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Sight reading vs Playing by Ear?
- Thread starter piccolo_whitley
- Start date
My opinion (and every opinion is valid once it works for someone):
A good set of ears is fundamental but it’s useful (for me) to be able to read.
- sight reading: I’ve learned to play soprano recorder at 7 or 8 years old. Learning was a whole: technique and theory together. So, I can easily sight read a recorder part. It’s encoded in my brain.
- piano/Keys: self taught mainly and my sight reading is only useful for a single melody on the treble clef. Reading a real piano part will take me days/weeks to decipher. Arranging/accompanying on the fly is easier with only a chord chart.
- singing: sight-reading as it’s almost all the time a melody on treble clef.
- drums: I’ve learned to play seven years ago, mainly by ears. Yes, it could be useful to at least understand note figures and metering. Parts for drums exists but it’s not often you encounter drummers being able to sight read. Probably TV shows drummers. Better to have a good metronomic sense of rhythm and being able to tell where is the « one » in a bar! Oh, and being able to lock in with the bass player!
- bass: not yet two years of playing/learning. Understanding theory and reading helped me a lot but I have hard time deciphering a bass clef or even tabs. Again, chord charts are better in my case. Heck, I’m not even remembering where are the notes on the fretboard apart from the first five frets. However, my ears tells me when I hit a wrong note for the song or the jam… Ah, and being able to lock-in with the drummer… Now, how to get half good, no my case yet
I’m a music teacher in elementary school so it’s useful for me to be able to read a minimum. However, each human is different and has a different way for learning. Add to this that the older you get, your brain is not as efficient to learn fast. Kids are better in this regard.
Now, having to choose between two peoples to play with:
1 - one with excellent sight reading but not being able to accompany on-the-fly or jam;
2 - one that has good ears and jamming abilities but no theory/reading skills.
I’ll choose number two without a doubt.
Patrice
**I don’t play or gig for a living so my opinion is what it’s worth
A good set of ears is fundamental but it’s useful (for me) to be able to read.
- sight reading: I’ve learned to play soprano recorder at 7 or 8 years old. Learning was a whole: technique and theory together. So, I can easily sight read a recorder part. It’s encoded in my brain.
- piano/Keys: self taught mainly and my sight reading is only useful for a single melody on the treble clef. Reading a real piano part will take me days/weeks to decipher. Arranging/accompanying on the fly is easier with only a chord chart.
- singing: sight-reading as it’s almost all the time a melody on treble clef.
- drums: I’ve learned to play seven years ago, mainly by ears. Yes, it could be useful to at least understand note figures and metering. Parts for drums exists but it’s not often you encounter drummers being able to sight read. Probably TV shows drummers. Better to have a good metronomic sense of rhythm and being able to tell where is the « one » in a bar! Oh, and being able to lock in with the bass player!
- bass: not yet two years of playing/learning. Understanding theory and reading helped me a lot but I have hard time deciphering a bass clef or even tabs. Again, chord charts are better in my case. Heck, I’m not even remembering where are the notes on the fretboard apart from the first five frets. However, my ears tells me when I hit a wrong note for the song or the jam… Ah, and being able to lock-in with the drummer… Now, how to get half good, no my case yet
I’m a music teacher in elementary school so it’s useful for me to be able to read a minimum. However, each human is different and has a different way for learning. Add to this that the older you get, your brain is not as efficient to learn fast. Kids are better in this regard.
Now, having to choose between two peoples to play with:
1 - one with excellent sight reading but not being able to accompany on-the-fly or jam;
2 - one that has good ears and jamming abilities but no theory/reading skills.
I’ll choose number two without a doubt.
Patrice
**I don’t play or gig for a living so my opinion is what it’s worth
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Not difficult… for you: I learn to my students (5 to 12) and some get it fast and for some, it’s like nuclear physics… Some kids have reading difficulties and reading music is by definition , learning another language.
Seconded. A lot of « transcriptions » on the web, be it parts or simply chord charts have often wrong chords or notes. It’s where my ears are useful as I can fill the blanks or mistakes.
I don’t want to sound harsh but looking at my little students, I can assure you that they have different ways of learning the same things. Whatever scientific studies shows… Direct experience in the field!
This has been an interesting and informative thread for me. While I am a mostly by-ear player, that’s partly due to my early experiences and the fact that I’m good at it. There have very few instances where reading was required (like, zero in rock bands), and those times when it was required, I often wished I was better at it.
One thing that jumps out at me in this discussion (as it relates to sight-reading gigs) is that readers are often at the mercy of writers. If the notation is lacking, you need good ears to overcome those limitations in real-time. I would imagine that there are likely more good readers than good writers.
A neighbor of mine plays a lot of old-timey jazz and Dixieland with several other people. They’re all readers and perform little outdoor neighborhood concerts on Fridays. When he found out I was a player, he asked if I could read. Of course I said no. Now I’m wondering if this might be an opportunity for me to work on my reading. (Not that they need 5-string bass, but I could probably cover trombone or tuba parts. Might be fun, and probably easier on my ears than playing in yet another Dad garage band.)
One thing that jumps out at me in this discussion (as it relates to sight-reading gigs) is that readers are often at the mercy of writers. If the notation is lacking, you need good ears to overcome those limitations in real-time. I would imagine that there are likely more good readers than good writers.
A neighbor of mine plays a lot of old-timey jazz and Dixieland with several other people. They’re all readers and perform little outdoor neighborhood concerts on Fridays. When he found out I was a player, he asked if I could read. Of course I said no. Now I’m wondering if this might be an opportunity for me to work on my reading. (Not that they need 5-string bass, but I could probably cover trombone or tuba parts. Might be fun, and probably easier on my ears than playing in yet another Dad garage band.)
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
If it's a complex part and I want to be accurate, I get out some staff paper.
Aha! Sure, anecdotes always trump research! Just kidding!
Not discounting your experience at all, but just on the chance that it could be colored by expectations, etc...you might be surprised if you read up on current theory and see how it fits with what you know from the king of all learning, direct field experience.
Sure, it’s not scientific and like you said, anecdotal but it’s my experience in several schools in 24 years teaching music. Seeing it also with my colleagues teaching general (maths, French, etc…).
EDIT: As I’m open-minded, I’ve read a couple of things about it and it’s quite interesting. Maybe I have a bias, maybe I’m right
In learning styles debate, it's instructors vs. psychologists
Grossly resumed, it would appear that we have some « preferences » in the learning process and teachers (it’s me) are too focused on this. Am I correct?
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Sure, it’s not scientific and like you said, anecdotal but it’s my experience in several schools in 24 years teaching music. Seeing it also with my colleagues teaching general (maths, French, etc…).
EDIT: As I’m open-minded, I’ve read a couple of things about it and it’s quite interesting. Maybe I have a bias, maybe I’m right
In learning styles debate, it's instructors vs. psychologists
Grossly resumed, it would appear that we have some « preferences » in the learning process and teachers (it’s me) are too focused on this. Am I correct?
I dunno. Anything I say would just be a guess. One thing I know, teachers are the most important people in anyone’s life behind their family, and maybe behind no one.
Well - learning the piano early has given me a skill that is like riding a bike. Can't unlearn it. Plus playing woodwind instruments (can't learn those by ear) and playing upright bass (arco and pizz) and jazz since 1987- and now dabbling in writing scores. So I am not sure where you get the impression that I cannot or won't read - sight read. I am not a working musician for a while now. But I do get called for some projects now and then. Usually artsy-fartsy avante-garde stuff and some Latin salsa/merengue. I understand Indian raga classical as well.
I am just anti/against the attitude that are discounting/dismissing ear only players or ear only traditions. The orchestra pit guys looking down on the Real Book guys who think they better than chord chart guys who in turn look down on the Nashville number chart guys who think the Blues jam guys can't play who in turn think that the beat makers or EDM folks are not musicians at all.
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In fact and sadly, we sometimes realize that they are more often in presence of teachers and daycare workers than their own parents… At school at 7AM until 6PM! In my young days, things were different, starting at 8, back at home for dinner then back home at 4PM and playing outside (whatever temperature, -20 Celsius in winter) until we heard: « Supper’s ready! ». Feeling old!
Not dismissing it at all. I'm just saying it got me work that others can't do. I'm by no means a jazz player, but I can play light jazz gigs that require reading and chord chart interpretation because I can read all of that stuff as long as the notes don't come too fast on a sight-read
Have to be able to do it all. Having the ability to sight read should not be mutually exclusive to having a phenomenal ear and hear anything thrown at you. As a matter of fact, they help each other
I used to study with Ted Dunbar. . If you don't know who he is look it up. He made us all learn 50 Bebop heads (reading). And he had a chord chart with something like 49 cords or something. He would play them and expect us to hear every one. He would play them and ask us which one it was. We were not allowed to reply with our voice but we had to reply by playing a scale that went with the cord. That's how he knew if we were right or wrong. Among Teds students phrase " respond with scale" became ubiquitous. In any event, a holistic approach that encompasses everything is the right answer, that is if you like music and you want to be good at it. If someone's forcing you to play then just play what they force you to play
It is worth pointing out that reading music is actually hearing with the eyes. A skilled reader is able to hear internally the music he/she reads. A very fundamental difference with respect to listening, is that when reading, we are able to perceive the music not instantly, but globally: in particular, we can prehear in advance what is coming 1 or 2 bars ahead, the overall structure structure of the tune, the harmonic phrases etc.
From this point of view, reading at an advanced level is as much an aural skill as playing by ear, and both skills are complementary.
From this point of view, reading at an advanced level is as much an aural skill as playing by ear, and both skills are complementary.
Here is a Invalid Link Removed addressing in depth the issue of mental hearing and of how it relates to music reading and writing. In particular, there is nice quote, which the author credits to Robert Schumann: "He is a good musician, who understands the music without the score, and the score without the music. The ear should not need the eye, the eye should not need the ear."
