READING MUSIC

[knucklebrain1970]

I hate it. Stinks learning it again after a 10 year hyaitis.
Do you cats think it's better to learn the guitar notes in the various positions in the book that I'm using Berklee Modern Method for guitar or from a chart like the following. I'm having a real hard time with this, problaby because I only have like a 1/2 hour to devote to learning daily. :cry:
Any help is appreciated.
kevin

http://www.newmillguitar.com/f.02.gif

[brian richardson]

knucklebrain1970,
i don't quite remember how i learned to read music. i think it was on a piano. then, i started taking lessons w/ the carcassi method and off i went. anyway, take it slow. it's not the hours of practice-it's the quality of the practice. i seem to remember diving head first straight into the pieces in the book. keep on chugging.

[larilian]

I hate it. Stinks learning it again after a 10 year hyaitis.
Do you cats think it's better to learn the guitar notes in the various positions in the book that I'm using Berklee Modern Method for guitar or from a chart like the following. I'm having a real hard time with this, problaby because I only have like a 1/2 hour to devote to learning daily. :cry:
Any help is appreciated.
kevin

http://www.newmillguitar.com/f.02.gif

Knucklebrain,
After 10 years of playing guitar, I have finally started to learn to read music, and I feel your frustration. My teacher has me working through the Parkening Method books, and I feel as though my music reading abilities have greatly advanced over the last 6 months. Parkening introduces pieces through the books that slowly take you down the fret board. I suggest this approach, but only beacause it is working for me. Only 1/2 hour a day :shock: Try waking up an hour earlier in the morning to get some xtra practice in. The only catch is you got to lay off the sauce in the evenings and brew your coffee strong. :D Works for me. Good luck!

[Dave Tate]

Hi Knucklebrain1970.

I would recommend just forcing actual music on yourself. A chart like that could be a good reference though. Don't count on charts and methods along making you good at reading.
In my opinion, learning the notes and basics from a piece of music is far more effective (but possibly harder) than staring at a chart. For me, if it feels too academic, I risk too much frustration. So, just find a piece you love, and make it make sense. Use a chart like that only for reference.

Most importantly, rest assured that music-reading is something that just becomes instinctive, regardless of how you learned it. In a short enough while, you'll be reading fine and surprised that you ever got this frustrated by it.

However, everyone learns differently, and I'm sure you'll find the way that works best for you, without even realizing it.

Good Luck,
Dave

[Sandra]

Hi, Kevin!

My first introduction to playing was via the flute. I played various other one-note instruments over the years and when I finally took up the guitar, reading was a real challenge to me because (even though I knew how to read music) the guitar was multiple note.

Half an hour a day is not bad, especially if you keep it up on a regular basis, but structure your practice.

I don't advocate copyright infringement, but I find it best for me if I make photocopies of pieces from various books (which I already own) and put them into folders such as "warm ups", "work outs" and "work ons", the latter being pieces I'm trying to learn. Then, depending on my schedule, I play a couple pieces from each folder.

This way you don't have a stack of books to go through and you are free to use whiteout and mark alternate fingerings/etc. without messing up the originals you paid for. I keep the originals filed in several filing cabinets and rely on my folders with photocopies for actual practice.

Your best bet is to sightread, sightread and sightread some more! I sightread entire books/anthologies and flag pages with post-its for what I want to copy and add to one of my folders.

Good luck! :)

[Pepe Vergara]

Above all, be patient. A high percentage of people drop out of guitar due to the lack of patience. One way to develop patience is to study lutherie. Then you will become Saint Job!!

[MegaBrawn]

I'm pretty surprised so many dislike reading music, though I can sympathize with the frustration.

Personally, I love reading music. Music notation can tell you so much more than just guitar tabs. Keep in mind, by reading more music you are strengthening an area of musicianship that some guitarist choose not to.

I'd reccommend using a method book. A very basic one will do. Work on first position reading (i.e 1st to 3rd fret) and progress from there. But whatever you do, don't stop reading!

[Riggs]

See if you can find a copy of 'Guitar at Sight', by Charles Duncan. That book should get you on the fast track to reading for the guitar. The good thing about this book is you can work on it away from the guitar (like lunch at work or something).

I think reading for the guitar is difficult only because the question is "where do I play that note?". This book will show you the correct use of positions so you will have to think less about it.

I know what you mean about a lack of time. When I finally get home and have time to practice, I don't want to spend too much time working on sight reading. I want to have some fun with it. I find that if I can get all the conceptual work done BEFORE I sit down with the instrument, I have a lot more fun practicing!

Play with spirit
...Riggs

[knucklebrain1970]

Thanks guys. I want to become a real musician. Not for professional purposes, but I define real musician as someone that can read music. A monkey can read tab, but tab just gives you the notes, other than that, it's useless.
Kevin

[portlandgreg2]

I have to side most strongly with Davetate. I tried for so long to "organize" my sight reading training. I tried charts, scales, specialty pieces for learning to sight read, index cards, etc. I made a little progress but none really worked.

I finally learned to read music when I started to play violin. There was no longer the crutch of TAB to back me up if I decided to bail out of notation. Finger charts/maps are not really part of violin culture either. I was beginning to read violin music without thinking twice about it, then started to notice how I could pick up a piece of new guitar music and play through it without having to reference any other aids.

For me, it was one area of learning an aspect of music where a less organized approach seemed to have worked better than a more rigorous and studious methodology.

Best of luck and hope you find a successful path to notation reading.

[KBurke]

Being basically lazy, I've never liked to memorize anything. Rather, I've tended to create shortcuts for myself that allow me to cheat my way through until the memorization happens from repetition of something fun, like playing actual pieces. My shortcut for guitar has been to think in intervals. I memorized a few key spots, like the seventh fret and then just played in intervals from there. Some might find that harder than just memorizing the damn notes, I just found it less tedious.

[knucklebrain1970]

Hi Knucklebrain1970.

I would recommend just forcing actual music on yourself. A chart like that could be a good reference though. Don't count on charts and methods along making you good at reading.
In my opinion, learning the notes and basics from a piece of music is far more effective (but possibly harder) than staring at a chart. For me, if it feels too academic, I risk too much frustration. So, just find a piece you love, and make it make sense. Use a chart like that only for reference.

Most importantly, rest assured that music-reading is something that just becomes instinctive, regardless of how you learned it. In a short enough while, you'll be reading fine and surprised that you ever got this frustrated by it.

However, everyone learns differently, and I'm sure you'll find the way that works best for you, without even realizing it.

Good Luck,
Dave

That makes sense Dave. Are there any books that have moderate songs in them to learn. I'm over the mary had a little lamb stage, but I'm no Segovia. It's tough for me to find middle of the road type of stuff. Any websites that have songs in notation form as well. Plenty of tab garbage, but not a lot of note stuff.
kevin

[nylonpumper]

I think the most difficult part of reading music is not so much the notes but trying to read the rythym. Mulitple note values in one measure can be very confusing, especially if it's not in basic 4/4 time. Once I feel the correct rythm I am OK but many times I need my wife (who teaches piano) to help me interpret the timing.

[Sandra]

Are there any books that have moderate songs in them to learn.
I would say just go to a music store and look through some anthology books to find some that are at your level.

There are tons of books that have didactic works (often termed etudes) by the likes of Sor, Carulli, Carcassi, Diabelli, Giuliani, etc. Some are quite simple, others fairly complex. And some are obviously repetitive exercises designed to teach a specific technique, but some are quite melodic and can stand on their own as performance pieces, such as Sor's Op. 35, No. 22. The repetitive nature of etudes can be a good thing, because once you've nailed down the rhythmic aspect, it's easier to concentrate on the notes themselves.

Also, go for what you know! It's easier to sightread a piece if you've heard it before and know what the melody sounds like. You might want to look for anthologies of famous pieces by Bach, Mozart and such.

[Sandra]

I think the most difficult part of reading music is not so much the notes but trying to read the rythym. Mulitple note values in one measure can be very confusing, especially if it's not in basic 4/4 time. Once I feel the correct rythm I am OK but many times I need my wife (who teaches piano) to help me interpret the timing.
LOL! You replied while I was still writing... see what happens when you are doing several things at once and get distracted? ;)

I have to agree with what you said about rhythm. Again, the repetitive nature of etudes can help you there because most emphasize a limited number of rhythmic patterns, designed to help you get a firm grasp on those particular patterns, which will enable you to recognize them when you come across them in other pieces.

[Sandra]

Ooh, Kevin, I was looking around for some free sheet music sites and came up with a dilly for ya:

http://www.eythorsson.com/

They have a number of "collections" you might want to look at, also solo pieces, many by the etude composers I mentioned. Nice quality PDFs that print well, not like some of those jaggy looking GIF files.

They've got a lot of more advanced stuff, too, like Barrios' La Catedral.

Dang, you could go through an entire inkjet cartridge there in no time. :D One word of caution, though, if you want to print individual pieces out of a set... the numbers written on the pages don't always correspond to the actual PDF page number.

Sorry if this is a repost, but I haven't been around in a while and this was an exciting find for me. ;)

[knucklebrain1970]

Thanks Sandra, that site is awesome. The major difficulty I'm having is finding a book that teaches the various positions. I have the 100 graded classical guitar studies by Noad and 98% of the songs are way out of my league. What I don't get is there are numbers below the Staff lines and sometimes numbers inside a circle. I have to take a few lessons before I get upset and quit. I want to play dammit :x but most of the books I have are either for 2 year olds or for people with a PhD in music. Thanks for the site Sandra.

Kevin

[Dave Tate]

Don't get frustrated!
The numbers inside circles indicate which string to use. Other numbers below or above the staff are most likely left hand fingerings.
Hope that helps.
Dave

[brian richardson]

Sandra,
nice one with the free sheet music site.
thanks!!

[Sandra]

It can seem a bit overwhelming, can't it?

Came up with this page (http://www.musedit.com/med/InstrFeatures/Classic/ClassicStyle.htm) about musical notation. It says "Right click on the image to Start or Stop the animation" but that didn't work for me.

Some music has no such annotations whatsoever and you're left to your own devices to figure out how you want to finger them. Some music goes way overboard in annotation of fingerings and makes the page so cluttered it's hard to read. Then there's the fact that a lot of music has annotations that are blatantly incorrect, or that you may prefer to finger it a bit differently. There's no one "correct" way to finger a piece.

That is one of the reasons I like to photocopy the pieces I'm working on. That way I can mark it up to my heart's content trying experimental fingerings and the like. That and you don't have to worry about using binder clips to hold a book open. Plus you can get around some awkward page turns.

Do take a few lessons, though. One of the most important things is learning how to properly hold the guitar and position your hands. That's something that no matter what you read or see depicted in a book, you are better off having a teacher there to guide and correct you. If you develop bad habits early on, they are twice as hard to unlearn. If you're really motivated, there's a lot you can do on your own. I think I took lessons for less than six months, then figured I hit a plateau with the teacher where my progress was more dependent upon how much I practiced than upon the lessons.

At this point I would say don't worry about learning to play "in positions" until you can at least "master" some of the simpler pieces in your Noad anthology. BTW, that's an excellent book IMO. You can put me down as one who took up the guitar because of him. I was flipping the channels one day and caught his show and said "I can do that!" I don't want to sound like a heretic, but I think Noad actually did more for the guitar than Segovia. Segovia may have popularized the sound, but Noad inspired people to want to actually play. :)

[Sandra]

Sandra,
nice one with the free sheet music site.
thanks!!
You're most welcome. I thought it was such a good find, I had to share. :D

Now, hold onto your hat, because I found this one earlier, and it's another winner!

http://www.classicalguitar.nl/default.asp

Has tons of stuff, a lot of the pieces have midis and/or wmv samples to listen to in addition to sheet music. In fact, I had never heard Barrios himself play before. Granted, the audio quality on those is almost unlistenable, but it was exciting to actually hear the man himself play. :)

[a333a]

Sandra,
nice one with the free sheet music site.
thanks!!
You're most welcome. I thought it was such a good find, I had to share. :D

Now, hold onto your hat, because I found this one earlier, and it's another winner!

http://www.classicalguitar.nl/default.asp

Has tons of stuff, a lot of the pieces have midis and/or wmv samples to listen to in addition to sheet music. In fact, I had never heard Barrios himself play before. Granted, the audio quality on those is almost unlistenable, but it was exciting to actually hear the man himself play. :)And in that forum (Classicalguitar.nl) you could ask for scores in the forum section!!!


Some of us have a few 8)

[Sandra]

Sandra,And in that forum (Classicalguitar.nl) you could ask for scores in the forum section!!!

Some of us have a few 8)
Haven't checked out their forum yet, but I might. :)

As I've said before, I don't advocate copyright infringement at all. But years ago when I first got connected to the net there was a guy from China on a list I was on who couldn't find a copy of an obscure piece to purchase. I had it and scanned it and sent it to him. He was very happy. :)

Then there was another guy from some university doing research on pieces by Giuliana's daughter, I think it was. I found some in the downtown L.A. library, photocopied and sent them to him. He was happy, too. :)

In both of these instances, the person was more than willing to pay to obtain the music but it simply wasn't available to them. I have spent literally thousands of dollars on sheet music and books. If I have something obscure/rare that someone else really needs and can't obtain through normal channels, then I honestly don't see a problem with sharing it because I haven't cost any publisher a sale if the person couldn't buy it to start with.

[miramadar]

I'm not a good reader...so I have to memorize every piece I play. Sometimes I have to revisit some pieces because, over time, I can tend to go astray! But I figure reading music is exactly like reading words...just takes practice. Once you get familiar with the it all, you and I will be reading like pros!!

[Quinbus]

I'm half way though Noads first book, which methodically takes you down the sight reading path. I'm starting to see the enormous benefits of sight reading...

I can't imagine not being able to pick up various types of guitar and music literature and not understand how to play it.

[Ted]

Knucklebrain, three method books that are worthy of looking into for learning to read, play, and sight read standard notation:
1-Frederick Noad's "Solo Guitar Playing" vol. 1
2-Aaron Shearer's "Classic Guitar Technique" vol 1
3-Christopher Parkening's "The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method" vol 1

If you can only get one of these, I'd recommend Noad's
Above all, have patience, and practice. You'll get there!

Ted