i noticed that musicians that are used to playing off sheet music, (orchestra, piano,...) have trouble coming up with music on their own. Even though they know theory very well.

Edit: To clear some confusion: I'm talking about High School students here.

For me it is no problem to come up with something when somebody asks me to give him a bass line.

Opinions?
Discuss.:)

For me it is no problem to come up with something when somebody asks me to give him a bass line.

Opinions?
Discuss.:)

for example, the girl next door can play the keys, but she doesn't know how to speak, via, piano.

especially with bass, bassists are expected to be able to "spit out a bass line on demand", and that's how bassists are usually trained.

I've noticed the same thing. But lets of course not put all sheet-music-readers under this umbrella, there are plenty of readers that are AMAZING improviser/music writers. But generally, the average kid playing jazz lines in his HS jazz band isn't too often a fantastic maestro, but who cares?

He's enjoying it.

I think this stands true primarily for classically trained keys/g**tar players and other people who learned their chops from rote memorization and strict bookwork. It's hard to infuse feeling into something that you're trying to mimic off of a page. I used to play in a band with a pianist who was classically trained and amazing. He could play just about anything you put in front of him, whether it was some funky jazz swing or straight 4/4 classical, but when you took the music away and asked him to just hang, he was way out in left field. Nothing wrong with it, heck, I'd love to be able to sight-read sheets that complex with such ease, but I wouldn't trade my ability to wander off and come back like I can for it.

i noticed that musicians that are used to playing off sheet music, (orchestra, piano,...) have trouble coming up with music on their own. Even though they know theory very well.

For me it is no problem to come up with something when somebody asks me to give him a bass line.

Opinions?
Discuss.:)

I would say your not looking at all the facts. Classically trained and classical musician play the paper is their fort. They have masterful technique, sightread anything, and do know some improve but not their priority. Now many classical player do play jazz, rock, and even country on the side and don't need no paper to play.

Also Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Trane, Hancock, Pattitucci, and Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, Victor Wooten and on and on. Can sightread their asses off, know traditional and jazz theory, arrange and compose, and create bass line or create amazing solos all day long.

I've played with great rock and blues player with doctorates in music, but in general never talk about their degrees because some look down on trained players. You will find graduates of Berklee and MI who down say they graduated until after they get gigs. You also find big name players who don't talk about all the legit' training they have, rather keep their shoot from the hip appearance.

So, yes there are some players who aren't good at making up parts, but that is the because the style of music they play requires mastery in other areas. Then a lot of masters of improv and making up parts you're over looking. Another group that don't talk about their backgrounds. Then there are some great ear players who haven't studied, but in long run spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel so they can remember and study what they learned by ear.

i noticed that musicians that are used to playing off sheet music, (orchestra, piano,...) have trouble coming up with music on their own. Even though they know theory very well.

For me it is no problem to come up with something when somebody asks me to give him a bass line.

that might be true for some classically trained musicians, but if you spend your life happily playing compositions by the greatest composers of the last 500 years, why would you need to be able to improvise or create your own line? Beethoven's music works perfectly well without someone needing to 'come up with something' on his behalf

but I don't think what your saying is generally true for us - bass guitar players. In my experience, bass guitar players who have good reading skills tend to be quite a bit better than average at improvisation and creating basslines...

because if you're a bass player who can read, you're a step beyond the average moron bass player and probably take it more seriously and have spent more time on all other aspects of your musicianship

if your post is motivated by trying to make yourself feel less inferior to 'musicians who read', channel your energies into something more positive

I would say your not looking at all the facts. Classically trained and classical musician play the paper is their fort. They have masterful technique, sightread anything, and do know some improve but not their priority.

backed


now I know this is a generalization and of course there are exceptions, but this is how I see it:

Classical musicians tend to be skilled in technique, reading, and perfecting pieces (this isn't to say other musicians aren't the same way).

Jazz musicians can usually read (I know some can't/couldn't), usually have good technique - but they spend more time learning to improv. and fix mistakes as opposed to just perfecting the music.


Is either method wrong? Not at all. it just depends on what you're playing and what the style calls for. Classical calls for perfection, jazz encourages improv. You get better at what you practice and people who play different music practice different things

My wife is a classically trained pianist and violin player. On piano since 3. And she doesn't do improv solos at all stating, "Everytime I put two notes together, I am reminded of some other tune from Brahms of Beethoven...", etc.

I told her yeah, I'm sure that every combination of two or three or four note sequence has been played, but beyond that it would be wide open. It seems to me that it would be like the mathmatical squared sequnce whereby your up into the billions of combinations rather quickly (2x2. 4x4, 16x16, 256x256....) and there are not billions on billions of tunes yet. (I hope this makes sense! I'm such a space case)

Like the poster above says, classical ppl don't necessarily train at this skill. If you don't practice or try at something, your not going to acheive it.

But to each thier own.

i wasn't saying one is better than the other. and i don't feel inferior to musicians who can sight read perfectly. I can read sheet music but not very well and it is something i would like to improve in, but that's beside the point.

And I don't doubt that there are amazing musicians who can improvise just as well as sight read, but i was thinking of High School friends who play in the orchestra while I wrote the OP.
And I suppose it's true that improv is not one of their specialties. Yet, sometimes when I listen to my sister playing piano, I think something is lacking even though she is playing the piece perfectly note-wise and technique-wise. Also I'm sure there are musicians who play sheet-music and "say" more with it than other people playing improvised music.
:)

Yet, sometimes when I listen to my sister playing piano, I think something is lacking even though she is playing the piece perfectly note-wise and technique-wise.

It's the funk, they're lacking the funk :cool:

Personally I love these posts that are thinly masked efforts to justify not doing the hard work. :D

I can read (although I am a bit rusty since I am not doing much outside my own stuff now) and if we were in the same room I can assure you that I could jam out any bass part, in any style, as fast as any non-reading bassist.

There are dozens upon dozens of well educated bass players both famous and not so famous who are just as fun to jam with as they are to work on a previously written arrangement. They simply will work more than a lesser trained musician and are likely to get exposed to more carreer opportunities a less educated bassist would be.

Now that doesn't mean that raw talent couldn't get as far, make as much money or be as wonderful as a more educated player but when opportunity knocks in the general music industry it usually comes with a piece of sheet music attached.

But by all means stay in the garage band mentality and live the fantasy that your lack of education is an asset rather than a shortcoming. God knows there are already too many competitors for the few good ops out there already and the rest of us don't need more competition. :D

Spin

I found the OP was a little bit unusual and narrow-sighted until I read further that you're in HS and talking about typical students in a HS orchestra .... now your OP makes more sense.

Classically trained musicians express emotion in many different manners, much of it conveyed via notation on the score. While I agree that classically trained players, in general, may not be as well versed in improvization as a jazz cat, that doesn't mean they play without emotion .... actually, far from it. If you don't feel any emotional response watching the NY Philharmonic (just for one example), then you might want to examine your own ability to feel emotion.

The ability to read music fluently is, IMO, mandatory if you want to be a working professional. Of course, there are many examples of serious players that can't read, along with many examples of superstars that can't read, but for the average working professional bassist, the ability to read is a far more important skill than the ability to improvise ... the ability to do both will keep you working for a very long time .... :cool:

Personally I love these posts that are thinly masked efforts to justify not doing the hard work. :D

[...]

But by all means stay in the garage band mentality and live the fantasy that your lack of education is an asset rather than a shortcoming. God knows there are already too many competitors for the few good ops out there already and the rest of us don't need more competition. :D

Spin

i'm going to assume you're not serious in this post :eyebrow:

i'm going to assume you're not serious in this post :eyebrow:

It's safe to assume he's dead serious in addition to the fact that he's absolutely correct. I'd replace the "dozens" of bassists he mentioned with hundreds or a few thousand.

I do both.

/thread

:D

I think that people that didn't have any tabs or sheets to read from can groove better then tab/sheet-junkies.
Like Jaco, he grew up listening to the radio picking out notes by ear from the start just as every other bassist at that time. Takes longer but it teaches you how to speak/sing though the instrument.

Agree?

I think that people that didn't have any tabs or sheets to read from can groove better then tab/sheet-junkies.
Like Jaco, he grew up listening to the radio picking out notes by ear from the start just as every other bassist at that time. Takes longer but it teaches you how to speak/sing though the instrument.

Agree?

No...and Jaco wouldn't have either.

It's safe to assume he's dead serious in addition to the fact that he's absolutely correct. I'd replace the "dozens" of bassists he mentioned with hundreds or a few thousand.

i specifically meant the last, rather insulting paragraph. let me edit the previous post's quote.
I agree with the part where he says, that bassists who can do both will get chosen more often than the ones who don't.

i never said that i think not reading is an asset, in fact i said quite the opposite.

And the OP was written without any judgment on either of the two approaches.

I picked up on it by listening to the radio and cds. That is how I got started. And I will agree that classical sheet readers are much less likely to "break out" than the "self-taught" ones.

I am self taught and can read. However when I read a song right off the bat because it is hard, I find myself ALWAYS wanting to read it instead of learning it.

I think because they are reading it and it needs to be played a certain way, they feel like they may get lost (does happen) and not play the song properly.

When I am not reading and pulling from my head, I come up with all sort of whackey basslines because I KNOW the song. If I get lost I know the next note and can walk up to it. If I am reading, it is kinda hard to know what lies on the next page. Thus I limit the improvising when reading.

EDIT: I am 21 by the way. I play 2x a week with a classical pianist who has been playing for over 40 years.

i noticed that musicians that are used to playing off sheet music, (orchestra, piano,...) have trouble coming up with music on their own. Even though they know theory very well.

Edit: To clear some confusion: I'm talking about High School students here.

For me it is no problem to come up with something when somebody asks me to give him a bass line.

Opinions?
Discuss.:)

IMO, there are 2 types of musicians, those who are born with it and those who learn it. I'll compare my point to a builder. In designing a building you have the architect side and the construction side. The architects are educated and trained in the art of designing buildings. They have to know everything from math and calculus to the properties of different types of building material to achieve what they want to build.

On the other hand you have the builder. Most of them can put a nail in a board with one swing and throw up a house in no time. If you need a picnic table, a deck, a barn, or anything they can do it simply because they're born with that talent and if they can't they'll figure it out pretty quick. If you teach the builder how to read and design a house using a blueprint it can be done but if you take the blueprint out of the hand of the architect and give him a hammer, it's going to be a long day.

Musicians are the same way. Some people can go to school and learn to read music up and down. Some people, like myself, can hear a song and 10 minutes later play that song to completion. You can train anyone to sight read but you can't train people to be natural musicians. You're either born with it or you're not.

as a woodworker in the contruction trade, amen to the last post.

i often wonder how musicians get anywhere professionally without being able to read. i'm not a great sight-reader, but i simply couldn't function without being able to write down a piece of music, or analyze the structure of a tune, etc. i simply can't see where NOT being able to read could ever be considered an asset.

on the other hand, we don't all need to have doctorates, either.

I appologize if my attempt to punctuate my comment was taken as insulting. I should have considered the age of the OP and I clearly missed the age group. With that said I continue to suggest that if one wishes to pursue this proffessionally with any thought that somehow or another you are capable of earning a decent living playing music then a firmly rooted musical education will be required.

I guess my mistake was immediately lumping the poster into the group of folks who continually bash musical education as if somehow or another it detracts from your ability to create from your soul or to "sing through your instrument". Nothing could be further from the truth and, as it was a mistake I made early on that I feel limited my opportunities when it probably mattered most, I hate to see young players even entertain this very incorrect assumption.

If I can pass on anything to anyone interested in making music a carreer it is to learn all you can both formal and informal because there are a lot of incredible players out there and you must be up to the challenge if you expect to make this your life's work.

Spin

I have been where the OP is right now, and now that he mentions it I observed the same thing way back then. I was in a very progressive HS music program, went to band camp during the summers, played in several of the bands in college, and could play piano and several other instruments off of sheet music. I did not play bass in any of these groups, I played in a garage band.

In HS our music director was constantly trying to get us to stray from the written music, and we failed miserably everytime we tried. Especially our rhythm section. I had the same problem - the section in the music that was blank except for the words "solo" left me blank. It got to the point where I went home and wrote out the solo, then came back and played it. Or in the case of playing early Chicago stuff, going home and playing dad's record over and over and learning the original solo.

Move to college. Huge difference. By the time I graduated I could improvise as well as anyone, and I didn't really try to make the change. It just happened.

Move to now. I can still read, but not quickly enough to play the instrument in real time. But I can improvise as good if not better than I could 30 years ago.

Where am I going? I think that what you can do when you are young depends on how your brain was initially wired. If you learn to play an instrument off the music, that is how you are wired and HS is just too soon to get "unwired" for most musicians. On the other hand, if you learned to play from listening the radio, figuring out the parts, and then making up what you can't as you need, then you are wired that way and you are going to be better and improvision young. Who has the leg up later in life is debatable. My guess is it is the trained musician, but that is just my unsupported opinion.

I appologize if my attempt to punctuate my comment was taken as insulting. I should have considered the age of the OP and I clearly missed the age group. With that said I continue to suggest that if one wishes to pursue this proffessionally with any thought that somehow or another you are capable of earning a decent living playing music then a firmly rooted musical education will be required.

I guess my mistake was immediately lumping the poster into the group of folks who continually bash musical education as if somehow or another it detracts from your ability to create from your soul or to "sing through your instrument". Nothing could be further from the truth and, as it was a mistake I made early on that I feel limited my opportunities when it probably mattered most, I hate to see young players even entertain this very incorrect assumption.

If I can pass on anything to anyone interested in making music a carreer it is to learn all you can both formal and informal because there are a lot of incredible players out there and you must be up to the challenge if you expect to make this your life's work.

Spin

no harm done. :)

and i agree fully with your opinion.

No...and Jaco wouldn't have either.

What do you mean by "Jaco wouldn't have either.".

Personally I love these posts that are thinly masked efforts to justify not doing the hard work. :D

I can read (although I am a bit rusty since I am not doing much outside my own stuff now) and if we were in the same room I can assure you that I could jam out any bass part, in any style, as fast as any non-reading bassist.

There are dozens upon dozens of well educated bass players both famous and not so famous who are just as fun to jam with as they are to work on a previously written arrangement. They simply will work more than a lesser trained musician and are likely to get exposed to more carreer opportunities a less educated bassist would be.

Now that doesn't mean that raw talent couldn't get as far, make as much money or be as wonderful as a more educated player but when opportunity knocks in the general music industry it usually comes with a piece of sheet music attached.

But by all means stay in the garage band mentality and live the fantasy that your lack of education is an asset rather than a shortcoming. God knows there are already too many competitors for the few good ops out there already and the rest of us don't need more competition. :D

Spin


I agree

The thing I would point out, though, is that reading and music theory are not the same thing at all. Reading comes down to your ability to read and reproduce what is written on a score. Music theory is about knowing the contextual paradigms of the music you are playing.

There are plenty of musicians out there that can sight read but have limited understanding of music theory just as there are many musicians that are great theorists but are poor readers. That is not a justification for a lack of one or the other, all the same. By the same token I would also say that it's not necessarily the end of the world if you can't read or don't know much about theory, you just have to accept the limitations that go with it.

By the way as spindizzy pointed out in his later post, Jaco would have never agreed that "playing by ear" was any kind of substitute for being able to read. Jaco was a fluent sight reader and was the first person to extol the virtues of being able to read. I agree that having a good sense of relative pitch is an important tool though.

I think that people that didn't have any tabs or sheets to read from can groove better then tab/sheet-junkies.
Like Jaco, he grew up listening to the radio picking out notes by ear from the start just as every other bassist at that time. Takes longer but it teaches you how to speak/sing though the instrument.

Agree?

Jaco grew up in a musical family and studied bassist, arranging, and composition. He spent years playing in R&B show bands building his skills. Jaco could improvise with the best, but also was the arranger/composer off-stage constantly refining his playing. Jaco used to work on his solos like an arranger when he practiced.