Module 15: Professional skillsLesson 1professional⏱ 60 min + 15 min daily, permanently

Sight-reading for the working guitarist

Read single-line parts in position, kicks and chord charts with rhythmic notation, and four-to-the-bar big-band guitar parts on the first pass, with the strategies and the daily routine that professionals actually use.

Why reading decides who gets the call

Nobody books a guitarist for a big band, a show, a recording date or a corporate band with horns on the strength of their solos. They book the one who plays the part right the first time, because rehearsal costs money and a second take costs more. Guitar is the instrument with the worst reading reputation in the section, which is unfair to good readers and very useful to you: a guitarist who reads is rare enough that contractors remember the name. This lesson is the complete method. Nothing in it is clever; all of it is daily.

You already have the components. Reading tablature and standard notation gave you the staff, Fretboard note names the map, Rhythm reading and counting and Syncopation and reading rhythms the rhythms, Reading chord charts the symbols and the roadmap. Sight-reading is those components done at tempo, under pressure, without stopping.

The four rules of the first pass

1. Never stop. A wrong note that lands on the beat is a reading; a right note that arrives late is a train wreck for everyone else. If you lose the place, play the chord tones you can see from the symbols and rejoin at the next bar line or rehearsal letter.
2. Rhythm first, pitch second. The band hears your rhythm; only you hear your pitches. When the part is dense, simplify the pitches (play the first note of each beat) and keep the rhythm exact.
3. Read ahead. Your eyes should be a beat to a bar ahead of your hands. Practise by covering the bar you are playing with a card and reading the next one.
4. Scan before the downbeat. Thirty seconds with a new part: key signature and changes of key, time signature and changes, tempo marking, the form (repeats, D.S., coda, multi-bar rests), the highest and lowest notes (which decide your position), and anything in a box or in words ("solo", "tacet", "8va", "with piano", "fill", "cue").

Reading in position

A position is named after the fret under your 1st finger: in position V the 1st finger covers fret 5, the 2nd finger fret 6, the 3rd fret 7 and the 4th fret 8, one finger per fret as in First scales. In one position you reach roughly two octaves across the six strings with no shifting, and that is why professional readers think in positions: the hand stays still, the eyes do the work, and every written note has exactly one place under the fingers. A part that stays in one position reads like typing; a part played with constant shifting reads like hunting.

Choosing the position is a skill of its own, decided in the scan before you play:

• Find the highest written note of the passage. Its lowest practical location on strings 1–2 sets the position; everything below it falls under the hand.
• Prefer the key's "home" positions: the ones where the scale fingerings you drilled in Module 1 and the arpeggios from Arpeggios in position sit without stretches. In most keys that gives you two or three good positions; learn to see the key signature and go to one of them automatically.
• When the range exceeds a position, plan the shift on a long note, a rest, or a repeated note, and mark it in pencil with the new position number (V, VII) above the staff.
• Remember that the guitar is written an octave above where it sounds; the notes on the staff sit where they sit, and the ledger lines above the staff are high-register notes on strings 1–2, not reasons to panic.

The key signature is the first thing you read and the last thing you forget. The table above is the reference; the étude keys below are chosen so that you read sharps and flats in roughly equal measure. When you see three flats, the hand should already know that one of the comfortable positions for that key has the tonic under the 1st finger on the 5th string (Étude 5); when you see three sharps, that a comfortable position puts the tonic under the 2nd finger on the 6th string (Étude 4). Work it out once for each key, write it on a card, and from then on the key signature is the position.

Reading by interval and shape

Fluent readers do not name every note. They read the first note of a phrase by name and the rest by interval and contour: a step is the next scale note in the position, a skip of a third is the next chord tone, a line of notes going up a scale is a known fingering. In the same way they read rhythm as vocabulary: dotted quarter plus eighth, the and-of-4 anticipation, the eighth-note triplet, the tied figure across the bar line. Each of those is a word you recognise whole, not letters you spell out. The études below are built from those words so that you learn to see them at a glance.

Single-line études

Play each étude once at the written tempo without stopping, before you practise it. That first pass is the sight-reading; everything after it is ordinary practice. Then come back to the étude a week later and sight-read it again, in a different position. The captions tell you the intended position and starting finger; use them the first time, then choose your own.

\tempo 120
.
\ks G
\ts 4 4
:4 3.6 :8 5.6 2.5 :4 3.5 5.5 | :8 2.4 4.4 5.4 2.3 :4 4.3{d} :8 5.3 | :4 3.2{tu 3} 5.2{tu 3} 3.2{tu 3} :8 2.3 4.3 :4 5.4 | :2 4.4 :4 r :8 2.4 4.4 |
:8 5.4 2.3 4.3 5.3 3.2 5.3 :4 -.3 | :8 r 4.3 :4 2.3 :8 5.4{tu 3} 4.4{tu 3} 2.4{tu 3} :4 3.5 | :4 5.5{d} :8 2.4 :4 4.4 :8 5.4 2.3 | :4 -.3 :8 4.3 5.3 :2 3.1 |

\tempo 132
.
\ks F
\ts 4 4
:8 8.5 5.4 7.4 8.4 :4 5.3 7.3 | :8 r 5.2 :4 -.2 :8 6.2 5.2 :4 5.3 | :4 7.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 8.4{tu 3} :2 7.4 | :8 5.4 7.4 8.4 5.3 7.3 8.2 r 6.2 |
:4 -.2 :8 8.2 6.1 :4 8.1 :8 6.1 5.1 | :8 8.2{tu 3} 6.2{tu 3} 5.2{tu 3} :4 7.3 :8 5.3 8.4 :4 r | :4 7.4{d} :8 5.4 :2 -.4 | :8 7.5 5.4 :4 8.5 :2 -.5 |

\tempo 144
.
\ks Bb
\ts 3 4
:4 1.5 3.5 :8 0.4 1.4 | :4 3.4{d} :8 0.3 :4 2.3 | :8 3.3 1.2 3.2 1.2 :4 3.3 | :2 2.3 :4 r |
:8 1.2 3.2 4.2 3.2 1.2{tu 3} 3.2{tu 3} 1.2{tu 3} | :4 3.3 :8 r 1.2 :4 -.2 | :4 1.1{tu 3} 3.1{tu 3} 1.1{tu 3} :4 3.2 | :2 3.3{d} |

\tempo 126
.
\ks A
\ts 4 4
:8 5.6 7.6 4.5 5.5 :4 7.5 :8 4.4 6.4 | :4 7.4 :8 r 4.3 :4 6.3 :8 7.3 5.2 | :2 7.2 :8 5.2 7.3 :4 -.3 | :8 6.3{tu 3} 4.3{tu 3} 6.3{tu 3} :4 7.4 :8 6.4 4.4 :4 r |
:8 r 4.4 :4 -.4 :8 6.4 7.4 4.3 6.3 | :4 7.3{tu 3} 5.2{tu 3} 7.2{tu 3} :8 4.1 5.1 :4 7.1 | :4 5.1{d} :8 4.1 :4 7.2 :8 5.2 7.3 | :8 -.3 6.3 :4 4.3 :2 7.4 |

\tempo 72
.
\ks Eb
\ts 4 4
:4 6.5 :8 8.5 6.4 :4 8.4 :8 5.3 7.3 | :2 8.3 :8 7.3 5.3 :4 8.4 | :8 6.4{tu 3} 8.4{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} :4 7.3 :8 8.3 6.2 :4 8.2 | :4 9.2 :16 8.2 6.2 8.2 6.2 :4 8.3 r |
:8 r 6.1 :4 -.1 :8 8.1 6.1 9.2 8.2 | :4 6.2{tu 3} 8.3{tu 3} 7.3{tu 3} :2 8.4 | :8 6.4 8.4 :4 5.3{d} :8 7.3 8.3 6.2 | :4 -.2 :2 8.3{d} |

\tempo 168
.
\ks C
\ts 4 4
\ac :8 10.5 7.4 | :4 9.4 :8 10.4 7.3 :4 9.3 :8 10.3 8.2 | :2 10.2 :4 r :8 8.2 10.3 | :4 -.3 :8 9.3 7.3 :4 10.4 9.4 | :8 7.4 9.4 10.4 7.3 :4 9.3{tu 3} 10.3{tu 3} 8.2{tu 3} |
:4 10.2 :8 r 8.1 :4 -.1 :8 7.1 10.2 | :8 8.2 10.3 9.3 7.3 :4 10.4 :8 9.4 7.4 | :4 10.5{d} :8 8.5 :4 7.5 :8 10.5 7.4 | :8 -.4 9.4 :2 10.4 :4 r |

How to use the six: one per day, in rotation, as the first thing in your reading slot. The point is not to learn them (you will, in a week) but to rehearse the process: scan, choose position, count one bar, go, never stop. When they are too familiar, transpose each one a whole step up or down by reading it in a new position with the new key signature in your head; that is a professional's trick for making a finite supply of reading material last for years.

Rhythmic reading: kicks and charts with rhythmic notation

On most gigs the guitar part is not a single line but a chord chart with rhythmic notation: chord symbols above slashes, with written rhythms (kicks) wherever the band hits together. The rhythm is the part. A kick that is early or late is heard by every person in the room; a voicing with the 9th instead of the root is heard by nobody. So read a rhythm chart in this order:

1. Count the figure before you play it. Say it: "one, and-of-two held, four". The eighth-note grid under your counting is the metronome you carry with you.
2. Decide short or long. A kick with a stem and no tie is short (cut it off with the left hand); a tied kick or a note with a value longer than a quarter is held for its written length. Horn players mark these in pencil as a dot or a dash; do the same.
3. Choose one voicing per chord and keep it. On a kick, the band wants a clean attack. Three-note shells from Module 4 are the professional default; four-note drop-2s from Module 8 when the chord has to sound full and there is no piano.
4. Play the rests. A rest in a rhythm part means silence, not "comp through it". Silence on a chart is usually there because the arranger wants the horns alone.

The example below is a typical 8-bar section of a rhythm part. The notation shows chord stabs because slash heads cannot be drawn here; on a printed chart you would see slashes with rhythmic note heads above them. Read the kicks exactly: the and-of-2 hit held into beat 3, the Charleston figure (dotted quarter plus an anticipated eighth), the and-of-4 anticipation tied over the bar line, stabs after rests, and a held chord to finish.

\tempo 132
.
\ts 4 4
:4 (6.6 7.4 7.3){ch "Bbmaj7"} :8 r (6.6 7.4 7.3) :4 (-.6 -.4 -.3) r | :4 (3.6 3.4 3.3){d ch "Gm7"} :8 (3.6 3.4 3.3) :2 (-.6 -.4 -.3) | :4 (3.5 1.4 3.3){ch "Cm7"} r :8 r (3.5 1.4 3.3) :4 (-.5 -.4 -.3) | :4 r (1.6 1.4 2.3){ch "F7"} r :8 r (6.6 7.4 7.3){ch "Bbmaj7"} |
:2 (-.6 -.4 -.3) :4 (5.5 5.3 7.2){ch "D7"} :8 r (5.5 5.3 7.2) | :4 (3.6 3.4 3.3){ch "Gm7"} :8 r (3.6 3.4 3.3) :4 r (3.5 3.3 5.2){ch "C7"} | :8 (3.5 1.4 3.3){ch "Cm7"} r :4 (3.5 1.4 3.3) :8 (1.6 1.4 2.3){ch "F7"} r :4 (1.6 1.4 2.3) | :2 (6.6 7.4 7.3){ch "Bbmaj7"} :4 r :8 r (6.6{st} 7.4{st} 7.3{st}) |

In numerals the section is Imaj7 | vi7 | ii7 | V7 | Imaj7 VI7 | vi7 V7/V | ii7 V7 | Imaj7, a standard turnaround family from Module 8. Notice that in bar 4 the F7 symbol sits over a rest on beat 1; the chord is in force from the start of the bar even though you first strike it on beat 2. That is normal on charts: the symbol marks where the harmony changes, not where you play.

The vocabulary of kicks is small. Eight figures cover almost everything you will meet: the four from Comping rhythms (Charleston, and-of-4 anticipation, and-of-2 hit, four even quarters) plus the dotted-quarter chain, the "3 and 4" push, the eighth-note triplet pickup into a downbeat, and the two-bar figure that ends on the and of 1. Clap each one with a metronome until it is a word; then any chart is a sentence made of words you know.

Big-band parts: the Freddie Green chart

A big-band guitar part is a different document from a lead sheet. Typical features:

• Chord symbols with slashes, four to the bar, for whole pages. The instruction is implicit: play four-to-the-bar in the style of Freddie Green comping, shells only, short notes, under the bass.
• Rehearsal letters and multi-bar rests with a number over them (a rest with "8" over it is eight bars of silence; count them in groups of four with your foot).
• "In 2" (feel it in half notes, play two chords per bar on 1 and 3, or still four but lighter), "In 4", "Swing", "Latin", "Ballad", "Double-time feel".
• Cues: small notes showing what the band or a soloist is playing, so that you know where you are during a long rest. You do not play cues unless marked "play cue".
• Kicks written above the slashes, usually with the brass, and occasionally a written ensemble passage in notation where the guitar doubles a sax or trombone line.
• Tacet (do not play), solo (you improvise on the changes shown), fill (a short improvised figure into the next phrase), 8va (play an octave higher than written), D.S. and coda signs as in Reading chord charts.

The excerpt below shows the reading problem in its purest form: eight bars, one or two symbols per bar, four quarter notes in every bar, and no rhythmic variety at all. What is being tested is whether you can look at a symbol and produce a correct three-note shell on the next beat without breaking the pulse. Chords change on beat 3 in half the bars; the hand has to be ready.

\tempo 152
.
\ts 4 4
:4 (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}){ch "Eb6"} (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) | (8.6{st} 8.4{st} 8.3{st}){ch "Cm7"} (8.6{st} 8.4{st} 8.3{st}) (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 10.2{st}){ch "F7"} (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 10.2{st}) | (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 9.2{st}){ch "Fm7"} (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 9.2{st}) (6.6{st} 6.4{st} 7.3{st}){ch "Bb7"} (6.6{st} 6.4{st} 7.3{st}) | (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}){ch "Eb6"} (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) |
(4.6{st} 3.4{st} 5.3{st}){ch "Ab6"} (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 5.3{st}) (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 5.3{st}) (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 5.3{st}) | (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 4.3{st}){ch "Abm6"} (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 4.3{st}) (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 4.3{st}) (4.6{st} 3.4{st} 4.3{st}) | (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}){ch "Eb6"} (6.5{st} 5.3{st} 8.2{st}) (8.6{st} 8.4{st} 9.3{st}){ch "C7"} (8.6{st} 8.4{st} 9.3{st}) | (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 9.2{st}){ch "Fm7"} (8.5{st} 8.3{st} 9.2{st}) (6.6{st} 6.4{st} 7.3{st}){ch "Bb7"} (6.6{st} 6.4{st} 7.3{st}) |

The progression is I6 | vi7 II7 | ii7 V7 | I6 | IV6 | iv6 | I6 VI7 | ii7 V7, the kind of thing an arranger writes under a saxophone soli. Three professional habits make this readable at 200 bpm and beyond:

• Read the roots, not the whole symbol. Your eye catches the letter; your hand goes to the root on string 6 or 5, whichever is nearer; the quality (6, m7, 7, m6) is a one-finger adjustment you make from the shape you are already holding. Shells through all keys is the drill that makes this automatic.
• Stay in a four-fret window for as long as the chart allows. Jumping up the neck for every chord is what makes rhythm guitar sound nervous. In the excerpt the whole thing lives between frets 3 and 10.
• Mark the chart. Circle the beat-3 changes, draw an arrow at the position shift, write the shape ("6" or "5" for the root string) above any chord you fumbled in rehearsal. A professional part is covered in pencil by the second rehearsal.

Strategies for the parts that go wrong

• Dense written passages (an ensemble line doubled with the saxes): on the first pass play the first note of each beat and the rhythm; on the second pass add the eighths; on the third pass, articulation. If there is no second pass, the first-pass version is what the band wants anyway.
• Fast key changes: write the new key signature's position number at the change and circle the accidentals in the first bar.
• Multi-bar rests: count in bars of four with your foot or by tapping the pick on the pickguard silently; follow the cues; look up at the lead trumpet for the entry.
• Unfamiliar chord symbols: translate them with the alias rules from Reading chord charts; when in doubt play the shell (root, 3rd, 7th), which is right for every extension and most alterations.
• Panic: the only cure is more reading. Everyone who reads well was once lost in the middle of a chart with the band still playing. Stay on the pulse, play roots, rejoin at the letter.

Exercises

1. Position scan. For each of the six études, write in the margin the two other positions it could be read in, then sight-read it in one of them tomorrow.
2. Transposition reading. Read Étude 1 as if the key signature were two sharps (a whole step higher) and Étude 2 as if it were two flats (a whole step lower), choosing the matching position first.
3. Kick vocabulary. Clap the rhythm chart with a metronome at 100, 132 and 180 bpm, then play it with shells at each tempo. Write four new kicks over the same changes and read them the next day.
4. Freddie Green at speed. Play the big-band excerpt at 152, 176 and 200 bpm with the metronome on 2 and 4 from the metronome, aiming for an unbroken pulse and no audible position jumps.
5. Real parts. Get any published big-band guitar part or trumpet part (trumpet parts in Bb are excellent reading material if you ignore the transposition and read them as written) and read one page a day.

Quiz