Sight reading

[piaggu]

__________

[Wen1001]

Hi Paul,
I used to be a really slow reader but here in Singapore we have to serve National Service and i as lucky enough to pull some strings and play in the Army's concert band...that stuff'll kick you in the ass in terms of reading because when you're playing in such a large ensemble and there are so many parts going on it's kinda impossible to just use your ears and power through...plus in most cases because the writer intended for each percussionist to play specific parts there's no space for improvisation.

I'm by no means a first time reader... but most times these days i can see a score in a method book and understand what the writer is going for. I think the important thing to do is to just keep reading, it really does become easier with time. Also, if you get a copy of the New Breed, it really makes you work on reading while playing. In fact, i think the New Breed is a great book overall for concentration, reading, independence, working on your groove...etc etc.

The thing i find really tough is interpreting the hits on a chart...and learning how to play in between the hits while reading them off the chart... does anyone have some methods they use to get themselves used to doing this?

Wen

[Henry II]

Sight reading is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced just like doubles and paradiddles. BTW, practicing your reading with a metronome is essential.

However, there's a difference between reading and playing concert purcussion music and drum etudes ver batim, and interpreting drum set charts.

To learn how to interpret drum charts there's a great method book called "Chart Reading Workbook for Drummers" by Bobby Gabriele, that teaches that particular skill. It comes with progressively more difficult charts in 4/4 and 3/4 and a play along CD with each tune played with and without a drummer so you can hear how one drummer (i presume Bobby Gabriele) applies the material to the music. I can't say enough about what a well conceived method book this is.

PS: Wen, this book will explain everything to you - how to play set-ups, and how to interpret ensemble figures and section figures. That's what drum chart reading is all about.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 07, 2005 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Henry II ]</font>

[Vdrummer]

I agree completely with Henry. Chart reading is certainly something that you can develop to the point that you can sight read/play/interpret a chart. But even experienced drummers occasionally make mistakes reading new music.

No one sight reads/plays complex transcriptions, snare solos or drumset solos. That sort of rudiment/lick-based material requires mastery of the "licks" first before one can hope to play them in a musical context. If you happened to know all the licks in a new piece of music, that might be possible, but usually each piece presents fresh challenges.

The book Henry mentions is very good for big band chart reading. Good luck, the more you read and play the easier it gets. I'd also recommend transcribing, that helps make some connections between ear and mind too.

[Riddim]

Some things For your consideration:

- I didn?t have the opportunity to learn to read well, nor to play much big band music, as a kid. I got better though (too dumb to quit). 2 things have really helped me here:
-- A 1980s Steve Gadd interview in which he said that the most important things were to start and end with the band.
-- The inside front cover of Weckl's Contemporary Drummer Plus 1 package, which discusses what to look for in a chart. E.g., sign, repeats, DS, and coda. IF you maintain count and hit those marks on time, then you'll start and end with the rest of the band.

- This is a skill that benefits from regular use. New dots every day....

- When sight reading, don't stop when you make a mistake. Keep your place in the music and finish, just as you would on a gig. Review the offending passage(s) when you?ve finished the chart. Then do it again.

- Transcription (and studying an other instrument) is a great way to improve your reading. The more familiar you become with various ways to notate sound patterns, the better you?ll recognize and internalize them visually. This will also enhance your ability to recognize various structures, e.g., A.B and C-sections, hear the music a whole, and enhance your musicality.

- Someone - El Patricio? -- recently recounted his lesson with Gene Jackson, who had a great idea -- take a given piece of music and sight-read it as another piece of music plays. E.g., a page from Bellson Breines, or Ted Reed, over a James Brown tune, a samba, afdro cuban tune, or a shuffle. It?s one thing to count and read in a quiet room with a metronome. It?s another to do the same with music going on. This will help train you to focus on the chart, regardless of what may otherwise distract you.
- It?s About Time, a book by Johnny Dinkins, also will enhance your reading and your ability to interpret charts, as well as your time. And if you improve your time, it will improve you.
- The back of the Ramsey Dawson Book offers several different ways to interpret a piece of music. Very useful?.

Enjoy.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 07, 2005 11:08 PM: Message edited by: Riddim ]</font>

[cjbdrm]

Good luck with your career there, buddy... [img]confused.gif[/img]

[Wen1001]

Thanks for the help guys...i've been looking for a book that would help with this...i'll definitely give those books a look... and i'm sure when i get to music school they'll be kicking me up the wazoo in terms of chart reading anyhow.

[LDGuy]

Originally posted by Paul Newbury:
Hi,

Thanks for your opinions. I don't practicing with a metronome is essential. It is not essential. As long as time is in the mind and that the time is strong, that is what counts. Metronomes are good, but they are not essential.

You can practice a groove completely out-of-time and work purely on co-ordination then think about time.

Cheers

Paul Newbury

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmmm. Somehow i dont think so.

Playing with a 'nome is fantastically important - anything new you do on your drum kit should be done with one. Granted, everyone has their inside click working all the time, but as humans, that's not really reliable. When it comes to playing in that studio session, where all your given is a MIDI of a synth pad and a click and a chart, you can't say to the producer "i never practice with a click, so i can only play this chart if there's a full band of backing". Well, you can, but you'll be asked to leave and never come back. No one has a perfect sense of time, so i think practicing without a 'nome and assuming your inner sense of time is all you need is a pretty arrogant way to do things. Of course, Paul, i can see where you're coming from, as the inner sense of time is vitally important when you play gigs or go into record without a click, but i wouldn't go and teach people (including yourself) that it's all you need.

Maybe try it out - set up a click for 8 bars as an intro at a decent speed like 100bpm, and then play 32 bars of just straight 8beat time. Then go back to your computer and run a click over this and see how much you waver about. It's extremely difficult to stay exactly on target 100% of the time. Try again and record 32 bars with a click this time, and see how much better you are. A metronome is a vital tool not only to make you sound better, but to build on your inner sense of time. If you did this once a day for two weeks, and then compared your "without a click" 32 bars on the last day you did it, to the first day, there would be a radical difference. I play so much with clicks - vitually everything i do, that i find it almost painful to hear people go out of time, almost like going out of tune (which i also find pretty painful, incedentally). I think, if you want to aspire to be anything really useful in the music biz, you need to have a innate sense of time inside you, and you can only really get to this point by praciticing with a click.

...

As for reading, i think it's a difficult area. I dont think it would be very often you'd be taken into the drum recording room and asked to lay down a snare drum study in 5/4, but it is helpful to practice these things just to get your sense of reading ahead and seeing stuff on the page up to scratch. The thing you are really gonna need to do is read hits, that is, the rhythms the rest of the band play, and that you need support. Some guy once said that "the drummer is like a couch - all the rest of the musicians need to be able to sit back on him and be reassured he's not going to collapse away from them". This is the thing you need to be aware of when your playing to your chart. The audience isn't going to be marking your chart reading skills, but they are going to be listening out for appropriate playing and taste (most notably, the producer or band leader). The chart is there as a tool (just like a metronome) to help you play the best you can. I dont know about you, but i play a lot better to a tune when i have a chart in front of me (or visualising it in my head if i've learnt the tune). It's vital for you to have to give the different sections distinction. And plus, it gives you something to look at - this is great for me, as i usually get destracted by the singer's arse or something like that, and mess up.

[Suspiria]

Originally posted by Paul Newbury:
You can practice a groove completely out-of-time and work purely on co-ordination then think about time.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's like saying "Today I will practice my jazz comping and then THINK about playing my left foot clave for the rest of the day. [img]frown.gif[/img] " Playing solid time cannot be learned by simply thinking about it. Sure, the great drummers of this world can internalise a pulse and stick to it, but getting to that point is a) VERY rare and b) simply does not happen without making use of a metronome.

Other than that, I strongly agree with the comments by LD.

[elpatricio]

Yeah, the metronome is definately part of the process. How else can we tell where our sense of time is? I have found that how our sense of time feels while we are playing, and and how it sounds to the listener, or to ourselves on recording is dramatically different. It is something that has to be worked on to improve like everything else, hours of practice 'time' have to go into it. hmm I wonder if there is a mathematical relationship there [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img] ?

As far as sight reading is concerned though, what you should aim for in my opinion is to recognise groups of notes 'pictorially' and instantly be able to put a sound to that picture, rather than working out the value of each one note by note. There are only a finite number of combinations in which notes may be grouped together, in simple or compound time. Once these pictures are ingrained into our mind's eye we can start to read in a very subconcious manner the same way that recognise words off a page at a glance rather than thinking about the sound of each individual letter.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 08, 2005 05:42 PM: Message edited by: elpatricio ]</font>