I think the biggest hurdle for me learning to sight read is the embarrassment factor. It’s something I think a lot of guitar players struggle with. I can play pretty much anything by now, and my improv skills are improving with every lesson I get, but it kills my motivation when I start reading and it’s like a 6 month old trying to read Cat in the Hat. It’s such a practice killer. Still, the only way out is through, and that advice of just reading without a guitar in hand is probably the best way to get me started.
I learned to read music for piano very early, and I started learning to read for guitar too. But as a session musician, not even remotely once have I ever needed it. Now I can still read, but VERY slowly. But I can listen to a tune once or twice and play it back to you. I've needed that skill much, much more. Ear training should be all musicians number one priority!
Very good advice. As for rhythm recognition, if you get drum rudiment books you can really master it. I recommend “stick control” and “Syncopation”, treat left and right stick as up and down strokes for some extra punishment.
I look forward to this. It's interesting to think about when reading music is required for guitarists. I started out learning classical guitar and thought I was a pretty decent reader until I had to do some dep gigs on electric and sight read. It's a completely different game. When learning classical guitar the pieces tend to be in certain keys i.e. ones that can involve open strings. After a while it becomes quite easy to read as you are often reading the same pitches again and again. When you're playing a lot of band charts, particularly jazz and swing, they tend to be in flat keys which is what really threw me initially. Also the rhythms were much more diverse. Classical guitar pieces tend to be very straightforward rhythmically speaking. I found transcribing really helped me with understanding rhythms and how they related to the pulse. Even though I teach primarily with tab I do make a point of teaching my students the basics of rhythm notation. I find it really helps them when they're practising at slower tempos.
After decades of guitar playing by ear only, I'm so interested in sight reading because, like you, I'm now learning to play piano and see the value. All of my knowledge of theory has transferred neatly into piano and sped up the learning curve. Love the direction you're moving musically and hope the life changes are all positive for you as well.
I genuinely really enjoyed listening to this video. You put things very well. I always played by ear and lack with theory. Once you have just two of those skills without having to apply it to guitar it must be so much more enlightening to study scores and other music.
I learnt piano when I was 12 and self taught myself, but because of the apps I used, I didn't really understood sight reading and it's embarassing how I can't read sheet music. I'm 13 now and I just started learning guitar a week ago. I think I should learn sight reading first instead of putting myself in the same trouble again. Thank you so much for this!
Good video Levi. I learnt to sight-read well playing classical guitar throughout my formative years, but would say I only ever really use it when playing with jazz orchestras or on musical theatre gigs. In those scenarios you have to get things off the page quickly or you won’t get booked again so very important! All depends on what someone wants to get out of it really and like you say, I wouldn’t force sight-reading on students as there are far more important and usable skills to learn. Definitely helpful in my own musical development though.
Now there is a guitar elephant in the room! Reading is sooooooo useful and surprisingly easy to learn if you are a very beginner. I must admit. I have barely done 100 reading gigs in 25 years but that doesnt matter. It has still paid off in soooo manty ways.
I learnt to read music at college in the 80s when I studied grade 2 classical guitar as a total beginner. Rudiments and theory of music is the book I used to teach myself music theory along with what I picked up from my one hourly weekly guitar class. I don't think learning to read music is hard. I just think that people have a mental block, like when we learn math. Motivation, repetition, and perseverance is the key. That book I mentioned is out of print. But there is a PDF version floating around the net and second hand copies on Amazon at inflated prices. The other books I used were Guitar Work-Shop 1 Oxford University Press. Guitar Work-Shop 2. Spanish Guitar Tutor by Alonso Media and Trinity College of Music London Guitar Grade Two (1980) Album. The last book contained the three pieces that I had to perform in front of the Trinity College of music guy. I did not want to study classical guitar. But a £34 East German made classical guitar was all that I could afford back then.
Good thing is you can actually practice reading without guitar. Just trying to imagine you finger pressing corresponding string and position while you are reading through the pieces. I have been doing these for months whenever I don’t have access to guitar. I have to say this really helps me to connect my finger movements to the sheet music. Also I try to read real pieces as possible as I can because practice materials could get predictable sometimes due to the excessive use of scale runs
That's wonderful, Levi! I was waiting from something like this for a long time especially coming from you. Hope every changes in your life are good changes and everything it's ok. Great video as always! BTW, very nice intro! ;)
Great video. You look happy and the lighting is really nice. Funny thing about reading was the shirt you were wearing. Depending how you moved, it could be FIGHT or EIGHT. I learned to read about 50 years ago while taking accordion lessons!
I learned to read from day one when I started to play. I had a book called the Coles Spanish Guitar Method. It made first position reading very easy. Years later I started studying with Barry Morton, a student of Barry Galbraith, Joe Pass and others. Barry Morton placed a high value on reading and he had me sight reading every day as a part of my practice. Unlike the experience of others I have had quite a bit of paid work reading. Some of it demanding, but some of it as simple as playing from charts. Reading is a perishable skill; there was a time when I even read block chords quite readily but today this would be a very slow process. I just don't do it anymore. Not often anyway. Where reading really helped my playing was in my ability to improvise and my general fingerboard knowledge. Being able to read well meant that I was able to play a lot of music, like the Omnibook, that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to play because it was years before my ear was good enough to learn Charlie Parker. Today I teach reading as a skill that students ought to develop in order to teach themselves. The days of the session musician are all but gone but the skill is still valuable to the student who wants as much access as possible to all kinds of music. Just exploring the music of instruments other than guitar is an interesting and educational experience. I am retired now (if musicians ever really retire) but you can lock me in a room with a guitar and a stack of music scores and I am happy.
This is the right attitude. Five minutes a day for a year opens up a world you didn't even know existed. It's silly to discourage people from learning it because *you* play by ear and never needed it. Personally, I use it almost everyday in reading everything from flute solos to big band scores to symphonies. I would have access to none of these if I couldn't read.
I'm a lazy musician, I learned sight reading. I mastered sight reading my first year of playing. It cuts my practice time in half and I sight read as I play a gig. I never forget a note or what timing I need because it's in front of me. I swear by it.
I really like where you're going with this. So, for me rhythm recognition is not a problem at all. Pitch recognition on the staff I'm moderately good, I still need more practice, the ledger lines I'm slower at so I should focus more on that (the 8va 8vb always helps lol). 3 ledger lines is easy though. The main hurdle for me is the application to the guitar (looking forward to seeing your next video on that). Also, the memorization of the note names on the fretboard I don't think I've totally mastered it (or at a fast enough speed). This is something I want to learn for a hobby, or so i can learn other instruments books like you mentioned and play it on the guitar. Since transcribing other instruments might spawn new creative ideas to the guitar!
I looked for that pitch recognition video you were talking about, and it's not linked in the description. I would definitely want to watch this one! I don't think I really need to sight read... But I do struggle with reading rhythm and transcribing rhythm. My relative pitch is quite good by now, but I would really like to see more videos on rhythm writing.
what about notation purely as a composition tool? i think it could be easier to work with musical patterns by also having them visible all the time other problem i have with music notation and guitar, is due to how awkward guitar voicings are the unisons are not a problem until you start thinking about voicings up to the 11th fret that actually uses open strings, did someone already invented a way to overcome these issues? like an extra symbol that says "open string"
You should definitely create some online courses on Udemy or wherever. There's a lot of people who are teaching basically the same things, but I feel like there's a ton of cool and useful things that most musicians could learn from you. I would for sure be a customer! Cheers mate, keep up the good work.
Awesome vid. I wanted to be a good reader for so long. Gradually over 30 years one day I realized I’m pretty good at it. But not sure when it happened. That being said I’ve never been asked to use it. Only could I do it lol.
I don't need to read, but i want to. There's a lot of cool material outside of guitar. I'm still slow af, specially on the rhythm part. Like i can identify the notes, but not really how long I should play them to the point it sounds how it's supposed to, if I don't know the piece. And trying to arrange piano parts on guitar might take some time to figure out how the hell should I translate that to the fretboard. So I have to agree with the points you made.
Hi from Canada. As per your book recommendations, I just ordered the book Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms: Private Lessons Series by Gary Hess and Melodic Rhythms for Guitar by William Leavitt from Amazon.ca . On a side note( no pun intended) the publisher (manufacturer) of the Encyclopedia is: Musicians Institute Press, MILWAUKEE, WI, 53213 US (not Berklee Press) . I was surprised about the Berklee Press thingy. I hope these are the two (2) books you mentioned in the video., are they not?
Hey Levy, when you mention piano, what's your take on learning scales and chordes on the piano? I remember how when I was learning, I couldnt really use any shape system because every skale in any key looks different, so I relied on thinking intervalicaly. I also then used the same method on the guitar, and that really helped me open up the fretboard unlike anything else. Just wondering whats your take on that? Cheers!
That’s the way to learn guitar, but it doesn’t really apply to piano. When you talk intervalically on piano a 6th in E and a 6th in Bb are different physical distances, so in order to think like that you need to know both of the keys. But once you have the keys you unlock (pun intended) the intervals
You're so right - rhythms need to be instant recall - you can't use your brain to figure out where the note is while trying to count a rhythm at the same time >.
It is very important to read music and play but not to actually practice to play a sight reading gig. Those days are gone and not worth the effort to do so. Focus on all the other aspects of guitar and music theory.
![Is Reading Music Worth Your Effort? [Story Time!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oMVu9NoCYxQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![Is Reading Music Worth Your Effort? [Story Time!]](/img/tr.png)
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I think the biggest hurdle for me learning to sight read is the embarrassment factor. It’s something I think a lot of guitar players struggle with. I can play pretty much anything by now, and my improv skills are improving with every lesson I get, but it kills my motivation when I start reading and it’s like a 6 month old trying to read Cat in the Hat. It’s such a practice killer.
Still, the only way out is through, and that advice of just reading without a guitar in hand is probably the best way to get me started.
I learned to read music for piano very early, and I started learning to read for guitar too. But as a session musician, not even remotely once have I ever needed it. Now I can still read, but VERY slowly. But I can listen to a tune once or twice and play it back to you. I've needed that skill much, much more. Ear training should be all musicians number one priority!
You took the words out of my mouth 🥰
Very good advice.
As for rhythm recognition, if you get drum rudiment books you can really master it. I recommend “stick control” and “Syncopation”, treat left and right stick as up and down strokes for some extra punishment.
I look forward to this. It's interesting to think about when reading music is required for guitarists. I started out learning classical guitar and thought I was a pretty decent reader until I had to do some dep gigs on electric and sight read. It's a completely different game. When learning classical guitar the pieces tend to be in certain keys i.e. ones that can involve open strings. After a while it becomes quite easy to read as you are often reading the same pitches again and again. When you're playing a lot of band charts, particularly jazz and swing, they tend to be in flat keys which is what really threw me initially. Also the rhythms were much more diverse. Classical guitar pieces tend to be very straightforward rhythmically speaking. I found transcribing really helped me with understanding rhythms and how they related to the pulse. Even though I teach primarily with tab I do make a point of teaching my students the basics of rhythm notation. I find it really helps them when they're practising at slower tempos.
After decades of guitar playing by ear only, I'm so interested in sight reading because, like you, I'm now learning to play piano and see the value. All of my knowledge of theory has transferred neatly into piano and sped up the learning curve. Love the direction you're moving musically and hope the life changes are all positive for you as well.
I genuinely really enjoyed listening to this video. You put things very well. I always played by ear and lack with theory. Once you have just two of those skills without having to apply it to guitar it must be so much more enlightening to study scores and other music.
Love the Mix of Brent Mason Solos and Wrestling Tees!! Subscribed!
I learnt piano when I was 12 and self taught myself, but because of the apps I used, I didn't really understood sight reading and it's embarassing how I can't read sheet music. I'm 13 now and I just started learning guitar a week ago. I think I should learn sight reading first instead of putting myself in the same trouble again. Thank you so much for this!
Good video Levi. I learnt to sight-read well playing classical guitar throughout my formative years, but would say I only ever really use it when playing with jazz orchestras or on musical theatre gigs. In those scenarios you have to get things off the page quickly or you won’t get booked again so very important! All depends on what someone wants to get out of it really and like you say, I wouldn’t force sight-reading on students as there are far more important and usable skills to learn. Definitely helpful in my own musical development though.
Now there is a guitar elephant in the room! Reading is sooooooo useful and surprisingly easy to learn if you are a very beginner. I must admit. I have barely done 100 reading gigs in 25 years but that doesnt matter. It has still paid off in soooo manty ways.
I learnt to read music at college in the 80s when I studied grade 2 classical guitar as a total beginner. Rudiments and theory of music is the book I used to teach myself music theory along with what I picked up from my one hourly weekly guitar class. I don't think learning to read music is hard. I just think that people have a mental block, like when we learn math. Motivation, repetition, and perseverance is the key. That book I mentioned is out of print. But there is a PDF version floating around the net and second hand copies on Amazon at inflated prices. The other books I used were Guitar Work-Shop 1 Oxford University Press. Guitar Work-Shop 2. Spanish Guitar Tutor by Alonso Media and Trinity College of Music London Guitar Grade Two (1980) Album. The last book contained the three pieces that I had to perform in front of the Trinity College of music guy. I did not want to study classical guitar. But a £34 East German made classical guitar was all that I could afford back then.
I've been looking forward to this since your introductory music theory lesson! 👍🏼
Good thing is you can actually practice reading without guitar. Just trying to imagine you finger pressing corresponding string and position while you are reading through the pieces. I have been doing these for months whenever I don’t have access to guitar. I have to say this really helps me to connect my finger movements to the sheet music. Also I try to read real pieces as possible as I can because practice materials could get predictable sometimes due to the excessive use of scale runs
Good video Levi! I fully agree that deciding where to play the notes is the hardest part by far for guitarists.
That's wonderful, Levi! I was waiting from something like this for a long time especially coming from you. Hope every changes in your life are good changes and everything it's ok. Great video as always! BTW, very nice intro! ;)
Great video. You look happy and the lighting is really nice. Funny thing about reading was the shirt you were wearing. Depending how you moved, it could be FIGHT or EIGHT. I learned to read about 50 years ago while taking accordion lessons!
Ooh fun!! You should check out "The Refinement of Rhythm" books
The version I heard is how do you get a guitar player to turn down?? put some sheet music in front of him
I learned to read from day one when I started to play. I had a book called the Coles Spanish Guitar Method. It made first position reading very easy.
Years later I started studying with Barry Morton, a student of Barry Galbraith, Joe Pass and others. Barry Morton placed a high value on reading and he had me sight reading every day as a part of my practice.
Unlike the experience of others I have had quite a bit of paid work reading. Some of it demanding, but some of it as simple as playing from charts.
Reading is a perishable skill; there was a time when I even read block chords quite readily but today this would be a very slow process. I just don't do it anymore. Not often anyway.
Where reading really helped my playing was in my ability to improvise and my general fingerboard knowledge. Being able to read well meant that I was able to play a lot of music, like the Omnibook, that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to play because it was years before my ear was good enough to learn Charlie Parker.
Today I teach reading as a skill that students ought to develop in order to teach themselves. The days of the session musician are all but gone but the skill is still valuable to the student who wants as much access as possible to all kinds of music. Just exploring the music of instruments other than guitar is an interesting and educational experience.
I am retired now (if musicians ever really retire) but you can lock me in a room with a guitar and a stack of music scores and I am happy.
This is the right attitude. Five minutes a day for a year opens up a world you didn't even know existed. It's silly to discourage people from learning it because *you* play by ear and never needed it. Personally, I use it almost everyday in reading everything from flute solos to big band scores to symphonies. I would have access to none of these if I couldn't read.
You deserve more subs, man. This channel has too much quality for 37k subs. Audio, video, edition.... so neat and pro.
Wish you the best.
you can make that happen! Keep spreading the word :)
I'm not where I want to be but getting the Transcribe program and using it has helped with rhythm recognition.
I'm a lazy musician, I learned sight reading. I mastered sight reading my first year of playing. It cuts my practice time in half and I sight read as I play a gig. I never forget a note or what timing I need because it's in front of me. I swear by it.
I really like where you're going with this. So, for me rhythm recognition is not a problem at all. Pitch recognition on the staff I'm moderately good, I still need more practice, the ledger lines I'm slower at so I should focus more on that (the 8va 8vb always helps lol). 3 ledger lines is easy though. The main hurdle for me is the application to the guitar (looking forward to seeing your next video on that). Also, the memorization of the note names on the fretboard I don't think I've totally mastered it (or at a fast enough speed). This is something I want to learn for a hobby, or so i can learn other instruments books like you mentioned and play it on the guitar. Since transcribing other instruments might spawn new creative ideas to the guitar!
I looked for that pitch recognition video you were talking about, and it's not linked in the description. I would definitely want to watch this one!
I don't think I really need to sight read... But I do struggle with reading rhythm and transcribing rhythm. My relative pitch is quite good by now, but I would really like to see more videos on rhythm writing.
ruclips.net/video/WvkdHeRQxLI/видео.html
This man speaks the truth on all aspects of this notorious elephant in the rehearsal room - ha! Nice job, Levi.
Many wise words here…….👍🍷
what about notation purely as a composition tool?
i think it could be easier to work with musical patterns by also having them visible all the time
other problem i have with music notation and guitar, is due to how awkward guitar voicings are
the unisons are not a problem until you start thinking about voicings up to the 11th fret that actually uses open strings, did someone already invented a way to overcome these issues? like an extra symbol that says "open string"
You should definitely create some online courses on Udemy or wherever. There's a lot of people who are teaching basically the same things, but I feel like there's a ton of cool and useful things that most musicians could learn from you. I would for sure be a customer! Cheers mate, keep up the good work.
Awesome vid. I wanted to be a good reader for so long. Gradually over 30 years one day I realized I’m pretty good at it. But not sure when it happened. That being said I’ve never been asked to use it. Only could I do it lol.
I don't need to read, but i want to. There's a lot of cool material outside of guitar. I'm still slow af, specially on the rhythm part. Like i can identify the notes, but not really how long I should play them to the point it sounds how it's supposed to, if I don't know the piece. And trying to arrange piano parts on guitar might take some time to figure out how the hell should I translate that to the fretboard. So I have to agree with the points you made.
Hi from Canada. As per your book recommendations, I just ordered the book
Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms: Private Lessons Series
by Gary Hess and Melodic Rhythms for Guitar
by William Leavitt from Amazon.ca . On a side note( no pun intended) the publisher (manufacturer) of the Encyclopedia is: Musicians Institute Press, MILWAUKEE, WI, 53213 US (not Berklee Press) . I was surprised about the Berklee Press thingy. I hope these are the two (2) books you mentioned in the video., are they not?
Hey Levy, when you mention piano, what's your take on learning scales and chordes on the piano? I remember how when I was learning, I couldnt really use any shape system because every skale in any key looks different, so I relied on thinking intervalicaly. I also then used the same method on the guitar, and that really helped me open up the fretboard unlike anything else. Just wondering whats your take on that? Cheers!
That’s the way to learn guitar, but it doesn’t really apply to piano. When you talk intervalically on piano a 6th in E and a 6th in Bb are different physical distances, so in order to think like that you need to know both of the keys.
But once you have the keys you unlock (pun intended) the intervals
You're so right - rhythms need to be instant recall - you can't use your brain to figure out where the note is while trying to count a rhythm at the same time >.
Is that Sorabji in the opening?
Sign me up
Only thing you're transitioning to is some kind of viking shred God...
It is very important to read music and play but not to actually practice to play a sight reading gig. Those days are gone and not worth the effort to do so. Focus on all the other aspects of guitar and music theory.