My Thoughts on Learning How to Sight Read on the Guitar

My Thoughts on Learning How to Sight Read on the Guitar

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  Usually when you are jamming at the rehearsal studio, the guitar player is the loudest in the room which can even overpower the drummer at times. With all of our pedals and the distortion, whaling away on the guitar can be a distraction or annoying to other members in the band. Especially if you are trying to lock in and listen to the rhythm section. We all heard of the joke that the best way to silence the guitarist is to put some sheet music in front of his eyes and ask him to sight read what's on the paper. When you mention the word sight reading for most guitarists they shy away and a feeling of fright and nervousness will start to come over them. I once had a piano player friend who can sight read any style of music from classical, jazz, rock and gospel music, say to me why are so many guitar players terrible readers? I think there are a few answers to that question and the most obvious answer is that number one it is boring.  It is boring because most method books start off by teaching you how to read simple children's songs like Mary had a little Lamb or Row Row Your Boat. A typical teenager would probably want to learn how to shred or rock out by learning one of their favorite Metallica songs. They would get turned off very quickly by practicing that kind of material. The second reason is that the guitar is a difficult instrument to sight read on because of all the different possibilities of positions and fingerings one can use to sight read with on the guitar neck. With that in mind it can become a daunting task and an overwhelming experience for a beginner or intermediate guitarist. Also to top it all off you have to memorize those little black dots on the music staff which are called musical notes. All of this makes learning to read music on the guitar a mundane and laborious task which is why most guitarists prefer to learn on how to read tablature instead.  Learning how to read tabs can be useful for learning how to get the notes under your fingers quickly.  It can be limiting in terms of not being able to understand the rhythms that the musical phrase is based on and in music rhythm is King. So the knowledge of being able to read will help you develop your melodic and rhythmic capabilities. Learning how to read the the rhythms and note values is where you will benefit the most.

Tips on how to make learning how to read music on the guitar more interesting & fun:

- If the student is going through a  beginner guitar method book make sure to supplement it with a  book that has some familiar songs that he or she (the student) is familiar with. Learning to read the melodies of a pop or rock song that the student is familiar with will keep boredom from setting in. Hopefully this will keep the student motivated to stick with their reading studies and not give up on it so quickly.

Here are some book recommendations that the beginner guitarist can use in conjunction with their regular reading studies or method books.

Amazon Links:

1. Easy Pop Melodies for guitar book 1

2. More Easy Pop Melodies book 2

3. Even More Easy Pop Melodies book 3

Image courtesy of https: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/

 The advance stage of sight reading on the guitar:
Reading in Positions on the Guitar Fret Board

  Once the guitar student has mastered to read in open position on all 6 strings, it's time to move on and start to learn how to read on the other parts of the neck. This will be known as reading in a position or a certain part of the neck such as the 7th or 12th fret. Reading in positions on the guitar neck will have no open strings. Learning to read in different postions of the neck is also a great way to learn the names of the notes on the fret board.

Some advice if you are just starting to advance in this area with your reading abilities:

- Don't go crazy and try to read every position on the neck when you are staring out. 3 or 4 positions will do. The positions that I started out with were the 5th, 7th and 12th positions. After you get proficient enough with reading the notes in those positions you can move on to master other positions. (Tip: remember the 1st finger determines the position you will be reading in) So for example, if you are reading in A major in the 2nd position your pinky will start on the 5th fret of the 6th string. If you look at the tab below you can see the 1st finger will strike all the notes on the 2nd fret. So the rule is wherever your 1st finger hits 90 to 100 percent of the time will determine what position you are sight reading in. Sometimes you will have to accommodate a note that is not in the position by stretching out of position with either your 1st or 4th finger.  In the tab below the 4th finger in brackets is on the 4th string of the 6th fret which indicates the 4th finger will be stretching out of position.

 An excellent book that I highly recommend is:Amazon Links:
Reading Studies for Guitar: Positions One Through Seven and Multi-Position Studies in All Keys By: William Leavitt
  
  It has studies and exercises that will help you get familiar with the first 7 positions on the neck. Once you get the hang of the first 7 positions, you should be able to figure out the 8th position and up on your own. I highly recommend this book because it's an excellent book that will help you improve reading and your ability to read in any of those 1st 7 positions on the guitar.

   Once you have mastered and learned how to read in a few positions on the neck it is time to move on to the next step: Learning how to read melodically with a variety of syncopated rhythms. This will help you with many styles of music and learning how to read these types of rhythms should benefit your improvising skills also. Another book that will aid you in your development is:(Amazon Links) Melodic Rhtyms for Guitar. This book is also written by Willam Leavitt. Don't forget to supplement your melodic and rhythmic development by finding other material to read. Sight reading jazz standards, Bossa Nova's, Latin and funk heads are other styles of  musical material that can help improve your reading. For metal or rock players you might want sight read violin studies which doesn't have much syncopated rhythms, but is great for learning how to read long eighth note lines and great for speed and technique.


   Hopefully this article will shed some light on how to get started with learning how to read on the guitar. The key thing you should take away from this is to make it interesting and fun. Try practicing your reading 15 to 30 minutes a day. Every few months try to introduce new material to keep boredom from setting.

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