How many of you read music?

[michelew]

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. It's just like a puppy dog, approach it with confidence and a genuine willingness to get to know it and it will roll in its back and offer you it's belly to tickle, be stand-offish and afraid and it will bare it's teeth, continue to look scary and probably growl. It's like every other things you've learned in your lives, it starts off alien and before you know it you're doing it without thinking about it.

I can read music, how well and how quickly depends how much I'm doing it at the time. I'm currently not reading much so I need to think about it and its slow. When I was a teenager I played clarinet in a youth orchestra and it was automatic.

Reading for guitar or piano is trickier than the clarinet because there's more than a single note at a time often, but it's all just practice.

Standard notation has so much more information in it than tab. Tab is great especially as it tells you where to play a specific note (out if three or four possible locations). But, it has made me lazy. Standard notation tells how long, how loud, what quality and a bunch of other things. But, you don't need to absorb that info all at once.

It's really not scary. It's just a doing thing. The more you do it the more automatic it becomes.

Learning how to read standard notation will open up a bunch if resources that you don't have access to now. Be open to it and it won't bite you.

Edit BTW, while I'm in apps promotion mode, once Neil has demystified standard music notation for us all, there are a bunch of tablet apps that will help you to practice recognising how notes are written on the music staff and where they are on the fretboard. I listed one in my recent iPad apps thread. But, there are a heap of them. Playing them of course is the only real way to get them into your muscle memory and brain longer-term. But, they can help.

M.

[heyjoe]

I'm another who can't read music, and relies on tab too much. I've tried in the past to learn, but I normally get distracted by actually playing the guitar instead.
I tried again recently, but trying to master fingerpicking is so much more fun and rewarding. Once I've put the acoustic down, then its electric time, and working out how to record using the laptop, there are many many options and they are all fun too- theory doesnt stand a chance at the moment.

Joe

[dekotaj]

nesh16041972 wrote:

To me learning to read music is kinda comparable to learning typing blind with ten fingers. Ever did such a course? When you start you'll type single letters like:

Ness

HOLLY CRAP!!! Like typing, Never mind, I want nothing to do with it!!!! :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

Darn girl almost talked me out of it. :laugh: :laugh:

Kev

[unclewalt]

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. It's just like a puppy dog, approach it with confidence and a genuine willingness to get to know it and it will roll in its back and offer you it's belly to tickle, be stand-offish and afraid and it will bare it's teeth, continue to look scary and probably growl. It's like every other things you've learned in your lives, it starts off alien and before you know it you're doing it without thinking about it.

I can read music, how well and how quickly depends how much I'm doing it at the time. I'm currently not reading much so I need to think about it and its slow. When I was a teenager I played clarinet in a youth orchestra and it was automatic.

Reading for guitar or piano is trickier than the clarinet because there's more than a single note at a time often, but it's all just practice.

Standard notation has so much more information in it than tab. Tab is great especially as it tells you where to play a specific note (out if three or four possible locations). But, it has made me lazy. Standard notation tells how long, how loud, what quality and a bunch of other things. But, you don't need to absorb that info all at once.

It's really not scary. It's just a doing thing. The more you do it the more automatic it becomes.

Learning how to read standard notation will open up a bunch if resources that you don't have access to now. Be open to it and it won't bite you.

Edit BTW, while I'm in apps promotion mode, once Neil has demystified standard music notation for us all, there are a bunch of tablet apps that will help you to practice recognising how notes are written on the music staff and where they are on the fretboard. I listed one in my recent iPad apps thread. But, there are a heap of them. Playing them of course is the only real way to get them into your muscle memory and brain longer-term. But, they can help.

M.

Well, assuming I'm included in this description, it's both very strange and way off the mark. I have zero doubt that if I were to apply myself and expend the necessary time and effort, I could learn to read music. My point, which I thought I had made pretty clearly, is that I have chosen not to, because I've decided that the return on the investment of time and effort wouldn't be worth it at this point. For me, that is. Others no doubt feel differently, and I applaud them for it. I've managed to become a high-intermediate or maybe low-advanced player without reading music. I learned by ear at first, later using tab for some stuff. Now I use a combination of those, plus, often, Neil's videos. Many of the best musicians in the world don't read music. For me, it's a simple matter of priorities. I work for myself and have other interests and responsibilities, and have carved out some time to advance my guitar skills. I choose to spend that time learning songs and techniques by building on the skills and knowledge I have acquired over the past nearly 40 years of playing.

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.

[unclewalt]

kelemenj wrote:

unclewalt wrote:

kelemenj wrote:

when you get down to it, note reading is just another form of tablature. Most of the time, the sheet music will even tell you what position and string the tone is to be played on. Don't be discouraged.
John

Well.... not really. It contains a lot more information, for one thing. Such as rhythm. And it's another step, knowing the notes on sight, and mapping that instantly to the guitar (I'm not sure what you're referring to re: position/string, unless you mean notation with tab under it, which is what Neil already does.) Also, I don't sight-read tab, generally - I use it to learn and memorize the song.

There is, after all, a reason tab exists - because it's hard to learn to read music. It's certainly a worthy skill, and one I wish I had developed, but it's a skill all its own.

Walt,
Is there not rhythm in tab? I learn the rhythm by ear. So why should sight reading be any different. Who says you have to instantly know and map the notes anyway? I usually take a measure or 2 at a time, figure out the fingering, and practice that. Break it down into small bites. The guitar is a little more challenging because unlike a piano where 1 note corresponds to one key. There can be 3 or 4 places to play a note, depending on what string you use. More often than not the sheet music will indicate what string to use.

No rhythm in tab, though it's written in measures, so you can work it out from that. I don't look at a lot of sheet music, but I've never noticed where it tells you strings or positions - but even if that's the case, it's still very different from tablature. Sight-reading IS instantly mapping the notes to the fretboard - that's what it means. But whether you take a couple of measures at a time, or sight read, there is still the extra step of converting the information to the freboard - with tab, the fretboard is represented on the page directly. That's the benefit of tab. The benefit of notation, beyond its helping you know and understand music a lot better (especially if you're playing with others) is that it contains a ton more information. All you need, in fact -- you don't really have to listen to a recording of the song to understand it, since it is all on the page. That's why it's so powerful, but it's also what makes it so difficult to learn.

[michelew]

Uncle Walt,

I sincerely apologise if I've offended you. That was not my intention. I guess my point is that it's not as hard as people may think and that some people are intimidated by the idea and so don't try. I've seen what all the regulars on TG have achieved and I know they can conquer standard notation if they don't expect to learn it all at once and invest a little time.

I guess my tough guy comment was aimed at some of the guys I'm close to on the forum. I do get that people choose to invest their time elsewhere because they feel it is of greater value for them. My point is that there is a big pay off for people that do make the effort.

Apologises again. Aussies are stirrers by nature, we have a friendly 'go' as a knee jerk reaction. I forget to temper that for an international audience at times. Best not to take me too seriously.

Michele

[unclewalt]

michelew wrote:

Uncle Walt,

I sincerely apologise if I've offended you. That was not my intention. I guess my point is that it's not as hard as people may think and that some people are intimidated by the idea and so don't try. I've seen what all the regulars on TG have achieved and I know they can conquer standard notation if they don't expect to learn it all at once and invest a little time.

I guess my tough guy comment was aimed at some of the guys I'm close to on the forum. I do get that people choose to invest their time elsewhere because they feel it is of greater value for them. My point is that there is a big pay off for people that do make the effort.

Apologises again.

Michele

Oh, I'm not offended. No worries. It just seemed (assuming I was part of the intended audience) like a weird misinterpretation of what I said earlier. I agree, the payoff would be huge, and I really wish I could make the time. Since I can't, I'm just emphasizing other stuff and taking a different approach, mainly out of necessity. I'd like to read the entire Western Canon, too, but I can only get to so much of it. And as I noted earlier, I'd like to learn the trombone, and the cello, and piano, etc. etc. But I can't.

All this said, I might toy around with it a bit when the lessons come through. I certainly remember the basics of how it works: Every Good Boy Does Fine, FACE, key sigs, etc.

[michelew]

Tell me about it, if I purchased every instrument I would LIKE to learn I'd rarely actually play a guitar. it's all so DARN cool sounding; trumpet - check, flute - check, drums - check. ... Well it's a long list.

And good for you for thinking about it. I expect Neil will help lots of us and make it just that bit easier even if you can read it to some extent now.

Good luck.

M.

[unclewalt]

michelew wrote:

Tell me about it, if I purchased every instrument I would LIKE to learn I'd rarely actually play a guitar. it's all so DARN cool sounding; trumpet - check, flute - check, drums - check. ... Well it's a long list.

And good for you for thinking about it. I expect Neil will help lots of us and make it just that bit easier even if you can read it to some extent now.

Good luck.

M.

Oh, yeah - flute, too. And drums. ARP synthesizer. Pipe organ. Clavichord. Violin. Trumpet. Triangle. That ribbed fish thing that you drag a stick across. Pretty much everything. I have the same problem going into bookstores and (when they existed!) record stores -- my true desire is to walk out of there with armloads of stuff, more than I could ever actually consume.

This is all my own fault, of course. As a kid, I decided that sitting around smoking pot with my friends and watching old reruns and Woody Woodpecker cartoons after school was a better use of my time than learning music, or any number of other things.

I DO mean to do two more things, if I can: learn basic chords and scales on keyboards, and, mostly, learn banjo. But that's in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

[michelew]

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.