I had an interesting email exchange with a student from Chicago – Frank – this week.
Frank doesn’t sight read and said the sight reading etudes that I’ve produced in the last couple of weeks are useless to him, though there were a couple particularly he wanted to learn.
I told him that the different McCartney Styles I’ve developed – that are free don’t forget when you grab a copy of LEARNING FROM McCARTNEY VOL 1 – could be used in combination with simple chord progressions/common chord progressions and deliberate practice principles to learn sight reading in an idiomatic way in all 12 keys!
The styles to use – and the order – would be:
- MACCA6 – two beat style, roots and 5ths
- MACCA 3 – ‘B’ Substyle – quarter note style, roots and 5ths
- MACCA 1 – more expansive quarter note style
- MACCA 2 – 8th note rock and roll style.
This 20 minute screen capture video gives an overview of this process – though I haven’t gone into the depth that it warrants because the video would have ended up being hours and hours long!!! But you should get a good idea of the process:
That is a great video Paul. Very well explained and I could listen to you for a couple of hours. I found the video very interesting. I’m like your buddy from Chicago, without a clue how to sight read and it looks intimidating at first glance, but after you take it step by step and spend the time on it, it makes total sense.
Hey lenny
The way sight reading is taught for bass utterly sucks! Doesn’t conform to good practice habits or the habits developed from 200 years of classical music!
Paul
Good video Paul. I was in my 50s when I had to learn to read music because that was the only way they was going to let me in the music program at the College I was attending and I made the cut. You just have to want it bad enough.
Obviously you need the desire to learn…but you also need to combine that with a good methodology that will actually bring results!
Interesting video again, thanks Paul, and just to add a thought around pro’s and con’s of Tab and Notation. (And I have gone thru Tab to Notation over the last few years, with bass guitar and then upright as well, and am a committed notation player now). Notation shows rythmn exactly, whereas I struggle with that on Tab for more complex ones. However, Tab shows where a bass player wants to use a specific string for say a slide or run across a number of notes. So on occasion a tab for that is useful. Pro’s and Con’s both. Both viable, both need practice (fun) as everything musical.
Hey John
Agree with you to a point.
Regarding the tab….your point only applies if it was tabbed by the original player! Which it rarely is.
I include tab with the majority of my notation in my courses as you know….partly that’s for those who don’t read, but I will hold my hand up and say it does show where I’m playing the examples.
Cheers
Paul