough to keep playing gigs competently).
Finally - several years ago - I played the fourth trombone book for the very first time in a big band (a damn good one, called The Equinox Orchestra out of Savannah, Georgia). I used the F cimbasso. Every time I've played that thing since in a big band, I've gotten a lot of grins because (well, you know...) the fourth trombone and a big band is supposed to be just a little bit on the crass side ("tastefully crass"), and that's pretty easy to do with an F contrabass instrument. Further, mine's small enough bore so as I can pretty easily reach a trombone high B flat with the thing without it sounding like I'm squeezing. I made a complete set of mutes for it and everything... Lots of fun.
The particulars were that they came and played a pop's concert with a per-service orchestra with which I was working at the time. They brought their lead players and we filled in and covered the rest of the books. They had string and woodwind books as well, whereas all of their charts could be expanded to basically a Nelson Riddle instrumentation - which made it even more fun.

I still suck at (slide) bass trombone, but I'm an "ok" electric bass player..

someone's rehearsal phone pic:

[b.williams]

Since it was part of the process, I worked on sight reading prior to auditioning for a Navy Fleet band in 1982. For the next four years we played mostly the same music.

[russiantuba]

The best way to improve at sight reading is to learn your scales and arpeggios with good time and rhythm. Reading something basic every day, top to bottom, even with mistakes, focusing on rhythm, will further improve those skills.

[Bassboner]

Since it was part of the process, I worked on sight reading prior to auditioning for a Navy Fleet band in 1982. For the next four years we played mostly the same music.

I joined in 85, 4 years in Norfolk. Where were you?

[b.williams]

Navy Band San Diego.

[Bassboner]

Another of the things I learned late that I think should help people who struggle with sight reading is that the rhythm - the TIME, really - is more important than the notes. If you're going to blow something, get the time right. In a practical sense, this means that if you're having problems reading, DON"T SLOW DOWN JUST TO GET THE NOTES. Fake the notes, biff the notes, skip the notes, but don't mess with the time. In the practice room, if you can't read the notes, you slow down (bad habit unless you're doing it deliberately). You can't do this in an ensemble. If you miss a note, that's on you, but if you slow the group down just to get the right notes, now you've effected everyone. This is one of those unspoken rules that I think a lot of people never get. It's really hard to play in groups that constantly slow down. Once you realize one of the biggest sources of this, the situation tends to improve. I think in our drive as musicians to be perfect, it can be easy to forget that being together with other musicians is more important than being individually perfect.

[Mary Ann]

It is will worth re-emphasizing over and over and over again, to stay with the group even if you sound like a 5th grader - at least the notes you get are in the right place, and the group doesn't founder because you are off in wonderland with your reading.

To me -- this is one of the hallmarks of amateur playing. They don't stay with the group "no matter what." The pros do.

[bloke]

There are two adjacent states within an hour of blokeplace, and two more within two hours.

One of those states' all-state tryout materials is on my music stand.

Typically (per all-state tryout materials), one piece is "pretty" and one is "fast".

(I don't like the term "technical". Everything is "technical", and - in music - "technical" tends to be interpreted as "non-musical".)

The fast one is a bit comical. It's six 16th notes to the bar (3/8 time signature) and the suggested tempo range is between the mid 60's and the mid 70's (per measure).
It's actually from a baritone horn book, and written down an octave. The last three and a half lines are relentless - with no place to breathe.

The pitch range isn't that challenging ("low" A-flat to G up in the staff - two octave range).

TOPICAL:

Before I played through it the first time, I sang through the entire etude.
I (only an "ok" singer) was reasonably pleased, and (hey...) I ended up in the correct pitch at the end.

Playing through it - for the first time - I'm absolutely convinced that I read it just a bit better than had I NOT sung through it once.
(The breathing gasps required to play the last section are hilarious.)

[Mary Ann]

A high level trumpeter friend of mine watched me playing loud quick onbeats and said, in disbelief, "Are you inhaling through your NOSE?" And I said "yup because there is no time to actually open my mouth, and I use most of a lungful on one note with these."

Speaking of no time to breathe: On horn with the terminal off beats that are sometimes present, one learns to "blat blat blat blat blat sniff in blat blat blat blat blat sniff out : repeat : "

Oh, and any time anyone asks don't I get bored playing ooms, I say it is 1000 times better than playing pahs.

And that said, you ought to hear the community band horn section snicker when the community band trumpet section tries to play off beats.

[bloke]

The second movement of the Paul Hindemith tuba sonata (the entirety of which makes a mockery of the tuba) makes fun of the way that tuba players turn the beat around when playing in polka bands.

He makes up for the lack of any solo material for the tuba (other than a cadenza) by having written a virtuostic piano sonata on top of it... but I'm not telling anyone anything they don't know.

[Mary Ann]

The second movement of the Paul Hindemith tuba sonata (the entirety of which makes a mockery of the tuba) makes fun of the way that tuba players turn the beat around when playing in polka bands.

He makes up for the lack of any solo material for the tuba (other than a cadenza) by having written a virtuostic piano sonata on top of it... but I'm not telling anyone anything they don't know.

Oh you're telling me something i didn't know -- I was unaware of this sonata. My impression is that he had a terrific sense of humor and expressed it with this composition. You would need a pretty educated audience to have them get this piece.

[the elephant]

I suffer from dyslexia. I had to really drill all my scales (major, three forms of minor, modes, blues, pentatonic, etc.), arpeggios, and interval studies until I was "moderately less stupid".

I did this in community college before I went into the Army. The military teaches you to read in front of an audience on a near-daily basis. On almost every gig, we would sightread something. Some gigs were 100% sightreading.

By the time I arrived at North Texas as a 23-year-old freshman, I was a fairly solid reader on the BBb tuba. When I switched to CC tuba in my 3rd year, I never fully recovered that reading facility. I think it is because I never worked on it like that again. I know all the patterns. I have to make my eyes see the new dots while my fingers remember the old patterns, and my ears have to adapt, too. I have always been the weakest reader in my orchestra's brass section, but I am still more than adequate. However, oddly enough, I am a much better reader on F tuba. And I can still sort of read on BBb.

Recently I nearly bought a nice BBb tuba to try and go back to that system, as I have always felt I was better at that. I think maybe it was a mistake for me to make the switch in the first place, and I bet once I am "back in the saddle", my reading will be closer to the old days.

Or I will be completely wrecked, heh, heh, heh…

Not sure, and not yet fully willing to find this out.

[bloke]

I don't believe I'm dyslexic or suffer from any specific compartmentalized disability, but I'm pretty sure that suffer from a disability known as "man, that guy's stupid".

It took me a lot longer to get into the B-flat thing in my late 60s than it took for me to get into the C thing in my late teens.

As far as sight reading is concerned, I play a whole bunch of gigs in a row where there is no sheet music or - if there is any - I don't bother to pull it up. I get out of practice of sight reading, and have to find things around here (probably stuff that I don't like, which is why I never pulled it out and read it before) to sight read, in order to get myself reading 1 to 4 bars ahead again.

My high school buddy (who I have referred to way too many times, who - no private lessons ever - practiced his tail off for hours every night on the fiberglass sousaphone in his railroad widow mom's little thousand square foot house with gravel driveway) bought a brand new 186 B flat with (...is there money they give people who they recruit - on the front end, as sort of is a recruiting bonus or something?)

As I've said, they parked him in a base band for a year and then they strongly encouraged him to audition for Pershing's Own (as I'm sure that was their plan for him all along...yet he fooled them and got out as soon as his first enlistment tour was up).

The point is that - once he was put in Pershing's Own, he had to play a Hb C tuba, and hated it. I don't think he hated the C thing, and I'm sure he figured out how to play and read a C instrument in a very short time, but (and I know this puts a bug in some people's butts) I suspect that what he didn't like (much more than the C thing) were the quirky intonation and goofy low range response - actually related to the intonation characteristics (having owned a couple of those instruments myself for short periods of time. Had they handed him a really good 186 C, he probably would have had a lot of fun with it...
... Having gone off on a tangent here, he popped into my mind again, because he was such an incredible sight reader... and I'm sure it goes back to things I've said about him before, which include singing in his family's primitive Baptist church with no piano or organ and out of a shape-notes hymnal (besides just having read and played so very much music at home for hours every single night for several years as a teenager).

[the elephant]

I would add to my above post: I cannot read even a single beat ahead. I read note-for-note. This is due to my dyslexia.

[humBell]

I should sight read more.

I should also practice more.

These are not contradictory as they may seem at first glance.

I should play more.