Reading Music

[velorush]

So, since the 4th grade I've been reading music on maybe a 1st grade level.

I don't play keys, but I can do a semi-decent enough job faking it by [i'd call it] 'typing' on the keyboard the notes I'm playing in a guitar chord.

You guys who read and play keys, I'm trying to orient my head around the reading process.

I'm looking at a chord on a piece of sheet music, let's say treble clef only, just to keep it simple: do I look at the lowest note on the staff and build the chord [with my hand] to the right (i.e., higher notes)? Or do I pick the melody note and build the chord to the left with the harmony notes? The latter seems it would yield a more musical result with preeminance on the melody note, but the former seems easier to me.

I realize all this is [supposedly] happening in an instant, and maybe I'm supposed to recognize all the notes at once and just stab the chord, but for the moment it's one note at a time.

[JohnnyB]

One way to learn to read music on guitar is to read single notes and stay away from tab until you can get into a "zone" of seeing written notes and finding their place on the fretboard. Then read some melodies that throw in some double stops occasionally, then double stops and triads until you get comfortable with that, and then to where you can play more complex chords on sight. It's like learning to read as a first-grader. At first you have to sound out the words letter by letter, and then you get to where you can recognize the pattern of an entire word. It's sort of the same with reading music; you eventually get to where you recognize a note pattern as a specific chord instead of having to build it, the musical equivalent of sounding out a word.

Of course the only way to get there is practice. I'm pretty sure the Mel Bay books will progress you through reading single notes and beyond as musical notation.

[velorush]

Thanks JohnnyB! I suppose I was trying to get a piano player's perspective on reading, as I was goofing around with my daughter's Yamaha, yesterday, and was floored by how many things it will do (she never plays it). I really need to get up to speed (i.e., literate) on it, but it is so much easier just to walk over and play triads rather than try to figure out what's written on a page (easier to look at a comic book and try to figure out what's going on rather than read the dialogue).

My method of reading for guitar is a mess (I used to have to when I played for church on Sundays) because of all the inversions, trying to cover treble and bass clef, and what not. I'd lay out the notes and try to figure out what chord best fit the mess before me. Before long, like you said, I started to recognize patterns and chords began to appear.

Interestingly, back then I always found bass clef easier to read - something about that F being located in the right place (for me). That's made it relatively easy to play sheet music as I've tried to get functional on bass. I'm still pokey, but it's coming along.

[Feynman]

practice.

Gotta go with JohnnyB here, and I can sightread as well as most second graders.

[gorch]

I'm trying to improve on it by actively writing down ideas and licks in Guitar Pro. Yet haven't got far but further.

[alantig]

I think it's going to be a bit difficult for someone else to give you an answer that will definitely work - we all do it a bit differently. I can't sight read on keys - I tell people I play keys with a white guitarist's claw of death. When it comes to reading in general, you just have to work at it, and you'll find things that work better for you - you've already talked about a couple different approaches, so I'd guess you're pretty well on your way, you just need to refine what works best for you. It's going to be much like it is on guitar - eventually you'll realize that you're starting to know where to go without actually parsing it out consciously.

Alan