PIzzaPastaMafia - Posted - 10/02/2023:  07:02:57

... from somebody who is clueless at sight reading.

Regardless of which type of banjo you play:

1) Do you sight read a piece extensively before playing it or does it just come natural? What do you exactly do and what is your routine?

2) Optional: How did you manage to sight read? What made you go from not being capable of sight reading to being capable? (Of course somebody will come with: practice, practice, practice! But doing what?)

BTW: tenor guitar beginner looking into tenor banjo and mandolin later.

Thanks.

Pomeroy - Posted - 10/02/2023:  07:41:22

Sight read standard notation or tab?



I can sight read tab fluently at a fair tempo if I have to. Not sure if that quite counts as your benchmark of 'very, very good' though? I can also sight read standard notation , but slower, more like walk-through pace.



Trying to figure out how, so that I can helpfully answer your question -  really in my case it's down to having done a lot of writing tab from standard notation. In sessions I either know the tunes or pick unfamiliar tunes up by ear. But in relation to research that often involves creating a banjo arrangement of popular tune standard notation in tab. After a while that repetitive activity appears to make the eyes, brain and hands coordinate to 'convert' tab quickly enough to play it in real time. Really, more a 'by-product' of research than something I find useful in practice.

It also depends what we're trying to do. Notation/tab is irrelevant when playing with others (though some early fingerstyle players would differ). But even when I'm aiming to record a set-piece fingerstyle tune (consisting of A and B parts and a Trio often with key changes) unaccompanied on a 7-string, I'll still set-to and learn that piece, committing it to memory before I press the red button. I prefer not to play from tab or standard notation in that solo situation. By far the more helpful skill to acquire (for me anyway) is ear-training and the ability to play by ear. That skill is 100% liberating wherever you play, as you are no longer dependant on external back-up. You become your own resource.

Edited by - Pomeroy on 10/02/2023 07:56:21

tonygo - Posted - 10/02/2023:  07:48:22

"By doing what?" By reading/playing from it everyday, practice practice practice. It is a matter of doing it everyday. Tab or notation do it every day. Like everything else you just have to do it.... and mean it.

AGACNP - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:02:42

quote:

---

Originally posted by PIzzaPastaMafia

... from somebody who is clueless at sight reading.



Regardless of which type of banjo you play:



1) Do you sight read a piece extensively before playing it or does it just come natural? What do you exactly do and what is your routine?



2) Optional: How did you manage to sight read? What made you go from not being capable of sight reading to being capable? (Of course somebody will come with: practice, practice, practice! But doing what?)



BTW: tenor guitar beginner looking into tenor banjo and mandolin later.



Thanks.

---

I have no experience sight reading music, neither tab nor standard notation, for banjo.

No, it does NOT come naturally.

But...when I played trumpet (middle school band) , I recall it took a couple of years of playing experience (band class M-F and a lackluster practicer at home) before I could sight read through a piece fairly accurately. So...repetition is a key to learning.

As a singer, I can sight read through a song I've never sung fairly accurately the first time through unless there are lots of syncopated passages, with tied eights/sixteenth notes across bars. Those usually take me a couple times through, working out the trouble spots. But I've been sight reading vocal music (grew up singing in church).

So..it takes time, repetition and dedication...

Edited by - AGACNP on 10/02/2023 08:03:37

Culloden - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:07:16

I can sight read standard notation but not tab. With sheet music, which has just the melody notes, I can pick out the melody and fill in the rolls between them by ear. Or I can play guitar by reading the notes and filling in strums.
I scan a piece of music before attempting to play it. I don't necessarily have to read it extensively, but I have been playing for fifty years. When I was much younger, I would read the notes more intently.
If you are playing tenor guitar or tenor banjo you might find written music which is very intensive. It will have every note, both melody and fill in, written into the score. I had a mandolin book like that one time. That gets very tricky to play and requires very intense practice to get it right. That's why I prefer musical scores that just have the lead printed so I have some room to improvise.

NotABanjoYoda - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:16:04

I started site reading on a tonet in 1st grade. Then on a french horn, trumpet and tuba.

My first attempt at polyphonic was a piano in 5th grade. I could never get my left hand and right hand to play independantly. I picked up guitar in 7th grade and played by ear and asking questions to good players. One of them gave me a song book which started monoponic and slowly progressed to polyphonic. I marked it up like I used to for trombone with a pencil to show fret position. After awhile I didnt need to mark it up.

I later discovered what I was doing was called tablature. Lol

I recommend trying simple monophonic scale pattern reading and slowly adding a few polyphonic notes. Mel bay has method books in guitar and piano like this.

Texasbanjo - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:17:19

I presume you're asking about sight reading something brand new that you've never played before. Take it slowly, note by note or measure by measure (whichever is easier for you). After you've gone through it several times, it should begin to come together where you don't have to look at every note. Most songs have musical phrases that you'll eventually learn to look for and find. That makes playing something new a lot easier.

As for me, I sight read both tab and musical notation. I usually can look at a tab, pretty well figure out what key it's in, how it's going to sound and sight read it at least at a slow tempo if it's got a lot of extras like slides, hammers, pulloffs, melodics,etc.

PIzzaPastaMafia - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:22:53

Thanks, but do you read the whole piece first and then attempt to play, or play along while you read it?

Pomeroy - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:28:51

I can't think of a situation where tab or notation would be sprung on me without at least the opportunity to look it over first. The physical nature of a sheet of paper with something on it and curiosity makes it human nature to at least have a look through before playing. :-)

PIzzaPastaMafia - Posted - 10/02/2023:  08:43:37

quote:Originally posted by PomeroySight read standard notation or tab?

Standard notation.

banjoak - Posted - 10/02/2023:  09:02:26

I already played by ear, and understood  basics of music theory from that to help;  I mostly look it over first; look for structure. Understanding how rhythm works and is thus represented; beat, common rhythmic phrasing or patterns; to quickly identify it; how keys work, identify main anchor notes of tonic/fifth/third/sixth; how melodies typically work; thus recognizing the main anchor melodic points; look at contour rising and falling fits in that. Some other tricks, for fiddle/mandolin/tenor tuned in fifths, notes in spaces are open strip second finger or pinky; notes on lines are first or third finger. 

One thing that helped is writing, transcribing. And using some notation/midi software that will play back what your wrote, see if sound right. MuseScore is free.

Edited by - banjoak on 10/02/2023 09:04:49

Joel Hooks - Posted - 10/02/2023:  09:05:00

With 5 string banjo I recommend the Mel Bay Banjo Method by Frank Bradbury.

I do not play the mandolin derived tenor banjo and am entirety ignorant about it. That said, I would presume that if you found a good method book and worked through it systematically (don’t skip around), supplement it with pieces graded to where you are at in the book, that should do it.

I do not know what is available as far as music for tenor.

For regular banjo there are thousands and thousands of pieces of sheet music available on the internet in public domain.

In my very short interaction with tenor stuff, it seems that shortly after it became popular the general music industry shifted to chord vamping and lead sheets with chord symbols. That, and the year cutoff for public domain music, might limit what can be found.

You might be able to use violin and flute music but it will not help you with reading chords.

I’ve been told that the McNeal Chord System is the book to use. Zarah Bickford also wrote a tenor method and his work is usually high quality.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 10/02/2023:  09:43:44

Foden method:

archive.org/details/paramountm.../mode/1up

Joel Hooks - Posted - 10/02/2023:  09:44:30

Lansing method:

archive.org/details/masterinstructor00lans

Joel Hooks - Posted - 10/02/2023:  09:46:27

This one looks like it would be helpful. It might be worth tracking down the other book/books.

archive.org/details/b10287668/mode/1up

banjooud - Posted - 10/02/2023:  10:13:52

Applications like "solfaread" are very useful and fun.
Give it time, it will take time. The main thing is to work regularly, even if it's not for long.

whit - Posted - 10/02/2023:  10:17:40

I read(tab or notation) about like how Jethro does math. Slowly and painfully.
But if Ive heard the tune I can usually work my way thru it. Getting the rhythm right is the hard part for me, if there are ties and such. Chords, bass and treble clef at the same time, forget it.
A long long time ago I worked my way thru a good bass guitar method book using bass clef and and the accompanying cd.
With some practice I can read the dots for single note treble clef where its pretty much just a steady stream of 8th notes, etc. but it helps greatly if I have heard the tune. Thats is my method for learning fiddle tunes. First I learn it on mandolin reading the dots and then take it to the fiddle to work out the bowing etc.

Culloden - Posted - 10/02/2023:  10:25:49

quote:

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Originally posted by PIzzaPastaMafia

Thanks, but do you read the whole piece first and then attempt to play, or play along while you read it?

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At least browse the whole piece first. You don't really have to read it intensely, just get a general feel for it before you start playing.

Texasbanjo - Posted - 10/02/2023:  11:13:52

quote:

---

Originally posted by PIzzaPastaMafia

Thanks, but do you read the whole piece first and then attempt to play, or play along while you read it?

---

It's not what I do, but what you're trying to learn to do.  I can quickly scan either standard notation or tab and then usually play something entirely new at a medium tempo without too many mistakes.   Now, if I have a fiddle tune with lots of melodics, it may take a few tries to get it right.   

Now, I wasn't always able to do  that.  When I was first learning to play the banjo using tab, I would usually listen to the song (if that was possible) over and over until I got the melody in my head, then go to the tab and try to play the first 3 or 4 measures just to see how they sounded.  Then I'd go on to the next few and so on until I had picked out the whole song.  I'd also try to figure out where the melody notes were in the song and highlight them so they were easily noticed.     I did about the same thing when I was learning to play piano many years ago.

Sounds like  you're trying to figure out the best way to learn new songs.  Not everyone learns the same way.  Some learn easily by sight (seeing the written notes/tab), other by listening and trying to find that sound and others take both the visual and audio route to learn.  You just need to figure out which one works best for you.

Does any of that help? 

Norand - Posted - 10/02/2023:  11:29:22

Playinng big band piano age 14-16 forced me to learn standard notation the hard way. Didn't use it much. Used banjo Tabs for reference only for a while. Then I joined Noam Pikelnys Artistworks and have been pouring over tabs manically for a couple of years. (Learning Waveland was an eye opener)
Even the best written notation is aways just a recipe. You have to have an idea of how the meal is supposed to taste.

Jerry Hatrick - Posted - 10/03/2023:  01:53:58

I would say that sight reading for most of us comes gradually over time, and largely from trying to play tunes from notation rather than tablature. First, you need to know your fretboard, ie which notes are where (not all of them to start with, just the first five frets for tenor tuned instruments), then try and memorise where those notes appear in the treble clef so you can slowly follow the notes of the tune by translating them into fret fingerings.
For a while, it will be a rather tedious process, but gradually you find you are regularly playing the same notes in different tunes, just in a different order or timing. Of course, you can avoid this slow process by only using tablature to learn tunes, but playing by numbers doesn’t teach you what notes you are actually playing, help you learn your way around the fretboard, nor give you much indication about timing, rhythm, phrasing, etc unless you are playing along to recordings.

PIzzaPastaMafia - Posted - 10/03/2023:  02:05:43

quote:Originally posted by Joel HooksThis one looks like it would be helpful. It might be worth tracking down the other book/books.

archive.org/details/b10287668/mode/1up

Thanks for the links, Joel.

PIzzaPastaMafia - Posted - 10/03/2023:  02:09:32

quote:Originally posted by NorandPlayinng big band piano age 14-16 forced me to learn standard notation the hard way.

My guitar teacher (early eighties, Italy, very old school strict kind of guy) was shocked and horrified when I told him I never learned to play the piano. He (like all music teachers of that time) though that you had to: 1) learn solfeggio 2) learn piano 3) learn your target instrument.

mmuussiiccaall - Posted - 10/03/2023:  08:14:02

When I look at a piece of standard notation, I see the names of every note of the whole page and that comes from doing it for years, but there’s an app for that now. I recommend doing the names first before you apply it to any instrument, you might want to play in the future. Once you have accomplished, recognizing all the notes by site with their names, then it’s a matter of placing them on the instrument you have in your hands at the time. What I am saying is that eventually if you only play one instrument and are looking at the music, you don’t see the note names, your fingers automatically just go to the position on the instrument where that note is with no thought. But if you plan on playing multiple instruments, you need to know the note names in the sheet music so when you begin your new instrument you’re not back at square one