Can you read sheet music?

[corryhully]

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.

[Kevin Mammoth]

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.

[dasilvasings]

"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)

[Vanncad]

late 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!!

[Tony W]

I 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.

[Ferryman_1957]

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.

[Geir]

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.

[Vanncad]

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  ) 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!

[drumbum]

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.

[64Guitars]

I 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. And I have a couple of Hendrix DVDs from GuitarWorld 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 to aid in learning new songs. The times have certainly changed. Learning to play the guitar is so much easier today.