I had been working on timing with Josh thru private lessons, and he gave me some other sites to work on timing with, and of course it is all sheet, not tabs. I was feelilng a little bit of a rut, and so I started the simple steps for sight reading, just figuring out I would do something different. I was 1/2 way thru the Cord tone essential course, and had completed the Scales essentials course. I was starting to get in a little rut with my practice and learning.
None of it was expected from a sight reading course, but it was some of the most helpful things I learned on bass, and at the time, it was something that helped me get un stuck with my learning. Actually, when I started the Simple Steps To Sight Reading Beginner Module at, the first 7-10 lessons each had one, if not two or more AH-HA moments, that had to do with timing, scales, arpeggios, 7 chords, everything. Because it’s very unlikely you actually do need that, and I think it is harmful and unfortunate that any teacher would say that you did.Įxactly. Just don’t get caught up on needing to sight read at speed.
Luckily it takes like five minutes to learn.Īnd reading music and its related concepts (not sight reading necessarily, just reading) is another skill I think everyone should develop, for the same reason, and for communicating with other musicians. Understanding (not sight reading, just reading) tablature, on the other hand, is extremely useful to know, from a practical standpoint, since there’s a huge number of songs tabbed out.
Unless your goal is to become a session or otherwise professional bassist, or to go to music school. So while learning to sight read is a worthy goal on bass, I wouldn’t call it exactly critical. Piano scores are the most common, but the bass in a piano score is often a different arrangement, and is also an octave off of bass guitar notation, because the bass is a transposing instrument - it’s notated an octave higher than the actual notes as you would see on a piano score. Sheet music can also be problematic for bass, unless you find actual bass guitar sheet music, which seems rare for most genres and nonexistent for some.