How many of you read music?

unclewalt
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Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:31 pm

michelew wrote:
Go for it Uncle Walt! Who needs to sleep right?! I think you'll find that playing chords on a piano is easier than you might think. You really never know what you're capable of and how hard a thing is for you until you try. Where there's a will...

Give it a go. And post a video if you get the inclination. We have a new TG law - if you get a new instrument you MUST post a video to show us how it sounds; especially if it has strings. :)
Well, I do have this really crappy electronic keyboard here that I fiddle with now and again. I was teaching myself majors and minors for awhile a few months ago, but I stopped when I realized it was cutting into my guitar-practice time. But I will probably take it up again soonish.

Right now, I feel like I'm at sort of an inflection point, guitar-wise -- like there's a hill right in front of me that, once I reach the top, it will represent a new plateau for me. My measure is: once I have "The Last Steam Engine Train" and ""Bouree" fully in my fingers, I will have completed my current phase. Of course, once I get there, that hill will look puny compared to the next one, and the mountain after that. But I feel like I should really laser-focus on the guitar at this point.

I want to post some video, and will at some point. I was thinking about recording myself playing "Don't Think Twice" the way I've been doing it for the past 15 years or so -- which is to say, wrongly. Just to see what Neil and others think of what I think of as my naturalistic approach to it. I just gradually converted from playing the chords to picking out notes, and I think it sounds good, but it's certainly not how anyone else plays it, quite. I do the same with Dylan's "Buckets of Rain" -- it's even more off the map.


tovo
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Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:58 pm

michelew wrote:
You guys crack me up. You're big, competent, tough guys who have tackled a million things in your lives and you're scared of a few dots, lines and squiggles on a page. :)
M.
Damn right I am! Who isn't scared of squiggles?? Last time I saw dots and lines I nearly fainted.....keep that sheet music AWAY FROM ME....


michelew
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 12:57 am

LOL! Now there's the big tough Aussie larrikin that I know. How did you deal with Mr Squiggle mate? Now there's one talented pencil nose and someone who could see the big picture.

Uncle Walt - a video would be cool. I look forward to it.




Footnote - Mr. Squiggle (excerpt from Wikipedia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Squiggle

Mr. Squiggle was Australia's longest-running children's television series, and the name of the title character from that ABC show.

Mr. Squiggle (the character) was a marionette with a pencil for a nose, who visited his friends from his home at 93 Crater Crescent on the Moon, flying in his pet rocket (named Rocket). In every episode he would create several pictures from "squiggles" sent in by children from around the country.
[edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mr_Squiggle.jpg


Sorry for hijacking your thread Uncle Walt.


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neverfoundthetime
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:30 am

Damn right I am! Who isn't scared of squiggles?? Last time I saw dots and lines I nearly fainted.....keep that sheet music AWAY FROM ME....
Tony
Exactly. In fact, people who aren't scared of sheet music scare me! It ain't natural! ;-)

But to be honest for a moment, although it is scary stuff, the idea of being able to interpret from sheet directly to the guitar does sound like something I'd like to be able to do and I know that my dominant right brain (Intuitive, holistic, random, spacial, subjective, looking at the whole) is only half a brain if I don't pay attention to left brain (logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective, looking at parts) and I am able to play chess and speak 2 other languages and music is a language so, hmmm, why not? And I do know from learning skills in sport that you need to practice hardest on the things you do least well. And I noticed that I already understand the rudiments when Andy recently sent a doc where he maps them out. So the mountain is actually a lot flatter than it looks at first glance.

I'm really interested to see how Neil tackles this part of our education for I know the key to learning seemingly difficult things is making it fun, interesting and motivating.... so all of the things which were missing when I faced it first time around at the age of 9! No pressure Neil! :laugh:


thereshopeyet
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:07 am

Neil
If you are willing to take the time to put together lessons and
share your experience, many thanks to you.

I look forward to all your teaching.

Thanks
Dermot


unclewalt
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:02 pm

neverfoundthetime wrote:
Damn right I am! Who isn't scared of squiggles?? Last time I saw dots and lines I nearly fainted.....keep that sheet music AWAY FROM ME....
Tony
Exactly. In fact, people who aren't scared of sheet music scare me! It ain't natural! ;-)

But to be honest for a moment, although it is scary stuff, the idea of being able to interpret from sheet directly to the guitar does sound like something I'd like to be able to do and I know that my dominant right brain (Intuitive, holistic, random, spacial, subjective, looking at the whole) is only half a brain if I don't pay attention to left brain (logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective, looking at parts) and I am able to play chess and speak 2 other languages and music is a language so, hmmm, why not? And I do know from learning skills in sport that you need to practice hardest on the things you do least well. And I noticed that I already understand the rudiments when Andy recently sent a doc where he maps them out. So the mountain is actually a lot flatter than it looks at first glance.

I'm really interested to see how Neil tackles this part of our education for I know the key to learning seemingly difficult things is making it fun, interesting and motivating.... so all of the things which were missing when I faced it first time around at the age of 9! No pressure Neil! :laugh:
If you absolutely need to apply a set of skills to something (as in sports), you do indeed need to devote the most practice time to the things you're weakest at, but which you nevertheless need to do. But there is a theory, mainly applied to professional life, that the best course to take is to emphasize the areas where you naturally excel, and let go of the areas in which you have no natural skills. So, people who are strong verbally and weak with numbers and spatial relationships, etc.; would do better going into communications rather than, say, architecture. And vice versa.

This is sort of the approach I'm taking here: learning to read music would be a much larger undertaking for me than it would be for lots of other people, and since it's not absolutely necessary for learning fingerpicking techniques (my main learning goal), I've decided to accentuate the skills I already have rather than taking up a whole new one that would take a lot of time and effort.


tombo1230
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:24 pm

I'm with Shel, it's really a lot easier than you might think, and with a little dedication it really won't be that long. It'll get easier and easier in no time.

I have this little book, 16 pages, I dare anyone to be able to learn to read and play the major scale (from the low E until the high G) in the first three postions within a month! I mean, everyone here already plays the guitar, you just need to know what it looks like in standard notation! ;) :)


tacticaltal
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Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:50 pm

unclewalt wrote:
It's certainly not "scary," and I'm not sure what all this "tough guy" stuff is based on. I've thought this through and made a rational decision as to my approach and how to allocate my time, that's all.
Well ain't nobody telling you that you have to learn it, UncleWalt. Do what you want :)

For me, I'm still in resistance mode to learning standard notation, or whatever it's called. I'm still not completely in tune with Tab, but it's so much easier to learn a new song with, especially fingerpicking.

I think someone alluded to the notion that Tab contains rhythm info. If it does, I'd like to know about it. If it has something to do with it containing the Time Sig., such as 4/4, I'm not even hip to the concept of counting notes.

So, I think that I will have to agree with unclewalt in deciding to run as fast as I can away from sheet music :D

Understanding theory, on the other hand, is attractive to me, if I can ever get the time away from learning how to play the songs I thought I knew, correctly.

Uncle Walt, I don't think Shel meant to demean your opinion.

Terry


michelew
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Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:13 am

Hey Terry,

Thanks. I think Uncle Walt got that I was mostly being a stirrer (especially towards my mates Tony and Chris :) ) and while I do think that reading sheet music is easier that it looks at first glance, I do understand that people only have so much free time to learn new things. I got the impression that he might take a look at Neil's lessons anyway, even if he doesn't decide to commit the time to learning to read music in its entirety.

We are really lucky here at TG. Neil generally posts both tab and the standard music staff when posting the music to his lessons. I find it really useful. I use to tab to see where to place my fingers on the fretboard and I use the standard notation to get info on the timing of each note, the loudness, whether its short staccato notes or sustained notes and the structure of the song, along with other info. I suggest you take a look at Neil's lessons about reading music when he posts them so you can absorb all of that information too (overtime); that is so you still have access to all of the information that tab doesn't provide. What have you got to lose? You might just surprise yourself with how quickly you pick it up.

Time signatures and keys are likely to make sense to you after Neil's lessons too. It's really not that complex once you have it explained to you. You'll see. Here is a link to lesson 1 of the Acoustic Genius Series, in part 3 Neil explains the value of each note and time signatures. If you haven't started yet, start going through the series. It's fabulous, ... well derrrrr!, of course it is.

http://www.totallyguitars.com/target-ho ... .html#song

Oh well, if you decide to run away from all of it, well it seems that you might have a jogging parter. :) actually, I think Tony understands a lot more if this stuff than either he realizes, or than he is letting on. Aussies do prefer to under promise and over perform.

Good luck. I think the trick is to just try to absorb it little by little. Don't expect to take it all in and understand it all in the first listen. It will fall into place the more you're exposed to it.

Shel


tvarga
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Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:11 am

Yup, I look forward to re-learning how to read music for guitar playing.
I played piano for years so I know how to read it for the keyboard.
But translating it to the guitar would be a whole new ball of wax.
I've gotten so good at reading tab over the past few years that I haven't been motivated to really learn anything otherwise.
But classical playing (which I'm really interested in) seems to demand it.
-Tom


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