Songcrafters.org

I thought it might be interesting to see how many people on this site can actually read music.
(NOTE: This was inspired by lectric's tattoo challenge, and some conversations I have had with other members on the site)

I find it truly amazing that some people can look at notes on a page and hear the song in their head.

I had this discussion with my daughter's piano teacher, and she is equally amazed by people that play only by ear.

Everyone can vote for the two options that fit them best.

I am curious to see the results.

only two :(  I need at least four !! ;D ;D

I thought "Sheet Music" was something me and the 'ole lady made on Saturday nights...

And I dont remember how to do that....



No musical knowledge here bro...


I wish I did.....

Even Tab is too much for me...

But I'm Dyslexic, so that might explain why I cant...
Or read my own lyrics on stage sometimes...

I need to feel the tune...  or it is gone....

I cannot read music. Well I can a bit, but I have to read it note by note, and then figure out where that note may be on my guitar (of course on keyboard, this is easier although not always easy). Seems every time I sit and try to learn to transcribe the notes on the page to sounds coming out of an instrument, I fumble or get bored. Tabs I can read (and play mostly), but generally I prefer to play everything by ear.

I'm more interested in reading about music theory - rhythm, chord, melody, harmony - than actually reading music, but I also find theory can be dry. I generally only read up when I want to learn something new, and not usually for the love of the subject (although some of it can be very interesting).

I can read it just fine, if the title isn't in small print. My eyes are failing in my older age.

Ditto what Cuthbert said.....Ted

Hmmm, 2's not enough for me either.  

I can read sheet music, and have been trained to read music in my earlier days.... piano.   And then i took guitar lessons, and had to relearn the bass & treble clef, to a more suitable "in-between" clef.    

But, i do prefer to read tablature for guitar and chords for piano, and play by ear "most of the time"...  

Sheet music, can sometimes help me to "get it right",  but i really enjoy playing by ear the most, and then reading some tab for solo correctness.

I tried to play by ear once but the results were disappointing. So now I use a plectrum.

I was taught to read music when I was at school.  I played trumpet, cornet and soprano cornet in the school brass band!  Rock and Roll eh!  I actually got to be quite good - and then I heard Ritchie Blackmore on "In Rock" and decided that my aspirations lay elsewhere.  I gave up brass and started posing by ear instead.

I taught myself guitar and piano but I think it would have been a lot more difficult if I hadn't had an element of proper taught musical theory.  I still read on occaisions, particularly scale manuals and things like that - what a sad man I am!  To be good at reading though - you really have to do it a lot, and I don't.

I have found that most people are either good readers OR good ear players. My daughter is a far better pianist than I am, but is lost without some music in front of her.  She can't understand how I can "make it up as I go along."

Paul

I can read music and I do get an idea of the music in my head, but I can't "sight read" and play directly from it.  I never had formal music training, (you can tell that if you listen to my stuff.

But mostly I play by ear and mood.  I have also delved into middle eastern, north african and some indian(asia) music, not to play, but I enjoy the differences and the fact that you have to suspend your expectation.  I love the variation in the scales and the use of half, quarter and thirds of notes in them.  Very difficult to write that stuff on western manuscript staves - so by ear's what I hear and by ear's how I play.

Ramble over.

Leigh

yep, i can read music through playing classical guitar. i also rather like late renaissance lute music which was originally written in tabulature using letters instead of numbers.

I studiously avoided sheet music for years - I figured none of the bands I liked needed it, so why should I.  But in my old age I've started teaching myself the basics and picking out tunes on a piano, just for the heck of it.  I haven't really used it for guitar though.

"Music enters into my head through psycho-magnetic cosmic beams"

DaSilvaSings

"I studied 4 years of double bass in the conservatory and sung in a few choirs as baritone, so I read fairly well in bass clef, and I can even sight read, if it is not too complex rythmically.

I lack practice with the treble clef, but with +/- time I can read music. I also read tab and play by ear, although my ear is not as good as I wanted.

Because of my classical approach, people I play with have noticed that I'm constantly looking at papers when I play, even if is something simple like chord changes I already know by heart. I resumed playing guitar to force myself to memorize music/ chord changes, and it helped me a lot as a bassist."

Miguel (humple and underpaid employee of DaSilvaSings/ general manager of his mundane matters)

Quotelate renaissance lute music which was originally written in tabulature using letters instead of numbers

Wow corryhully - that's pretty interesting.

I am a "by-ear" player (ala Cuthbert and lectric). I can read tab, but sometimes I'm just too damn lazy.
I find this topic very interesting. It's great to have so many knowledgable people here.

Thanks for the posts guys - keep them coming!!

Quote from: 64Guitars on October 13, 2010, 10:50:26 PMI tried to play by ear once but the results were disappointing. So now I use a plectrum.

My favorite answer thus far.

I can't read a drop of music, It takes me 2 minutes per note to look up tab. about 8 notes in, I'm youtubing the song in question, and throw caution to the wind. I don't even fake it well.

I don't really enjoy playing other people's music, so can't be bothered to read music or tab. I can pick the basics out using tab but as soon as there is anything complicated it never seems to match what the guy is playing, so I get bored and give up. Personally, I don't want to do what others have done, I like to be inspired by them rather than copying them.

What I do find useful is the kind folks that post videos of techniques on YouTube. There's always some little tricks and techniques that make a big difference to your playing that you would never work out on your own.

Cheers,

Nigel

PS FWIW, my wife is a "proper" musician who plays violin. We occasionally have played a few pieces together, where I have followed the chords. It's always amusing because she tells me off for playing too loud or too quiet, because I'm not following the instructions on the page, just playing what "feels right" to me. Yet she is totally unable to improvise - she cannot play without music in front of her.

Like some others here I played an instrument as a kid (piano) so I have the basic knowledge of reading sheeet music. It just takes me to damn long each time I try it so I usually just go by the ear. In some cases, if I can't figure some passages out, I can read the notes one-by-one as a help. I read tabs and use them in much the same way. Problem is, half the time I find some tabs that's supposed to help me, I find they must be wrong !! The ZappaFest and BeatlesFest has tought me to trust my ear more than the tabs, and I have become better in listening to various parts of the music by it.

Tony and Nigel make a good point.

There are so many Youtube videos showing how to play songs, you pretty much don't even need tab anymore.

I use YouTube for drum patterns on cover tunes (it's damn near impossible to find drum tab). It's usually easier to pick out how a novice player is playing the song to get the basic beats, and then throw in a couple embellishments in the BR Rhythm Editor.

I remember (way back in the day  ;D) my band having a practice once, and the guitarist came with a laptop. He downloaded a song from "Napster", and then downloaded the tab from "OLGA". We learned about 5 or 6 songs that practice (versus our usual 1 or 2). It was like finding the Holy Grail for cover bands.

Good times!

I taught myself how to read drum music. This is the high hat, that is the bass drum, ect.  After while, I found I could hear what I was seeing if I kind of removed the lines and saw just notes, floating. They could go left or right of each other, or up or down. The interesting thing about music notes is that anything that is written is first understood. So nobody ever really writes music, they discover what aleady exists, and bring it to life! All music is original. And all music is from the inner ear.

Quote from: Tony W on October 14, 2010, 07:33:29 PM

Quote from: 64Guitars on October 13, 2010, 10:50:26 PMI tried to play by ear once but the results were disappointing. So now I use a plectrum.

My favorite answer thus far.

I'm glad someone got my little joke.  :)

I play by ear. Learning to play guitar in the sixties, I naturally wanted to learn the rock music played on the radio, which I loved. But the sheet music back then was rubbish. I think it was transcribed by old piano players who hated rock music and tried to re-write the song more to their liking. So I had to rely entirely on my ears to learn new songs from records. This turned out to be a good thing. It makes you a lot better at jamming with other musicians. You don't have to ask them what chords they're playing or what key the song is in. You just listen to what they're playing and play along.

I took piano lessons for a year or two in the seventies, so I can read music but not very well. I cannot sight-read. That is, if you put a piece of music in front of me that I don't already know, I won't be able to play it right away. I need to work out the individual notes and play each measure over and over until the song is memorised. When I was taking piano lessons, I could just about sight-read the simple stuff my teacher gave me, but I always stumbled at chords. Man, it's hard enough reading single notes, but chords are too much! My teacher said that you eventually get to recognise the chords instantly and don't have to read the individual notes that make up the chord. Unfortunately, I never reached that point.

Nowadays, there's so much more available to aid in learning new songs. You can find tablature on the internet for just about any song. It's often wrong but it can still help a lot. There are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube. Again, they're not always right but they can be a big help. And you can buy commercial instructional videos that are pretty good. I especially like the ones from Lick Library (http://www.licklibrary.com/). And I have a couple of Hendrix DVDs from GuitarWorld (http://secure.nps1.net/guitarworld/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1) which are quite good (though I haven't got around to learning anything from them yet). You can work out difficult lead solos by slowing them down on the BR or in a DAW without changing the pitch. I used to have to record solos from records to my reel-to-reel recorder, then play them back at half speed to try to figure them out, allowing for the fact that the pitch was dropped an octave. And there's plenty of useful software like TuxGuitar (http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/) to aid in learning new songs. The times have certainly changed. Learning to play the guitar is so much easier today.

Quote from: Geir on October 15, 2010, 03:43:14 AMThe ZappaFest and BeatlesFest has tought me to trust my ear more than the tabs, and I have become better in listening to various parts of the music by it.

My gut reaction was that you gave me tab to follow for my zappafest parts, then I realized, you told what notes (by letter) needed to be played. Simply awesome, even if you play it on a saxophone :)

I taught myself to play guitar in the days of no tab , just going to the Perfoming Arts Library and finding the odd book that had something of interest to me , it was finding a hidden gem  Fingerpicking Beatles by Eric Schoenberg that really got me going , then a massive find , Stefan Grossman Fingerpiking Blues , i can generally play by ear now , but i love Tab

Rob

In the band "Stone Temple Pilots" only Eric Kretz the drummer can read music.  Its likley true most "rock stars" cannot read music.

It's an hard and long speech and don't risk to do in english  ;D ;D ;D ;D

I think that I studied no more of 5 songs on sheet music so I read very bad.. but in my life never ask me to play a sheet music
usually give me a CD full of songs and said me " next week"  ;)

Quote from: Balleo on October 15, 2010, 04:22:14 PMusually give me a CD full of songs and said me " next week"  ;)

That is Tallent!!!!

music is an alien language to me whether it is written or talked about. in norway geir, mike and tharek talked in chords to each other i hadn't a clue what they where talking about but when they played i fully understood their language, it spoke to me as soon as the notes where struck.
i play by ear and instinct and like dasilvasing said "Music enters into my head through psycho-magnetic cosmic beams"

Quote from: oldrottenhead on October 16, 2010, 06:40:06 AMin norway geir, mike and tharek talked in chords to each other

Lol!!


All I did was show them the shape and say "That one, that one, and that one...."...



They knew exactly what to do!


Remember "Sing to the City"..?


Mike had to make sense of the mess I made with the Timing and stuff...

Those are real musicians my friend!
Great Time!

Made me look at Timings more myself!

Timing? whit in the name o the wee man izzat?

I was taught flute (1 staff), Piano, (2 staves), organ (3 staves) and some ochestral music (as many staves as there are sections to the orchestra) and kicked round the room to improve my sightreading. I can taste written music.....

I can read music and play by ear, I like both ways :)
Nadia

I play by ear, have'nt got a clue about music, Even after a present in the 60s of a Bert Weedon Play in a day Book........................Alex

Yes i can read music i took classical guitar in the 90,s , everyone should give it a go ! it can open some very cool music .

Dunny

Guitar Games (http://www.amazon.ca/Guitar-Games-Guitar-Music-Monsters/dp/1423491637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287973956&sr=8-1) cd & book

Pile of silly games that will get you reading notation, scales, intervals, building chords, mapping notes to the fretboard, etc.

From Hal Leonard for windows or mac.
Annoyingly the games will only run from the cd so you can't load them to your hard drive.