Sight-Reading for Guitar: The Keep Going Method Book & Video Series (by Chelsea Green)
Sight-reading is a juggling act, for any instrument. If the guitarist lingers too long on any mental, emotional, or physical response, all the balls come tumbling down. The newly released, Sight-Reading for Guitar: The Keep Going Method Book & Video Series by Chelsea Green (American University in Cairo), imparts and reinforces the knowledge, skills, behaviors and attitudes needed to overcome sight-reading challenges in a fun and effective manner. It is free, online, and comprehensive, as well as peer-reviewed and classroom-reviewed. The team behind the series has decided to launch it early. We want to equip guitarists, who may be adjusting to new methods of teaching and learning, especially those shifting to online learning, with a quality open resource.
Sight-Reading for Guitar teaches and trains guitarists from all musical backgrounds to understand, read, and play modern staff notation in real time. All types of six-string guitars in standard tuning can be used. The series consists of twenty-two units. It starts at a beginner level and progresses to an intermediate-advanced level. Each unit contains a theoretical section followed by a practical section. The theoretical section presents descriptions of musical symbols in a video at the beginning of each unit and in written form. Knowledge gained in the theoretical section is applied in the practical section, which contains sight-reading tips, attitude tips, and play-along duets. Along the way, guitarists will encounter hundreds of stylistically varied duets and dozens of original compositions created for this series by an internationally diverse group of composers.
At the completion of Sight-Reading for Guitar, guitarists will be able to sight-read most of the notes playable on the guitar, intervals, basic chords, time signatures, key signatures, challenging rhythms, ornaments, expressions, articulations, navigation symbols, dynamics, tempi, notations for specialized guitar techniques, and much more. More importantly, guitarists will cultivate useful attitudes and behaviors for sight-reading.
The series has a Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows reuse, revision, and redistribution so long as the original creator is attributed. Additionally, most duets in the Let’s Play Compositions category have a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which bear an additional stipulation that the content may not be used for commercial purposes. This license was adopted in large part to credit the composers who generously contributed their duets to the series.
This series is the culmination of two years’ work and genuine collaborative effort between the author, composers, specialists at the Center for Learning & Teaching (American University in Cairo), members of the Rebus Community, peer-reviewers, and beta-testers. We are all excited to share it with you! Please see the project discussion page on the Rebus Community for further information. The discussion page is also a great place to ask questions or make comments on the series, and we welcome your feedback. If you plan to adopt part, or all of the series, please let us know on our adoption form.
Take a look at the book and happy sight-reading!