Sight Reading/Sheet Music Question

[FatBack]

I play off and on with the Church choir as a guitarist (acoustic for now...). I've recently started on the Mel Bay Modern Guitar series of books to improve my music reading ability for Church.

What do you guys do when you're handed sheet music that was written for the piano? Do you look at the key signature and determine the appropriate chords or play what's written in the treble clef line?

What strum patterns do you use for the rhythm? I've been making up my own strum patterns up on the spot, but don't always feel very comfortable with it and would like to start doing it right.

I'm trying to improve, but the basics are still throwing me!

What do you guys do?

[tom grossheider]

Originally Posted by FatBack

What do you guys do when you're handed sheet music that was written for the piano? Do you look at the key signature and determine the appropriate chords or play what's written in the treble clef line?

What strum patterns do you use for the rhythm? I've been making up my own strum patterns up on the spot, but don't always feel very comfortable with it and would like to start doing it right.

I'm trying to improve, but the basics are still throwing me!

What do you guys do?

Good questions! We mostly use chord charts, but in the rare moments when confronted with piano charts I can usually figure out the chords and write them in, takes a little while but it can be done. OR, I get our keyboard player to do it for me (bless her heart!). Since it is known to the leadership team that there are people in the band that don't read music so well(guitar players), they are quite sensitive to that and write the chord symbols in most of the time. As far as strum patterns go, I try to use something that will fit in with the keyboard, bass player and drummer without causing confusion. Most of the time those rhythms are written in the charts, but if there is a keyboard player doing that I'll trying either to follow the same rhythm or find something complimentary (triads, different inversion arpeggios, etc). Or sit out completely if nothing seems to work is also an option that I've done. Hope that helps!

[Tim Swartz]

The 3 scariest words I encounter when playing on the praise team are "Play as written". Thankfully our leader is a guitarist and we now get many songs on "cheat sheets" w/ just words and chords. At this stage I've pretty much resigned myself to being a "feel/groove" player, and thankfully we've got 4 electric guys in the rotation, a couple of which are very skilled in the theory/reading realm.

[DADGAD]

It's pathetic that we guitarists are forced to use piano charts by music publishers. Especially when the original artists are guitar driven bands! /rant

My work around is to use the melody line for the basis for my guitar solo. (Yes, I read music.) The next "piano right hand" stave shows me the chord voicing and indicates the strum pattern. In complex chord voicings, the piano part is usually just a three note triad and I use that for a shortcut for complex chords. That's not cheating at all.

The piano bass cleft is usually inadequate for the bassist to read and play. Especially the chords. =P

G2G,

Gary

[Matt Plescher]

Figuring out the chord voicings from scratch is pretty time consuming. You are actually writing 3 or 4 part harmony to go with the piano notes. Don't feel like you are musically inadequate; many piano players who read would not be able to voice the guitar chords especially if the chord is not written out in the music.

I start with the key, and write out the chords in the key, (I,ii,iii,IV,V,vi,vii). The the vii chord is diminished and is hardly ever used in worship music so you can usually drop that. Then you start plugging them in based on the melody notes starting at the the beginning of the bars and then working other chords in where they seem needed. The challenge is that there are usually a few different chords that will work with a given note. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's almost impossible. An easy song can take ten minutes, a more complex one much longer. Not something to be doing while everyone is staring at you at practice.

RANT: If they expect you to play chords, the chords need to be dialed in BEFORE practice, either by another musician or by you having been given the music a few days ahead. NO EXCEPTIONS.

You can improvise over a major or minor pentatonic, or often music that has no guitar part written sounds bad with guitar anyway and is best left to just piano.

Cheers
Matt

[ravindave_3600]

I usually just turn it up loud and make a joyful noise :P

but seriously, you can usually find the root in the bass staff and play along with that on your low E, and maybe follow the melody when you feel comfortable.

If they dont' give me chords I do whatever I think sounds good and then.....they usually make sure I have the chords next time :?

[WallyArms]

Originally Posted by FatBack

I play off and on with the Church choir as a guitarist (acoustic for now...).

What do you guys do when you're handed sheet music that was written for the piano?

Good question - fortunately it doesn't happen to me right now, as I keep track of our music. I agree that there is no reason for this to happen - there are just too many resources available - sheet music, digital sheet music, numerous chord sites online, etc. Making sure everyone has the music in the right form just requires some planning and work before practice....

I am curious - is the piano music you are being given from the hymnal? If so, ask for the church to buy a guitar version of the hymnal. I think most hymnals now have a guitar accompaniment version. Ours does - using it requires some work, however; a pianist must have put it together given that many songs have a chord listed for nearly every beat...

If it is sheet music, all that is required is that someone buy a copy that includes the chords....unless of course, it is the type of music tht wasn't intended for guitar in the first place (and in my experience chords are available for most of that as well). And as someone else mentioned, a pianist can often help you with the chords if they aren't available.

As a last resort, you can try to find the chords online at one of the numerous tab/chord sites, then transpose to the correct key. This is my least preferred method, as a lot of the songs available are just plain wrong, or the piano arrangement is a "fancy" version or just a different arrangement. Lots of trial and error this way. Be careful about playing from a different arrangement than the pianist... this can make for some real frustration (speaking from experience) as many popular songs, and even a lot of the old hymns, are available in numerous different arrangements.

I am fortunate that our pianist (and the only other regular musician in the band at this time) is awesome, and he can play from guitar chord sheets. I try not to take advantage of that fact, however, and always try to find music that has piano and guitar. When I can't, I try to get him a recording of the song along with the chords, and we spend more time practicing the song in question.

If our pianist wasn't so good, we would just have to limit ourselves to playing songs that we had piano and guitar music for...and there really is no shortage of those.

[Ptrallan01]

One or two to learn the grand staff three or four more to practice and you will be able to transpose it all to guitar much easier. If you have a midi capable electric keyboard you can save a few bucks by getting some piano teaching software. This will help you to read "piano" music and help you to appreciate the difficuty/nuances of that instrument. This is always a way to get better on your primary instrument.

The other thing is once you and the pianist work out the chords remember to work out the voicings so there is variety.

Sunday a "guest" pianist showed up and decided to play and I had to stop because she was stepping over the areas that I normally play in. This can be frustrating in both directions.

Peter

[FatBack]

Thanks for the info, guys. DADGAD did answer another question I was going to ask about playing the piano bass line with the bass guitar. There is an opening for a bassist and I was thinking about getting in there but have the same problems with the music.

Yes, the choir does sometimes have the guitar version of the hymns but not always.

My music reading and theory knowledge is so lacking at this point that I didn't even understand some of the responses. It's comforting that I'm not the only one with these problems. Why are we guitarists typically so uneducated in music reading?

I'm going to keep plodding through the Mel Bay books (which I skipped over 25 years ago & went straight to playing EVH) and try to figure this out. Thanks.

[Matt Plescher]

Originally Posted by FatBack

Why are we guitarists typically so uneducated in music reading?

Most guitar is played with popular music, which is played more informally and by feel. Music reading really isn't all that necessary. That looseness of the guitar is what gives it the variety of feeling and expression. Ever look at the complex notation needed for bends, legato, rakes, pinch harmonics etc.?

Also, because of the layout of the guitar, with the same note appearing in more than one location, the guitar is a notoriously difficult instrument to read music with. There is always more than one way to play the written music.

Cheers
Matt

[ravindave_3600]

Also, because of the layout of the guitar, with the same note appearing in more than one location, the guitar is a notoriously difficult instrument to read music with. There is always more than one way to play the written music.

Very true. Recently I learned a lick on the EBG strings, around the 10th fret - terribly hard to play and I felt great when I got it. But I could never really be sure I was going to nail it!

After struggling with it for months, I repositioned it above the 12th on BGD... then again on EBG around the 7/8/9. MUCH easier in both those positions, and sounds just as nice.

[Matt Plescher]

Originally Posted by ravindave_3600

Also, because of the layout of the guitar, with the same note appearing in more than one location, the guitar is a notoriously difficult instrument to read music with. There is always more than one way to play the written music.

Very true. Recently I learned a lick on the EBG strings, around the 10th fret - terribly hard to play and I felt great when I got it. But I could never really be sure I was going to nail it!

After struggling with it for months, I repositioned it above the 12th on BGD... then again on EBG around the 7/8/9. MUCH easier in both those positions, and sounds just as nice.

I learned a melody line with the scale beginning with the G root on the third fret. Just like you, I got it down but couldn't nail it. Then I realized it could be played over open G with two hammer ons. The melody plays like butter now, and of course sounds better.

Cheers
Matt

[ravindave_3600]

Originally Posted by Matt Plescher

I learned a melody line with the scale beginning with the G root on the third fret. Just like you, I got it down but couldn't nail it. Then I realized it could be played over open G with two hammer ons. The melody plays like butter now, and of course sounds better.

Cheers
Matt

Live and learn