Freezing up when reading rhythms

[hyperbolica]

This is an old problem for me. I thought I had overcome it, but apparently not. Sometimes I freeze up when reading rhythms in groups with people. When I'm by myself, it's easy, I just slow down and take it apart and write in the down and up beats and figure it out, but when reading in a group, you can't do that. Worse yet, because my brain is overloading, I lose all sense of time, so I might speed up or slow down while this is happening. It's especially bad with smaller subdivisions of the beat, like 1/16th notes in cut time.

Does anybody else have this happen to them? The ways I deal with it are:
- just make something up until I can get back in sync
- drop out until I can get back in sync
- anticipate that I'm going to panic, and just count time for the measure that is causing the panic
- I generally slow down when this happens but I might also speed up
- ask the group to stop and go over it again
- get entirely lost and force the group to stop and go over it again

I've practiced reading a lot, and some of it is looking ahead, subdividing mentally, or recognizing patterns, and I've improved, but last night I had a reading session where the old panic came back.

[Doug Elliott]

A big part of the art of sightreading involves making instant decisions about what to leave out. Whether it's a rhythm you don't understand, or can't process, or is written badly, or maybe you just can't see it, or the same things about a chord if you're reading while improvising - leave it out. Happens all the time. You have to learn to do that intentionally instead of panicking.

[BGuttman]

I'm of the drop out until I can get into sync" school. One of the first books my adult re-entry teacher put me on was Pasquale Bona "Rhythmical Articulations". Admittedly, the book is dated -- it's over 100 years old. But it does give you a lot of the kinds of stuff you will encounter in traditional concert band and orchestral rep. Then a lot of sight reading during rehearsals and concerts works on the rest.

[harrisonreed]

I'm a terrible sight reader. My dream of a world where group leaders who hand out parts the day of the rehearsal "just to see if it's any good" vanish from the face of the earth will never come true, so I have learned to focus mostly on the big beats. This way, if a crazy rhythm or figure comes up and catches me and I miss a note, I just drop out until the next measure.

Another trick if the rhythm is difficult and the notes are strung together in a weird way (weird intervals, etc), I'll focus on the rhythm more than the pitches. As long as I'm in the key and the rhythm is right, I'm still with the group and there is no issue.

My pet peeve is poorly inscribed music. All of these things make sight reading (and learning a piece in general) needlessly difficult, and you should always call out an arranger if they are in the room with you, to help them get better at arranging music:

1: clunky "this is a finale score" font used
2: too few measures per line / too many measures per line
3. Rhythms written so they are "almost" right when played through midi, but not how a real arranger would notate it. For example syncopation with tied dotted eighth sixteenths where tied triplets should have been used or vice versa. Or cutting the note length and adding rests into a rhythm to show staccato and where each note stars, where the full note values and accents would have been clearer.
4. Inconsistency with indicating where notes should end -- some notes are full value, others are tired into the next downbeat, etc
5. Inconsistent or non existent use of accents to indicate style, swing, where a note should end, etc. Accents are important.
6. The inexplicable bad page turn, only to find a single line of music on page two.
7. Too much space between lines / too little space between lines
8. Poor use of note beams to indicate where the damn beat is / too many syncopated rests. Why are you trying to be clever when you can just split a rest into smaller parts and show the beat, rather than syncopated quarter or half rests??!? Why are you not beaming eighth or sixteenth notes over rests to show where the beat is??!?? Gahh
9. Measures be that should be a full rest, inexplicably split into weird rests that add up to the full value of the measure for no reason.

[Savio]

This is an old problem for me. I thought I had overcome it, but apparently not. Sometimes I freeze up when reading rhythms in groups with people. When I'm by myself, it's easy, I just slow down and take it apart and write in the down and up beats and figure it out, but when reading in a group, you can't do that. Worse yet, because my brain is overloading, I lose all sense of time, so I might speed up or slow down while this is happening. It's especially bad with smaller subdivisions of the beat, like 1/16th notes in cut time.

Does anybody else have this happen to them? The ways I deal with it are:
- just make something up until I can get back in sync
- drop out until I can get back in sync
- anticipate that I'm going to panic, and just count time for the measure that is causing the panic
- I generally slow down when this happens but I might also speed up
- ask the group to stop and go over it again
- get entirely lost and force the group to stop and go over it again

I've practiced reading a lot, and some of it is looking ahead, subdividing mentally, or recognizing patterns, and I've improved, but last night I had a reading session where the old panic came back.

I have to tell I’m surprising good at sight reading. I don’t know why. All of my YouTube channel is done that way but it’s all easygoing stuff to read. Here is my thoughts this subject;

Rhythm is most important, but don’t focus on subdividing. Feel the subdivision and beat inside but in a larger scale than normal. Focus on the big picture so read one or two bars in front when you have the chance. If it’s too complex skip it, fake or guess. Don’t dwell or think about it. Always go on. Listen around what is going on. When you are sure play with confidence, when not sure do the same with caution , when totally out pretend, fake and concentrate where you are. So you get back as fast as possible.

Anyway forget about technique, sound or doing big things musical. Rhythm and beat is the focus. No details of course unless you are in an easy part of it. I don’t know it this helps but in the practice room put on the metronome and pretend you are in this situation you fear. It’s actually like reading a book.

Leif

[hyperbolica]

... It’s actually like reading a book.

Leif

Yeah, some people just have that reading knack. It's a gift I don't have. It has always been a little bit of a struggle for me.

Thanks for the pointers. I got past this in the past, but it has come back after such a long time of not doing any sight reading in groups due to covid. It's a primal fear. If I can't read, I'm kinda sunk, musically speaking.

I might disagree on one point, though. It's not really like reading a book. I remember in grade school they put up something that made us read from the projector screen when the words were in a little box. The little box traveled along a paragraph and we would have to read at the speed of the little box. It's more like that than a book. A book I can read the same sentence over and over until I understand, but that little box projected on the screen was an unforgiving task master. You're right about the metronome, though. I'll practice reading with a metronome, but always having fresh music to read at a nice speed might become a challenge.

[Doubler]

I'm a terrible sight reader. My dream of a world where group leaders who hand out parts the day of the rehearsal "just to see if it's any good" vanish from the face of the earth will never come true, so I have learned to focus mostly on the big beats. This way, if a crazy rhythm or figure comes up and catches me and I miss a note, I just drop out until the next measure.

Another trick if the rhythm is difficult and the notes are strung together in a weird way (weird intervals, etc), I'll focus on the rhythm more than the pitches. As long as I'm in the key and the rhythm is right, I'm still with the group and there is no issue.

My pet peeve is poorly inscribed music. All of these things make sight reading (and learning a piece in general) needlessly difficult, and you should always call out an arranger if they are in the room with you, to help them get better at arranging music:

1: clunky "this is a finale score" font used
2: too few measures per line / too many measures per line
3. Rhythms written so they are "almost" right when played through midi, but not how a real arranger would notate it. For example syncopation with tied dotted eighth sixteenths where tied triplets should have been used or vice versa. Or cutting the note length and adding rests into a rhythm to show staccato and where each note stars, where the full note values and accents would have been clearer.
4. Inconsistency with indicating where notes should end -- some notes are full value, others are tired into the next downbeat, etc
5. Inconsistent or non existent use of accents to indicate style, swing, where a note should end, etc. Accents are important.
6. The inexplicable bad page turn, only to find a single line of music on page two.
7. Too much space between lines / too little space between lines
8. Poor use of note beams to indicate where the damn beat is / too many syncopated rests. Why are you trying to be clever when you can just split a rest into smaller parts and show the beat, rather than syncopated quarter or half rests??!? Why are you not beaming eighth or sixteenth notes over rests to show where the beat is??!?? Gahh
9. Measures be that should be a full rest, inexplicably split into weird rests that add up to the full value of the measure for no reason.

This is perhaps the best post of yours that I have ever read.

[VJOFan]

1: clunky "this is a finale score" font used
2: too few measures per line / too many measures per line
3. Rhythms written so they are "almost" right when played through midi, but not how a real arranger would notate it. For example syncopation with tied dotted eighth sixteenths where tied triplets should have been used or vice versa. Or cutting the note length and adding rests into a rhythm to show staccato and where each note stars, where the full note values and accents would have been clearer.
4. Inconsistency with indicating where notes should end -- some notes are full value, others are tired into the next downbeat, etc
5. Inconsistent or non existent use of accents to indicate style, swing, where a note should end, etc. Accents are important.
6. The inexplicable bad page turn, only to find a single line of music on page two.
7. Too much space between lines / too little space between lines
8. Poor use of note beams to indicate where the damn beat is / too many syncopated rests. Why are you trying to be clever when you can just split a rest into smaller parts and show the beat, rather than syncopated quarter or half rests??!? Why are you not beaming eighth or sixteenth notes over rests to show where the beat is??!?? Gahh
9. Measures be that should be a full rest, inexplicably split into weird rests that add up to the full value of the measure for no reason.

I'm just old enough that during my undergrad hand copying music was still a steady gig. (One of the theory profs had a secret room with a special computer that could print music but it took a loooooong time and the input was not...intuitive) In my jazz arranging class, the teacher, who was a working commercial composer/musician, brought his copyist in for a guest lecture. This list is like an opposite version of the notes from that lecture.

[Making my voice aged crackly and hunching over] If kids today had proper training in music copying they could use notation programs to make legible music.

[harrisonreed]

Wait, the copyist was promoting using measures with weird amounts of rests that should have been full rest?

Or you mean they gave you the "do's" and my post is the "don'ts"

[robcat2075]

...but when reading in a group...

How often are you in a group?

Every day at school?
Once a week in a community band?
Once a year in a brass ensemble at church for Easter?

And how often do you see new music in this group?

In high school and college our band met every day but we pretty much stuck to the same music for two months then did the concert so sight-reading wasn't a big issue as long as I wasn't the worst in the group.

There is a problem...I wasn't the worst at it so there was no need to get better.

I didn't get to be a worry-free sight-reader until long after college when I got into a band that met once a week, but had different music almost every week. It was more like a "reading" band that just met to play.

The thing that clicked for me in that situation was... look ahead. I got so I was always aware of what the next measure had in it. It took just a glance but it was a conscious glance I made myself do.

But what you describe for yourself is more like a stage fright. I think you get over stage fright by being on stage more. How often are you in a group reading something new?

I'm just old enough that during my undergrad hand copying music was still...

c. 1985 I took a class titled "Advanced orchestration" but almost all that was lectured was notation and hand copying. The teacher, a TA who was a doctoral-level music composition student, could make absolutely perfect engraved-looking sheet music by hand. He had the special pens, the special ink, the special paper, the templates, the formulas...

His compositions sounded awful... collections of tired modern music-ish clichés... but it looked great. It gave him the facade of being a real composer.

[hyperbolica]

How often are you in a group?

Twice a week right now. One group mostly plays stuff we know and sight reads mainly easier stuff. The other group is higher level, and reads just about everything, and everything is at a higher level, and run by a real pro who's kind of a hard ass. A great player, but pretty straight and stiff. We're really just getting started as a group. Our third meeting was a couple of nights ago.

But what you describe for yourself is more like a stage fright. I think you get over stage fright by being on stage more. How often are you in a group reading something new?

It's kind of like stage fright, but it hits all of a sudden when I see a rhythm I can't read immediately. I'm ok when the reading is easy. In music school, my teacher saw that I had trouble with complex rhythms and assigned me the Bitsch etude book. I spent a lot of time with that book, but not much of it was reading. A lot of marking beats, playing with the metronome, and sometimes playing the actual subdivisions just to work through it all. I worked through the LaFosse Sight Reading and Style books too, but again, I didn't actually sight read them much. The good part of that was that I learned a lot of rhythmical patterns that made sight reading easier.

I mostly have issues with jazz rhythms, and most of my practice sight reading music is legit. Once you read something, it's not really sight reading if you read it again, and I've only got so much sheet music on hand. I've taken to reading stuff like the Real Book, which has a lot of tunes I don't know, but the rhythms are generally pretty easy, and the range is never a contributing factor. To really practice sight reading you need a constant diet of unfamiliar music, which is hard to keep up.

And then the other option is to play through all of the music that was handed out, just to minimize how much actual sight reading I'll have to do in front of people. That's probably the most practical answer for now, while I work back my covid-dulled sight reading wits and general ensemble skills.

[elmsandr]

I'm sort of with Leif... I am a very good sight reader... to the point where I don't particularly read it better by playing things more. I have learned how to skip over things and stay in rhythm where needed.

But the interesting question... how did I get there?

I've played in a lot of different groups, and a large number of them had VERY minimal rehearsals and LARGE folders. For example, find a summer band that does 5 concerts with 20 different numbers on each concert and just blow through them. Similarly, find a dance band and just go through the folder with them. It will be painful... for a bit.

Another interesting thing, both for reading a book out loud AND for sightreading music... easy to do with a book, need a helper for playing; cover up the measure you are currently playing. Then make it two, then three, then a line, etc... This is hard. Doing this gives your brain time to process the information and if learned, you can slow things down in your head far enough in advance to figure it out. You need to read ahead to understand any phrasing or breathing anyway, just work it out far enough to allow some processing time. And again, this is hard, but it can be practiced with a book as that will use a lot of the same skills.

Cheers,
Andy

[robcat2075]

I mostly have issues with jazz rhythms,

I have about five years of college jazz band playing behind me. It has tricky rhythms but once you've seen them you're going to see them a hundred times and they are not surprising anymore.

The cliches are the larger part of the genre. After a year or two of reading those "charts" it is exceedingly rare to encounter anything you haven't encountered before rhythm-wise.

The oddities are the Frank Zappa would-bes who think the music is better because they used a weird meter. But when those came up no one else in the ensemble was nailing it either.

And then the other option is to play through all of the music that was handed out,

Well, of course you do that anyway if you have the chance. That is part of "being prepared for rehearsal"

[Doug Elliott]

One way to practice reading is to practice writing. Especially transcribing rhythmic stuff from recordings. Even if you have to listen 100 times to understand a rhythm, once you write it out yourself, you'll never have trouble with it again.

[soseggnchips]

There's a book I like for syncopated rhythm practice: 'Modern Reading Text in 4/4' by Louis Bellson. It's a nice collection of rhythmic exercises with a good logical progression of difficulty. Really it's meant for drummers but you can use it on any instrument. I like to clap the exercises.

I find it a lot easier to count rhythms 'sequentially' rather than in relation to beats of the bar. To give an example:

500px-Tresillo_based_tumbaos.jpg

The 'conventional' way to read that rhythm would be to count '1, 2, 3, 4' and think about the first note landing on 4, the second on the 'and' of 2, the next on 4, and so on.

The 'sequential' way of reading it is just to think '12 | 123 123 12 | 123 123 12 |' over and over - counting the length of each note in eighths (you could count the tied notes as 12345, but I find it easier to reset at each barline.)

[CalgaryTbone]

One way to practice reading is to practice writing. Especially transcribing rhythmic stuff from recordings. Even if you have to listen 100 times to understand a rhythm, once you write it out yourself, you'll never have trouble with it again.

Yes, I like this! Writing stuff out by hand also helps you learn a new clef. You really internalize the information, and how it relates to what you already know when you actually take pencil to paper and you have to slowly reproduce it on staff paper.

Also, I like Harrison's pet peeves and could add some of my own. While I appreciate the time-saving plus of computer copying programs, it has made the percentage of badly copied charts multiply - especially in professional work. While bad hand copying always existed, most professional arrangers and composers used professional copyists.

One of the best courses I took in school was a calligraphy class. I learned how to use a proper ink pen and the transparent paper with the staffs on the back (so if you made a mistake, you removed it carefully with a razor blade, and it didn't remove the staff). Besides having to work on my hand copying being neat and legible, the teacher (a professional copyist who had worked for Bernstein and Copland, etc.) made a big deal about HOW to write things. Spacing, direction of stems, and especially how to write rhythms. Showing the center of the bar (in 4/4) unless it was a simple syncopation, showing if 5/4 was 2 plus 3, or 3 plus 2. All of this stuff can be lost so often in Finale or Sibelius, because people are too lazy or uninformed to edit their parts. The worst I saw was a Pops chart with a lick that was just a B flat major arpeggio ( I think it was even in either the key of B flat or F) and the B flats were spelled as A sharps. Sight reading would not be as big an issue if people writing parts made sure they would be comfortable playing off of their own work.

Jim Scott

[Doug Elliott]

The best copy work I've ever seen is Mike Crotty's big band charts, that he copied himself. Written so well you can't make a reading mistake.

[ithinknot]

I find it a lot easier to count rhythms 'sequentially' rather than in relation to beats of the bar. To give an example:
500px-Tresillo_based_tumbaos.jpg

The 'conventional' way to read that rhythm would be to count '1, 2, 3, 4' and think about the first note landing on 4, the second on the 'and' of 2, the next on 4, and so on.

The 'sequential' way of reading it is just to think '12 | 123 123 12 | 123 123 12 |' over and over - counting the length of each note in eighths (you could count the tied notes as 12345, but I find it easier to reset at each barline.)

In that example, 'conventional' = counting, and 'sequential' = feel, and ideally we do both.

In more complex (or non-repeating) examples, though, counting in eighths works really well when it's working, and really badly as soon as it doesn't In those cases, the 'conventional' way at least makes for discrete, not cascading, errors.

[GabrielRice]

I keep a couple of copies of this book around all the time to give to students - and not just the younger band students it was written for: https://www.alfred.com/101-rhythmic-res ... 0-EL00557/

Use these progressive studies to work on the thought process of rhythmic sight reading. Start at the very beginning, which is very simple, and make sure that you are thinking the numbers in your head during the durations of the notes and the durations of the rests. It's very important to pay attention to the note values, play them full length, and make end of each note just as important as the beginning.

[hyperbolica]

I find it a lot easier to count rhythms 'sequentially' rather than in relation to beats of the bar. To give an example:
500px-Tresillo_based_tumbaos.jpg

The 'conventional' way to read that rhythm would be to count '1, 2, 3, 4' and think about the first note landing on 4, the second on the 'and' of 2, the next on 4, and so on.

The 'sequential' way of reading it is just to think '12 | 123 123 12 | 123 123 12 |' over and over - counting the length of each note in eighths (you could count the tied notes as 12345, but I find it easier to reset at each barline.)

In that example, 'conventional' = counting, and 'sequential' = feel, and ideally we do both.

In more complex (or non-repeating) examples, though, counting in eighths works really well when it's working, and really badly as soon as it doesn't In those cases, the 'conventional' way at least makes for discrete, not cascading, errors.

I think the way I do it is thinking strong beat, weak beat, and then subdivisions between. This is ok for 1/8th note syncopation, but when it gets into 1/16th not syncopation, like fast latin rhythm, I shift into just playing how I know that feels.

I keep a couple of copies of this book around all the time to give to students - and not just the younger band students it was written for: https://www.alfred.com/101-rhythmic-res ... 0-EL00557/

Use these progressive studies to work on the thought process of rhythmic sight reading. Start at the very beginning, which is very simple, and make sure that you are thinking the numbers in your head during the durations of the notes and the durations of the rests. It's very important to pay attention to the note values, play them full length, and make end of each note just as important as the beginning.

Yeah, thanks for that. I'll probably get it and one of the other books that site suggests just to pick up another point of view on this problem.

[timothy42b]

To really practice sight reading you need a constant diet of unfamiliar music, which is hard to keep up.

I'm not sure that's really the case.

I think the best sightreading is not reading unfamiliar music, but retrieving very familiar fragments from memory, in that style.

I think that's why sightreading skill can be so specific to a particular genre. You're not going to master reading jazz rhythms by sightreading Bach chorales, or vice versa.

[robcat2075]

I'm surprised there isn't a sight reading "app".

Something that would crank out a continuous scroll of music.

It would have numerous options to allow for different complexities of rhythm, in addition to tempo and metronome On/Off etc.

[Burgerbob]

https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/?gc ... 1VEALw_wcB

[robcat2075]

https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/?gc ... 1VEALw_wcB

That looks handy.

Except it appears to be iPad only?

But the idea should be sound. Does it have a "jazz" switch?

[Burgerbob]

I use it on PC. No jazz switch as far as I know, but I would enjoy that as well.

[VJOFan]

Wait, the copyist was promoting using measures with weird amounts of rests that should have been full rest?

Or you mean they gave you the "do's" and my post is the "don'ts"

Every peeve you mentioned was a thing the fellow warned us not to do.

It is amazing how well written music is so easy to play, but even little mistakes like tails going in the wrong direction can make one hesitate.

[bigbandbone]

A very long time ago someone told me to take the "Evlyn Wood Speed Reading Course" and then apply those concepts to sight reading music. It worked great.

[Doug Elliott]

It's true, the real secret is to keep your eyes moving across the page, and that's what speed reading is all about.

[baileyman]

https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/?gc ... 1VEALw_wcB

Cool. Anticipating that!

[bketch]

I think I'm an OK sight reader. I have had a fair a mount of practice with some of our local music festivals. They are one-day events where we read about twenty new pieces, pick an hour's concert out of them, and then rehearsal and present a final concert in the evening. I often play principal cornet and flugel so I wind up with a few solos. The other situation is when I sub on trumpet for a brass quintet and have to sight read charts that the other four have been playing for a few weeks.

I do play trombone as well, but not at my higher brass level. When I get to a run of 16th notes I do occasionally freeze but I read ahead and pick specific notes within the rhythm. It does give the impression I'm a much better trombone player than I am.

All this comes down to my opinion of the importance of concentration while playing. If I am totally immersed and concentrating on the music my sight reading is quite good. It is when I have a lapse of concentration when I see something difficult coming up and stage fright kicks in that I freeze and have to revert to leaving out the "unimportant" notes in the musical phrase. But I'm usually able to keep within the rhythm of the chart. For me it concentration on the music and reading ahead are the important factors.

[hyperbolica]

Yeah, a lot of people are hitting a lot of aspects of the problem. I showed up tonight and was reading like crazy. I surprised myself especially after last week. I must have just had a bad day. My frame of mind must have been Mal-adjusted. Whatever was wrong is ok this week.

Still, lots of great suggestions for continuous improvement.

[MrHCinDE]

I like to think I’m an ok sight reader, probably because I regularly played in 4-5 varied groups from the age of about 14 to 23. Between the rehearsals, concerts, technical studies, sound development, solo pieces and school work there just simply wasn‘t time to practice many ensemble pieces at home. Some of the stuff I encountered in championship section test pieces (British brass band) definitely caught me out so those were always a special case for intensive home practice before the first rehearsal.

The top three things my wise teachers told me and have served me well are:

1) Rhythm and overall style usually has priority over pitch for the first read
2) Use longer rests and section work by others to skip ahead and see what‘s coming, play through it I’m your head or slide/valves
3) Don‘t worry about messing up, it‘s often better for the ensemble to iron out any problems by being able to hear them - to a point - once you know you are totally lost then stop and try to re-sync

[lupusargentus]

I have similar issues. There could be several factors at work not related to the specific music stuff mentioned above. Physical fatigue including tired eyes, dehydration, ambient lighting, low blood sugar, and a whole lot more. Mental/emotional factors such as self confidence, anxiety including stage fright, depression, not feeling prepared/up to the challenge, impostor syndrome e.g. "I'm not good enough to play with this group", ADHD and concentration issues, and again, a whole lot more.
Best tool is awareness of your physical, mental, and emotional state. If you can determine a causal factor(s) you might be able to minimize or eliminate it.