If we can't read music are we musicians??

[The Gobi Desert Canoe Club]

Oddly, or maybe not, I've never considered myself a musician.  I just like making happy noise.

Yep, that's me, fly by the seat of my pants everytime. It's one of the main reasons I love my recorder, I can please myself and not have to stay within the confines of a written script. Having said that, I wish I could read music but it wouldn't make me play any better and I wouldn't feel the music any better it's just a thirst for knowledge................Willie

[guitarron]

I had a bit of a heated discussion with someone recently,and my blood is still boiling from it.
They said if we can't read music, we aren't musicians - do you agree??  

he was trying to to get your goad-he did it
reading notation is not a requirement to be able to express oneself through a musical instrument-it's a ridiculous argument imo

[Tony W]

Instead, I'm the guy who followed a dangerous driver 3 miles to where he stopped. I gave him the option of a lecture or an ass-whooping.

And what was his choice Tony?

when he realized the levity of the situation, he locked himself in his car.

[Vanncad]

I agree - just make some music for pete sakes! Let the rest sort it out.

Like someone else said "Artists create art, critics destroy art."

If you are making sounds that you want to make, you are a musician in my book

Great one Daveyboy!

I have a 6 year old that was plunking on the keyboard last night. I could tell she was really trying to play something she was hearing in her head. She's a musician in my book.

P.S. Does farting in the bathtub count?  (Tiny bubbles...)

[SteveB]

...They said if we can't read music, we aren't musicians - do you agree??  

Wasn't it ever thus? 
The way the person spoke indicates a certain goading going on, and of course there are millions of musicians who've never been able to read music, and probably millions of well-known songs written by people who haven't been able to read music. However, it has to be said that the ability to read (and properly write), music does open up a vast world that is otherwise hidden from those unable to read music. If people want to argue against that, fine. I can only read some basic piano music, but realise how much more (and what beauty there is), in written composition. Still, I believe that banging out my six guitar chords of course qualifies me (and everyone else, too), as a musician. 

[StevieM]

It's all been said already!!!

I really like listening to Rick Wakeman on Planet rock, but one thing he said REALLY pissed me off. It was  "You can't call yourself a musician if you haven't got out there and gigged, starting at the flea pits and really worked" or something along those lines. One reply to that-----Bullshit!!!!!  I hear more 'musicianship' on here, and other forums, than I'll ever hear on the radio or anywhere a lot of the time.
Slightly OT, but there you go.

One question TW---------What was the result ?

[Ferryman]

I really like listening to Rick Wakeman on Planet rock, but one thing he said REALLY pissed me off. It was  "You can't call yourself a musician if you haven't got out there and gigged, starting at the flea pits and really worked"

LOL! I did that! I started in the flea pits, trouble was I never really got any further than that!

Cheers,

Nigel

[Tony W]

I really don't have a problem with people who read music from a piece of paper, as long as they don't have a problem with me wiping my ass with paper I guess.

[AndyR]

I really like listening to Rick Wakeman on Planet rock, but one thing he said REALLY pissed me off. It was  "You can't call yourself a musician if you haven't got out there and gigged, starting at the flea pits and really worked"

LOL! I did that! I started in the flea pits, trouble was I never really got any further than that!

Cheers,

Nigel

You and me both! (And several thousand others over the years, I imagine)

[Speed Demon]

By this person's standard, I am not a musician. I can read music but the overwhelming majority of
music I've played over the years was done from listening because I could not find sheet music for it
and wasn't interested in wasting time/money looking for the sheets.

I've lost count of the bands I've done fill-in work with. Example: The guitarist for Band X needs
emergency surgery. I take his gigs for two weeks while he recovers.
All I ask for is a play list of the band's songs, the key they are in and any unusual pitch changes.
Fire those mothers up. I'm on it.

And, who in hell can accurately write a score featuring every single note played in a blistering one
minute solo? Good luck with that. Composers generally write AD LIB for the solo, in that case.
Just fill the time/measures.

Ludwig Von Beethoven started losing his hearing at the age of 26. He was nearly totally deaf when
he composed his best music. He used numbers (math) when creating his masterpieces.
Did that make him a musician or a mathematician? Or both?

My wife is a good sight reader. She plays piano and mandolin. She cannot improvise worth a handful
of warm spit, but anything on the sheet, including classical music, she can play immediately.
Alas, I cannot convince her to record with me. She is not comfortable trying to keep up with what I
do on the guitars.

After many years of observing groups, from duets to large orchestras, I can count on the fingers of
one hand the number of virtuoso instrumentalists that sight-read their solos. It didn't happen.
They either memorized, or improvised it.

Give it a test yourself. Try sight-reading, and playing sixteenth and thirty-second notes simultaneously.    

I once had a young man attempt to convince me that guitarists like Clapton and Hendrix
picked every single note. He was so full of crap that it wasn't worth my time to dispute his claim.

When I play a rapid solo I am actually picking roughly one out of every two to three notes played.
The rest are hammered, using every finger at my disposal.

If you can't impress them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit.
I learned that from listening to politicians.

Play on, and do it your way. Whatever works for you. Ignore unadulterated ignorance.

Gene