just an observation

[schuyler]

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.

[spindizzy]

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

[5andFretless]

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.

[ThatGermanDude]

Originally Posted by spindizzy

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.

[Linkert]

Originally Posted by spindizzy

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

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

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by spindizzy

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

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.

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.

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by Linkert

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.