Just a thought....up to now I've just learned by just playing and looking at tab, but as I can read music I decided to learn how to 'sight read' on guitar to by going back to my old classical guitar with a few starter books.
Whats everyone elses approach?
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lalimacefolle
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lalimacefolle
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Joined: 09/25/01
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06/22/2002 2:22 pm
I can read music because my first instrument was the piano. But I'm not a decent sight reader on the guitar, since I have never spent enough time practicing this craft. I actually have a 12 years old student learning classical guitar, so I'm actually (re)learning as I teach her.
yea i can read it too, but i can't read it for the guitar
To improve technique and of course trying to keep all as clean as possible. I know my own limits and speed limits and so on I never play anything I'm not capable of. That wouldn't make any sense. After three years of playing I tried to play everything as fast as possible and that sounded, I would say, like shit, and I didn't realize that if I'd play bit slower things than I was capable of playing then everything would sound much better.
pstring
Big as Elvis, Baby
Joined: 11/29/01
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pstring
Big as Elvis, Baby
Joined: 11/29/01
Posts: 899
06/23/2002 1:29 pm
I can read, I taught myself after playing for 7 years, didn't hurt my ear a bit, but it sure helped learning to play classical and violin, my ear didn't have any reference for those lesson books........ Why don't more rock guitarist learn to read? No need to, or desire to, to each his own............
When I play classical I read notes, when I play acoustic fingerstyle, tab; and when playing in jazz bands chord chart shorthand, rythm charts; I figure out lead guitar solos from ear/tab, because crazy guitar solos are insanne to site read from classical notation. From my experience each method has its own benefits towards certain styles, ei. trying to play complicated classical from tab gives me a headache, the notes are much easier; playing blues solos from notation gives me a headache so I just play by ear and chord charts for modal referances.
I'm getting there. It is certainly useful, especially if you are able to sight read chords, as that greatly speeds up your ability to look at music and play it almost immediately.
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not that widely reported".
When I read from tab knowing the note values is very useful although string bending can make reading notation more difficult as you only see the starting note of a bend written and not the note you're going to. When I was going through the tab for SRV's Leave my girl Alone solo I had some real fun working out all the bends so they were in time.
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Slow Diver
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Slow Diver
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06/26/2002 10:14 am
When I started playing, I began with classical gitar. Then I shifted to electric and for the past 3-4 years I hardly played any notation. Now I'm recovering my reading abilities but very slowly -- it takes me a lot of time to read some music than it used to.
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Reading notation is similar to reading english, there are some things that are difficult-some easier; there are some things I care not to read, and therefore shouldn't have to, and still others I enjoy to read even though they are very simple. My rule is five minutes or more almost everyday, as a warmup. I let myself do more, but never force myself; and if I am in a particularily bad mood perhaps none. I always bring myself back to the level I can read with least amount of strain and go from there, some nights I even just open a notation book and glance at the page and close it.
I can't read for nuts man but I saw an excellent article by Steve Vai in Guitar World (could be a current issue). He wrote about learning to sight read and how he developed or learnt some really excellent techniques for developing his sight reading skills and then went into composing totally instrument free like on a bus or at the airport. If you are fair dinkum about sighting reading it's a must have article, priceless.[
I can read music quite well, adn I think its a great advantage in my guitarplaying. I understand notation better than tab, because there are so many things that are difficult to print out in tab.
Led Zeppelin
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Led Zeppelin
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06/27/2002 10:55 pm
Notation gives timing, most tab doesnt. You can play a piece by reading the music but without ever hearing the song. You need to hear a song before playing it fro tab.