Why learn standard notation?

[Dan Christopher]

So I am trying to decide if it is worth my time to finally buckle down and learn to read standard notation. It always seems like something that I should do, but I'm trying to think if it is worth my time. I am fluent on the neck, so I can hang with chord charts and everything. If I need a note-for-note transcription, tablature with rhythm hybrid would work better since you can't specify neck position with standard notation. (I actually could use practice reading/writing rhythm charts now that I think about it)

So what are the benefits to learning to read? Is there some hidden benefit that I will miss out on by not learning to read? Do any of you sight-readers feel that you have an advantage over us illiterate musicians?

[onlyclave]

Without a reference recording, tablature is worthless. And you can absolutely specify neck position with standard notation: "Sul D" or "Sul Re" for the European guys is how it looks.

I can write out standard notation much faster than I can generate tab. And it conveys a lot more information. Tablature is not a 20th century invention, and if it was so useful it would have become standard hundreds of years ago. Have you ever seen tabs for piano or trumpet? Exactly.

[kraigo]

I'd say the big bonuses are if you find yourself in situations that require you be able to read (studios or theater pits, for example) and for self-education, such as working off of Bach lines.

In my experience, reading actual notation is "the pro thing to do", but I haven't encountered too many situations that require it. Most of the time if you're given anything at all it'll be lyrics with chords over the top of them or a lead sheet. It's more useful (for a rock bassist) to be able to play enough guitar to know what the chord shapes look like so you can fake that way. You can learn a lot of theory without being able to sight read.

Should I learn how to read? Absolutely. Is it a good skill to have? Without a doubt. Will it give me immediate benefits? Probably not, but there are a lot of situations where it's handy to know.

It's up to you to decide what, of the millions of things there are to learn about music, your priorities are.

KO

[von buck]

In a real world situation it's more likely that the guy in change of the session will have charts and nobody writes their parts in tab.

Andy

[fretlessman71]

Tab doesn't give you musical information; it gives you DIGITAL information - meaning, where to put your digits (fingers) on the neck.

Personally, I can't stand tab; I think its resurgence is one of the worst things to happen in guitar education in the last 30 years.

Learn to read; you can choose your OWN neck position if you want to. As a matter of fact, I make my students read passages using 3 or 4 different scale shapes so they're really retaining the Musical Information rather than the fingering.

Memorizing fingerings is problematic at best; what if you're in a different tuning? Or just plain out of tune and you can't retune mid-song? It happens...

[hentor]

Originally Posted by Dan Christopher

So what are the benefits to learning to read? Is there some hidden benefit that I will miss out on by not learning to read? Do any of you sight-readers feel that you have an advantage over us illiterate musicians?

Umm ...in my opinion, this is like asking what are the benefits in learning to read and write the language you communicate in (whatever your language of choice is). Yes there are some people who cannot read or write, but it greatly limits their options in most cases.

As a person who reads music, I have definitely had an advantage in getting pick up and fill in gigs, especially those of the jazz and classical variety. I have also gotten studio work and done shows due to the fact that I can play off a chart as well.

I also can read tab and use the Nashville number system as well, but I view these as "shorthand" methods of writing music. Learning music theory can also help you construct bass lines using chord charts.

If you only plan to play rock gigs in a band or whatever, you may choose not to learn how to read, but if you decide to broaden your horizons or want to work doing shows, studio sessions, it would help you out and give you an edge in getting work.

[Dave Muscato]

Imagine you're a writer. An aspiring story-teller asks you, "Why learn how to read?"

Same diff

edit: hentor beat me to it!

[sleeplessknight]

I'd say 'it depends'. I'm a jazz guy, and I want to get as much paid work (studio, GB dates, etc) as humanly possible, and I also do a fair amount of theater work, writing out horn charts, etc. I'm not the best sight-reader around, but I can muddle my way through it fairly quickly. For my purposes, sight-reading standard notation is indispensable. My goal with that particular skill is to be able to read it just like I read English, and be able to play a chart 'cold' around 180bpm. Right now, I'm able to do 'simple' charts (walking lines, etc) around 40-60bpm, with an accuracy rate of around 80-90% (remember, this is reading a chart completely 'cold', never even having heard the tune before). It all depends on what you hope to accomplish musically.

Also, being able to transcribe stuff off of records, be it basslines, horn/guitar solos, whatever, gives me a completely different take on approaching music and my understanding of different styles and whatnot. It's awful hard to transcribe from one instrument to another in 'tab'. I'd say the benefits of being able to describe position via tab are far outweighed by the portability and rhythmic specificity of standard notation (again, just IMHO and for my own needs).

If you really want to give reading the ol' college try, I'd say get the book 'Essential Sightreading Studies for Electric Bass' by David Molto, and a metronome. It starts out with the absolute basics, and slowly builds up to more complicated passages. It's a short book, I'd recommend doing just a single page from that book each day. That way it's a relatively low time commitment, but it's a REGULAR time commitment (which is key for learning a new skill like sight-reading: recency, frequency, and repetition) In less than 10 minutes a day for a month, I think you'll see a huge improvement in your sight-reading capabilities.

Just my $0.02, hope this helps!
--Lee

EDIT: quick correction, guys. My apologies, the book I was thinking of was "Essential Sightreading Studies for Electric Bass", by David Molto. Many thanks to kesslari for bringing that to my attention!

[lefty007]

I don't read, but I think I'm missing a lot. In the rock/pop world, and even when playing Jazz standards, I've hardly encountered situations where I need to sight-read note for note, because usually there are no charts (besides some chord charts if lucky). I usually have at least a day or two to chart out the songs in my own way. . .

But I recently was impressed when doing a pop session where there was no charts, just a demo of the song. The drummer came in, listened to the song once, wrote charts for himself, and nailed the song in the first take. I on the other hand, took a couple of takes because I didn't memorize the breaks exactly. . .

Lesson learned. But I'm still so lazy. I don't think I would ever learn how to read and write on a professional level.

I don't make a living 100% from music, but if I would, I would definitely learn (or would have learned) reading and writing. You are doing a diservice to yourself if you are pro and don't read.




Rock 'n' Roll!

[DudeistMonk]

I used to know how to read in high school when I was in the bands. I got pretty good at it towards the end (by no means was I pro though). Since then I've used it only a hand full of times (music theory course, the occasional song or exercise my instructor hands me). I've pretty much forgotten how to read and I have to grind through it.

So If you want to learn how to read be prepared to make it part of your normal practice routine otherwise its just a waste of your time.

[JimmyM]

Reading opened up a world of gigs that I never could have gotten without it. And they're the best paying gigs in the area. Some people don't need it, but if I hadn't learned how to read, I couldn't be in my 40's and still play music for a living (not that it's a good thing financially, but I think I'm happy).

[pbass2]

If you can fit it in a learn it, there's no downside. If you have the time, do it now. I play, compose, produce for a living, and I'm very fortunate to have been successful at it without being able to read. It's never cost me a gig personally in the world I'm in (even in film and TV composing, thanks to modern technology----I simply print out the notation for parts I've written to give to the horn guys, string players, etc.). I know my theory inside and out, and write/read chord charts--I just don't read notation. I've never been handed notation to read at a bass session, but it's all pop/rock for the most part. Last session I did I wrote out the chord charts for everybody else.
BUT, all that said, I really wish I knew how to read, it would make me that much more employable. One of these days, it WILL cost me a gig--I think that's safe to say. But, between working the biz, family life, etc., I just can't find the time to study it these days, sadly.
If nothing else, I'd love to be able to slap some Chopin sheet music on the piano and read it and play for my own enjoyment!

[mambo4]

from an old post of mine:

I believe that an under appreciated advantage of notation reading is the improvement in rhythmic awareness it brings.
This conclusion comes from a couple years of studying notation in latin bass lines. I've posted elsewhere about this.

basically, before I really studied notation, I relied on memory for my rhythmic understanding, which is faulty and imprecise.
If I had a brain fart on stage, I was easily a bit fogged, and even if I could hit the Down beat accurately,
the rest of the bar was less tight than it oughtta be.

learning to notate rhythms turned this around for me. Although I am no monster sight reader today, even if I mess up (and I do) I know precisely which notes were off the beat and how to correct it.

so I guess I'm saying, learning notation has had a definite positive impact on my playing.

[EADG mx]

It's not fair or true to claim that tablature does not provide rhythms or feel. There are various systems people use to notate rhythms, accents, articulations etc. with tablature.

I find tablature the superior system of the two for bass... but notation superior for communicating with other instruments, composing, etc. It's good to know both ime.

Personally I don't find a lot of use for standard notation outside of school and my lessons but it's still a good skill to have.

[salcott]

I come down squarely on both sides of this question. Learning to read standard notation is essential as far as I'm concerned if one wishes to be a literate musician. Tablature deserves respect as well, however, and has been around longer than standard notation. Early fretted string instrument music was written in tablature, and for certain instruments, like pedal steel guitar, it's the only practical way to notate the combination of bar placement, string choice and pedal and knee lever use. Learn both-it's always better to know more stuff about your art.

[Richard Lindsey]

Why learn standard notation?

Because it will never hurt you to know SN, and it quite possibly will help you. Because, depending on your musical path, not knowing SN may be a disadvantage for you at some point. (It isn't for everybody.) Because there are certain gigs you can't do without SN. (Of course, you may not do those gigs.) Because there are no gigs that knowing SN will prevent you from doing.

A big part of the benefit of standard notation is that it's portable across instruments. It's a language that a keyboardist, a sax player, a bassist, and a drummer can speak to each other and be understood. For instance, a sax player could transcribe a Jaco solo or a Geddy Lee line for you, write it in SN, and hand it to you to play. That will never, ever happen with tab.

The one conceivable benefit tab offers is also one of its worst qualities, in a sense. It does offer an easy way to indicate fingerings. However, it also forces you to use a single fingering, because it only indicates one fingering. This is a bad thing, because it is essentially throwing away one of the nicest features of a stringed instrument like the bass--the ability to play a passage in more than one way, with more than one fingering. What's more, if you tune your instrument differently at all, tab instantly becomes worthless. Since tuning differently means you have to put your fingers in different places to get the required notes, the tab would be telling you to put your fingers in the wrong spots. SN doesn't have this problem. You can indicate fingering on SN if you like, but you can also ignore if it you like, because the fingering is presented as an extra, smaller layer that doesn't change the essential musical information to be conveyed.

[Earthday]

It's very useful and worth learning for every musician. Once you understand the language, you can write down ideas, read others' ideas, learn songs MUCH faster, and you'll learn a lot while you're struggling through learning it. It forces you to keep time and forces you to know where the notes are on the fretboard. If you ever want to work through an instructional book, chances are it is in standard notation, not tab. I also use standard notation every day using Guitar Pro to add melodies over my basslines. It also saved me from having to take a class (and consequently $1000+) because I played in my college's Guitar Ensemble a few semesters. It would be impossible to participate in something like that without knowing how to read. No one waits for you. You get all the sheet music on week 1, and we try to sight read the easier tunes. By week 2 we're expected to be able to play through all the songs. A lot of the songs were done in our own style since we had no percussion, so listening isn't an option either. You have to be able to read. There's also church, theater, and some other gigs where you won't even see the sheet music until just before showtime on songs you've never heard before. Reading and especially sight reading require extreme focus which is good for your brain too.

It's been an essential tool for me. I would be half the musician I am if I never learned to read.

[Dan Christopher]

Awesome, thanks for all the great replies everyone. I think you have me convinced, I should be spending some time every day on this. I don't really play any jazz at the moment, so it might not benefit me directly in gigs, but it does seem like there is a whole wealth of information to be had out there if I can read. And it would just be one more small chain in my armor so to speak, one more thing to make me more valuable and marketable as a musician.

[manicbassman]

My eyesight is going and now I can't read the little numbers for tab yet I have no problems telling where the dots are on the staves...

[JTE]

First, there's no way that learning more about the language of music can hurt you. Second, learning notation will give you MUSICAL information. The common mistake is to think of notation as a coded map for where to put your fingers. It's not. It shows pitch and rhythm relationships. The key factor in learning parts is the relationship between notes, not where the notes are. A lesson once brought in two tabbed songs- "Soul Man" from the Blues Bros version and "Smokin' Gun" by Robert Cray. The tabs had the correct notes, but not in the positions Duck and Richard played them in. Notation makes you find the fingerings that work for you. Playing "Smokin' Gun" at the 7th fret probably worked for the guy who tabbed it, but it makes no sense to me, nor apparantly to Richard Cousins either.

And that's the problem with tab. It's a physical representation of how to play, and so it's removed music from the learning experience. Notation lives in music, so notation will show you not only how to play, but it also opens up learning WHY. And that's the stuff that allows you to play other things.

jte