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Reading music is just simply communicating on paper what you want somebody to play, that's it. It's like reading a book, and it allows a musician to walk into a situation, having not even ever met the people he's playing with before, and be able to do a performance right there on the spot. It enables people to produce music quickly together, and that's why people do it, because it saves a massive amount of rehearsal time and learning time on complex pieces of music. Somebody can just sit there and read it, and save everybody a lot of time and money.
But a good reader is somebody who can read music like that and not sound, or better put, not feel like they're reading, because a lot of people will read, but the music will get real stiff, because the focus is on the reading as opposed to being on the actual groove and feel and all that stuff, the natural things that you would normally do when you just play. Those kind of things can take a back seat when somebody's focusing on reading. So a real good professional reader, if you weren't watching him and knowing that he was actually reading, you wouldn't be able to tell, the music's just as strong.
But that being said, it takes a lot of time and practice to get it, it's not an easy thing to learn, especially for somebody who can already play by ear, it's just tedious sit down work. But for example, if I put up this, I'm going to do a screen sharing thing here, get my seven bucks a month for it, it's worth every dollar. It actually is very handy, because I can put something up and go through all that stuff with you.
See, reading consists of three basic elements. Let me start there. First of all, knowing all your note names on your neck, like you know your name. If I said, what's that note, what's that note, you'd be able to just, boom, boom, instantly tell me. The second part of reading is knowing the written range, meaning knowing what the note looks like on paper by name, which you were able to do really good there, but also knowing where those notes go on the bass. And the third element is reading and counting rhythms.
It's about going through these procedures. You're already able to identify time and key signatures, you're able to pick up on that key of C really fast, which is good, knowing that it means no sharps, no flats. Also, because the slide itself, page 19 that is, since all the notes, there's no accidentals or notes outside the key signature, or random sharps and flats, in that piece, all those notes are going to be out of the notes of the C major scale, they go along with the major key that the key signature is associated with. Now, because of this, we can use our major scale boxes to help us with fingering.
So if we go back to page 19, rule number two there is to find the lowest and highest notes in closest proximity to each other in each reading position. Let me know when I'm back. You're back? Okay, so if we scan our piece down, we see our highest note is B, and then our lowest note is E. But on fourth string bass, or any string bass really, that open E isn't really significant, in the fact that it's not forcing us to be down in the first four frets, because I can be anywhere on the bass and hit it, the open E, without having to move my left hand. I could be playing up here and, yeah, I don't have to have my hand down here.
The one that's a deal breaker for that is the F, the first finger, first fret on the E string, that note's the one that's saying, okay, you've got to be there for that, on fourth string. So really, as far as what really matters, as far as lowest and highest notes in closest proximity to each other, the one that's really forcing the hand to be in a certain place on four string is that F, not the open E, even though the open E is technically the lowest note. So when you're looking for lowest notes, bear in mind that the significant factor may not be the actual lowest note, but the one that makes you play it in a certain place.
So if I take my B, and then my open E or F, the next thing I want to do is step three in the rules, which says, go down from the highest to the lowest note in the major scale indicated by the key signature, in the reading position you're working on, calling out note names to establish a fingering. So the reading position is position one. So we want to go down from that high B to the low E in the C major scale, because we're in the key of C, basically we're going to be working out of the E box of the C major scale, because remember, all boxes start on the lowest starting point on the E string, that's where we get our box name. The lowest note in C major scale is E, the E box, oh yeah, okay, now I understand.
So if I go down the C major scale from this B to the low E, the next thing I got to know is the notes of the C major scale. You know the note names of the C major scale? Right, if not, you might want to write them down and look at them that way. All right, so I go down, B, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E. I just played every note on the page and established the fingering for doing it. Just by doing that, I set that whole thing up, starting with the high B. Now I could have gone from the low note up, the point is, by doing that one little thing, I've established a fingering for every note on that page.
So with these note reading rules, basically what we're trying to set up is a kind of checklist that you go through. Eventually you'll just be able to click these steps off in your mind, you'll scan a piece, kind of get a bearing on where the best place to play it on the neck is, to cut down on unnecessary shifting, because if you're in a sight reading situation, you're going to want to keep your eyes on the music, not looking at your bass neck.
So with step number three, going down from the highest to the lowest note in the major scale indicated by the key signature, calling out note names as you go, now it's very important to look at your bass neck as you do this. You want to go up and down and create a mental movie in your mind, in other words, pretend like your eyes are video cameras, and take a video of your hand playing this, because you know how those helicopter pilots, the Cobra pilots, had that little thing over their eye, and they're getting a video display, that's kind of what you want to have when you're reading music. But in that video display you're seeing your left hand, while your eyes are on the music, you're creating that little thing to where, in your mind, you're seeing what your left hand is doing, while you're not actually physically looking at it. So to help develop this, we look at our left hand.
All right, so, B, we just go up and down, looking at our left hand, calling out note names. B, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, B, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, B, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E.
