Posted by Sean Chisham on June 15, 2000 at 20:47:07:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Sight reading posted by Dave on June 15, 2000 at 19:06:09:
Sight reading is an essential element in being a viable commercial musician. Jay mentioned that it may not be necessary in or to become a great musician. It may be possible to Glenn Gould your way through a career if you never have to sight read in public and are a consummate artist, but the realities of playing gigs dictates strong sight reading skills. It ain't just a military band thing.
When you show up at a job, they rarely have the funds to allow many rehearsals. Many have zero rehearsals. You just show up, get your sheets, plug away at any weird mechanics for a few minutes beforehand and then play go out and perform, or record. If Joe Snuffy the trumpet player/contractor has called on you to come in for an extra few hundred dollars, it would be of great benefit to your future employability and reputation to be able to sight read the tunes like a mother. You'll get hired again and not waste the other peoples time.
Some good approaches to finding new tunes is to learn to transpose and read the vast libraries of the other instruments. Sight reading, while in a non tuba native clef, while transposing a 4th while keeping in the styles of the various instruments and composers will give your brain a good workout. Once you get back to reading bass clef in C on short excerpts, it will seem like cake.
sean chisham