Hello! After discovering that another pro musician and teacher was applying some of my blog articles successfully with her students, I decided to share the info with whomever could use it (in addition to my regular students and readers). Anyone learning an instrument should check it out. 
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You hear a pro band play or solo instrumentalist play and notice how cool they sound. (I mainly refer to piano or guitar.) One of reasons they sound cool is they probably know what they are doing! They are professionals. Right?
In addition to being professional musicians, behind the average listener’s awareness are these additional pro skills:
1. Faking it! As professionals we have learned to make stuff sound good even if we don’t know what we’re doing, or just can’t play a certain part of something well. I’ve done it, my friends have done it, and I’ve seen top acts on YouTube do it. (Maybe you’ve done it too!) Non-professionals can fake it too, if they can, as it’s sort of a “human skill,” you could say. Of course there are times when you don’t fake it. When I’m doing a reading session, I read what’s on the page and can either play it correctly or not. Sometimes you only get one chance, sometimes you can take some time and work it out. And at certain gigs you fake it!
2. Only playing what you can actually play. A pro knows what he can and can’t play well. When it’s time to sound good, we play what we know we can play. If the gig is a little loose we might try for things that could be a little out of reach and blow it… but who cares! Shooting for the next level is always fun. But there’s a time and place, and a pro knows when and where those are. And sometimes the feeling of what is played supersedes the notes being played so it doesn’t really matter.
3. Finding your way after getting lost. (Especially when reading music.) You’re playing a reading gig, get distracted for a minute, look away from the page… then have to find the exact location where you were in all of about a few seconds. This can happen to anybody. And without losing the beat for an instant. Also, you take your eyes off of the page to look at your instrument for a second then have to find your place on the page again. This is a common skill with guitar, bass and piano players. You might have experienced this while reading a book. You’re reading along and someone asks you a question, you look at them and talk a minute, then relocate yourself on the page you were reading. Has it ever taken you a few moments to find your place again? Well… on the bandstand you don’t always have a moment. Sometimes we only have a second. But when a pro does need a few moments to get reoriented we can do it without standing out, causing a scene, losing the rhythm or screwing something else up. It’s a nifty pro skill. (And I suppose this could apply to finding your way back to your car after playing a party on the 12th floor of a major hotel while having to go through the kitchen and service doors!)
4. Taking cues. Pros often have eyes in the back of their heads and telepathic powers. And sometime we can just feel exactly what’s going to happen next, while other times it’s noticing a slight head turn, finger movement or eyebrow lift. Cues can be very subtle, or very overt!. This important skill entails being comfortable enough with what you are playing so you are extroverted and can have your attention on the environment, and most importantly, being aware that you should be aware and are willing to do this. When a group of musicians are playing together, there times when everyone should be aware of everyone else.
Well…, there are four interesting pro skills. Non-pros can have them as well, and sometimes a pro doesn’t display one of the above qualities as needed. Whatever—it’s not always cut and dry.
I was talking about this with one of my students the other day and thought you might find this interesting.
I hope you did. If not… fake it and act like you did!
Marty B.
(818) 242-7551
As a bassist, bandleader, teacher and music copyist I’ve worked with hundreds of singers throughout the years. Though working musicians know hundreds of tunes, singers need to have good charts in order to have their music played the way they want. I define a “good chart” as a piece of written music that effectively tells the musicians what they should play.
Written music comes in seven basic forms: chord charts, sheet music, songbooks, leadsheets, fake books, master rhythm charts and fully notated parts.
As a musician has a responsibility to correctly play the chart before him, the supplier of the chart has the responsibility of providing the right kind of chart. Knowing what type of chart to use for what kind of tune or gig is very important.
This article explains what the different types of charts are, and under what circumstances to use them. I hope you find it useful.
This post is an answer to a question a friend asked me the other day.
“A music copyist prepares written music for performance. A copyist gets the music written down on paper in a fashion that the musicians can easily read.”
Here are some of the jobs a copyist has:
Preparing music for singers: Singers need correct charts of their songs to hand out to musicians. A music copyist works with the singer to make sure their music is written out the way they need. There are many ways to write charts, and a copyist can determine what the singer needs. i.e., piano? full band? style? With good charts, the singer hands the musicians the music, and it’s played the way they want with no guess work! (One of my main gigs as a copyist is helping singers get their books together.)
Working from a score: A composer creates a score (music with all the instruments on it) and the copyist “extracts” each part of the score and prepares it for each instrument. E.g., he’ll take each individual part and make it look great for each player, such as the violin, viola, flute, etc.
Proofreading: A copyist has both the score and the individual parts, compares them and makes sure that everything is correct.
Transcribing: Someone has a recording and wants the music written down. The copyist listens to the music and writes it down in whatever form the client needs. (See my post on “The Seven Different Types of Written Music” and you’ll get the full picture.)
Copyrighting: The copyist listens to the song and writes down the melody, lyrics, chords and form. This “chart” is registered with the Library of Congress for copyright protection.
There are Music Preparation Houses in major cities. In Los Angeles there are mainly two or three large facilities that handle all the chart writing for the movie and TV networks. Freelance copyists are abundant and it’s largely a word-of-mouth business. I mainly get my copywork from people that I know, though occasionally I’ll advertise somewhere, like “Craigslist.com“, and get some new clients. I have some occasional overflow work from the main offices, but my clients mainly consist of original artists wanting their music transcribed and charted well, and singers wanting their songs put in their key and arranged the way they want.
The main two computer programs used in the business are “Finale” and “Sibelius.” Finale has been the standard for years, though Sibelius has become a tough competitor. (I’m a Sibelius guy.)
The main ways to start working as a copyist are:
Read the rest of this entry »
This is a brief summation of the ten, main chart-writing and chart-reading principles from my upcoming notation book.
The book explains the symbols and abbreviations used to navigate your way through written music (charts). Whether reading simple chord charts, sheet music or elaborate notation (all the notes), these symbols function the same way with few differences in appearance or application. Musical symbols and abbreviations have evolved over many years and musicians are accustom to seeing things written in specific ways. (You can see what all the specific types of charts are at my post, “The Seven Different Types of Written Music.”)
When writing:
When playing:
These guidelines are VERY useful and work like a charm. Use them when you next read or write some music and you’ll see what I mean. (And of course I can teach you all the information in a relatively short period of time. Reading and writing charts is easier then many people think. It’s just a language to learn. Once you learn the basic vocabulary it doesn’t take long to apply it!)
Aug 5
This post lays out some various gradients to reading music. A gradient, in learning, is a step-by-step approach starting with the easiest thing and progressing to more difficult levels.
Many musicians read music fluidly while others are either stumped by it all, are mildly confused or just don’t really know what’s it’s all about . I’ve been teaching people to read music for years and it’s actually not that difficult a subject. To read well takes a lot of practice, of course, but if approached correctly is a very understandable subject.
There is a hierarchy of things to learn. When you start with the easiest aspect of reading and proceed from there one can learn smoothly. A common difficulty students have is simply not drilling each level of skill long enough to get comfortable before advancing to the next level: too much too soon. When you learn things one step at a time and become proficient with each element before going on to the next element, learning to read well is quite doable.
One of the common difficulties people have isn’t the notes on the page but the notes on their instrument! In order to read well you need to first understand your instrument and, ideally, have a basic foundation about how music is put together. The most basic “theory” is simply knowing what the notes on the instrument are called. How could you read notes on the page and transfer that visual to playing those notes on the instrument without knowing what they are? Well, I’ve had many students who “had trouble reading” when they actually read just fine: they simply didn’t know their instrument well enough. So when they learned their instrument better, like magic they could read. It’s very interesting.
Another common difficulty is lacking basic musical skills such as being able to feel the rhythms they are looking at and playing. Ultimately one should look at a piece of music and hear and feel what one sees. There are many levels of this and the most fundamental skills needed to enjoy reading music can be readily learned with some good instruction.
This is a suggested order of things to learn to get your reading skills up to par:
1. Knowing the definitions of the words and symbols used.
2. Learning to navigate a piece of music. This consists of learning the symbols that tell you where to go. The most basic piece of music to learn to read is a “chord chart.” A “chart” is a slang term for any piece of music. A chord chart is simply a piece of music with only chord symbols and the form written on it. The “form” is the order of the sections, such as verse, chorus and bridge. There are no notes or rhythms written on the paper. To read a chord chart you need to understand what chords are. For example, a “C Chord” is made up of the single notes C, E and G. The chart will just have a C written on it and you need to know the rest. Learning chords is easier to learn then many think, and there are only three or four symbols to learn that tell you where to go on a chart. These symbols just tell you to repeat a section however many times or to jump from one part of the chart to another: like a driving direction telling you what street to go to and which way to turn. You can also take a piece of sheet music for a song and just read the chords without dealing with all of the notes and get use to that.
3. Understanding pitch notation. A “pitch,” for this example, is just a note. There are five lines and four spaces that big dots (note heads) go on that tell you what note to play. If you know the notes on your instrument it is easy to learn what note on the page means what note on the instrument, and the more you know about music the easier it is. When you can speak a word and know how it’s spelled you can easily recognize it on the written page: so it goes with music. When you can play a certain thing you can recognize it when you see it.
4. Understanding rhythm notation. Various lines, dots and shapes tell you when to play notes and for how long to hold them out.
5. Putting it all together on complete pieces of written music. Written music goes from easy to difficult, and learning to read just takes a step-by-step approach to putting it all together.
There are only 6 shapes that make up most of reading music: 6 shapes. That’s not too big a mountain to climb. Combine that with some fundamental instrument skills and musical abilities and you can learn to read music.
You don’t need to read music to play well; playing is playing and reading is reading.
But if you want to improve your reading or get started, start with the above steps, get a few lessons with someone who knows what they are doing and start the adventure!
Marty B.
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