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Fast sight reading

chadders

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Wrexham.
I attend a big band once a week and have great fun playing there. The only down side is the MD always picks a lively tempo for a lot of the songs. So much so that if I get to do a tenor solo I have to imp it as I cant read and play fast runs accurately.

We had a new tenor player join us last night who staggered me with her playing - She is a fantastic player, Sight read the whole evening, and played all the solos spot on. She even pushed the tempo on a couple of songs.

So I'm doing a lot of technical exercises, I'm doing a lot of reading (at my own comfortable pace so that its accurate ). Is there anything else I can do to push my limit so that I can sight read accurately at something like a semi-breakneck speed?
 
Practice the skill but make sure you can do it comfortably in a relaxed manner at slow and then medium speeds before pushing to top speed.

The key to playing fast is to be able to not think about what you are playing. That means cementing the connection between seeing a group of notes and playing them as a phrase not as individual notes.

Imagine reading a letter at a time. If you are an accomplished reader out loud of the written word, the process is almost identical except we are using fingers/ears feedback instead of vocal chords/ears feedback. One reads ahead of where the words or notes are coming out.

I really dislike playing in bands where the director continually pushes the pace beyond the capability of the majority of the players. Have left 2 as personally I would rather be in a band that played an easy arrangement very well than trash a pro level Nestico chart
 
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It's funny how little difference there is between too fast and ok. But pushing people to play fast raises their skills, if it's not overdone. I've noticed that our conductor pushes us to very fast in rehearsals, to the point where I continually fall off. But slows down a touch in the concerts, and I'm able to play on tempo, but still at a pace I didn't think I was capable of.
 
One piece of advice I got was to practice my scales, all the Majors and Minors in varying tempo. Good for impro and good for quick reads. Trains the brain to quickly recognise and apply the note. I was reading the note, converting into A,B.....# or b, and then play. Very slow play. Doing my scales helped me go straight from note to sound.
 
Music theory, arpeggios, patterns, and other predictable forms will help you a lot in sight reading because you will be able to look forward.....
but if we compare your brain to a computer CPU, if a passage takes up 100% of your CPU you need to study in a slower tempo.... how slow? as slow as you need to be able to be confident to accurately translate the music piece into sound.... accurately.... and in time ...with a metronome...

If you can't play it slow.... as you should ... you will never have the capacity to play it fast....
You will get the habit of playing sloppy and you don't want that.

This is the one and only way to get better at sight reading... in the beginning you will struggle with everything ... but pretty soon most rhythmic and melodic patterns will get more or less familiar and you will be able to reach up to a level of prima vista for easy music sheets.

I may be an eternal intermediate saxophonist but I'm a diploma Pianist, and in piano or organ believe me you have to read a lot more dots than saxophone.... This method helped me survive the journey of piano and organ ..... and if it worked with an ultra-stupid guy like me it can work with anyone ;) Good luck!
 
On faster charts, I think you have to count 2 to a bar, while still feeling the quarter note pulse.You must be able to instantly recognize the rhythms and patterns. You can practice this without your instrument too.
 
@chadders Mmmm - I know who your MD is and I have experience in a different group of playing with him. I'm afraid he suffers from a case of MD-macho-itis, he's rather fond of fast and loud.
 
I have always understood that you attend a rehearsal to learn how your part fits in with everyone else's part.
You learn your own part in private at home (and at your own pace)
The logical (IMHO) follow on from this is that you should always have your parts AHEAD of any rehearsals.

I will accept that on a rare occasion, the MD may have obtained a new piece and wants to run it through (sight reading) but otherwise sight reading shouldn't be happening in a band rehearsal situation.

That aside, practice lots of sight reading (download any piece of music from the Internet...it doesn't even have to be sax music), practice lots of scales in different ways - straight, swung, legato, staccato, mixed tonguing. Up a 3rd, down a 2nd etc.
Practice how quavers, triplets, semi-quavers fit into one beat etc.
 
What terms are you on with the conductor? Maybe one of the two of you are with the wrong group. How do the rest of the players feel? Anyone else complaining? Practice hard, play hard, smile and have fun.
 
It's funny how little difference there is between too fast and ok. But pushing people to play fast raises their skills, if it's not overdone. I've noticed that our conductor pushes us to very fast in rehearsals, to the point where I continually fall off. But slows down a touch in the concerts, and I'm able to play on tempo, but still at a pace I didn't think I was capable of.

Its not just about one person being able to play the notes right, its about the section being able to play the notes together, with the same articulation. That requires everyone in the band to be able to play their parts without really thinking about them, most their attention should be on listening.

One time, just before I pulled the pin in the last swing big band I was in, I browbeat the MD and his cohorts into trying a piece at what I thought was a pace everyone could play it. I had everyone after come up and tell me what a lot of fun it was to actually play it right and TOGETHER
 
I have always understood that you attend a rehearsal to learn how your part fits in with everyone else's part.
You learn your own part in private at home (and at your own pace)
The logical (IMHO) follow on from this is that you should always have your parts AHEAD of any rehearsals
It doesn't always work like that. We're expected to sight read new pieces. Then polish them at home. I find the polishing at home difficult, I have a bad habit of getting the rhythm wrong/screwing up syncopation and making it worse in rehearsal.
 
If you can't play it slow.... as you should ... you will never have the capacity to play it fast....
You will get the habit of playing sloppy and you don't want that.

This is the one and only way to get better at sight reading... in the beginning you will struggle with everything ... but pretty soon most rhythmic and melodic patterns will get more or less familiar and you will be able to reach up to a level of prima vista for easy music sheets.
Totally agree, someone once advised me to play everything with a metronome set at 60 bpm and gradually increase the tempo until you can play at the required speed.

I realise this isn't practical when you're at rehearsal and faced with a new piece to read :)
 
also... most of the time sight reading is not actually sight reading. You are in effect playing something that you've played before or is very similar to what you've played before. You read ahead and recognize the note phrase and just play it. Having said that, some inner voices (eg 2nd tenor or alto) can be difficult to read because they are very chromatic and not too melodic, especially in soli sections.
 
Fast sight reading is difficult,you have to practice it for a long time to perfect it, my reading ability has diminished greatly over the last few years mainly because i don't do big bands anymore and jazz combos is no where near as challenging reading wise.
A music teacher friend of mine has some of the best reading skills I've seen, he can be playing the one line and be reading the next line(sometimes 2 lines) down, this is on piano and he is playing difficult pieces at fast tempos, but he has been playing for forty years and did 22 years in the army band where he was playing for upto 8 hours a day.
 
Not being a good reader and being handed a trombone part to play on baritone, I typed it into the sequencer and followed it as it played and learned it by ear. The machine playing is a little sterile but correct.
 
Fast sight reading is difficult,you have to practice it for a long time to perfect it, my reading ability has diminished greatly over the last few years mainly because i don't do big bands anymore and jazz combos is no where near as challenging reading wise.
A music teacher friend of mine has some of the best reading skills I've seen, he can be playing the one line and be reading the next line(sometimes 2 lines) down, this is on piano and he is playing difficult pieces at fast tempos, but he has been playing for forty years and did 22 years in the army band where he was playing for upto 8 hours a day.

My dad's was like that. I remember tuning pages for him. He'd always nod for the next page when he was only half way down.
 
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My dad's was like that. I remember tuning pages for him. He'd always nod for the next page when he was only half way down.
I never understood how my friend was able to do it, i struggled to keep a few notes ahead never mind a couple of lines in 2 clefs and this was complicated classical music at fast tempos but when you are doing every day for hours on end then it must get second nature.
 
I have studied and played saxophone for over 50 years and I still work on my sight reading using Smart Music. I simply choose a new piece one grade level below the level of difficulty that I can play with practice and play along. Rule number 1 is to keep playing no matter what. It is important to learn to play through your mistakes and not get lost.

After one time through I make note of the technically demanding passages I missed notes in and any mistakes reading rhythms. I then go back and woodshed the technical parts and sing the missed rhythms repeatedly. Then I play the piece again, trying to nail every note and rhythm. Once I do that I play the piece again focusing on the dynamics and style markings.

Then I go on to the next tune to sight read. I can cover a lot of material in 30 minutes. Since I have started doing this and playing in two bands, my reading chops have improved by leaps and bounds. Like many skills, you learn to do it by doing it.
 
@kevgermany . If you read the practice of practice (available as an online download at Amazon) you will discover that playing a piece faster than one can play it correctly in a relaxed manner just myelates playing with tension or incorrectly. Really useful 200 odd pages on how practicing works and how to practice effectively
 

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