There is nothing more demeaning than an old guy preaching to young folks. That aint what this is about. But if you plan to keep playing bass throughout your life then you may want to read this because one thing is certain. Youth is fleeting...
I started playing mid-1970's. I spent countless hours picking up record needles and setting them back to learn the bass lick on a Nugent or Deep Purple tune. And my archaic method of copying my heroes paid off. I ended up fronting one of the hottest acts in the southeast the entire decade of the 1980's and was invited to open for a host of name acts of the day. I knew I was hot stuff. I could copy any lick and trained my ear well enough to know what key any tune was in by the second bar. I thought I had reached my personal "pinnacle"...... But.... I never took the time or interest to learn to read music.
Now forty years later I lend my skill to my church. No more jumping on PA cabinets and bar tables. I play the part of the quiet old bass player hiding behind the choir loft. Playing is far more gratifying because old hymns require a new level of skill, and one never tires of being challenged on the fretboard... We are four pieces: guitar, piano, percussion and me. Wednesday evenings we meet to do a quick rehearsal. My bandmates all open their music sheets and dive in. I have to wait until the second verse to jump in. After which, I scratch out my little cheat sheet (below) because the memory synapses aren't what they used to be.
Now here lately I have been trying to learn a little about reading music, but old brain cells don't absorb information as efficiently as young brain cells do..... Look, I remember shunning the advice of old people back when I was young and "all that".... And I know that is probably how this comes across. But if you love playing and can see yourself playing throughout your life..... Take the time to learn to read music. I sure wish I had done so.
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I have the music degree. It is important. I would never say it's not. However... In the hundreds of gigs I've played in the last few years alone, knowing how to read music mattered exactly ZERO percent, being completely honest.
But...
Learning how to read music is a great skill to have if ever needed, and as it works out, the closest I've come to needing to read music (literally the written notes, not chord shapes, letters, symbols or whatever) was the last time I played bass in a Jazz group, and that was mostly for my own edification of being able to play the melody as exactly as... well whatever was written on the Real Book page that everyone else is also reading, despite having an ear that can figure it out pretty well.
My point here is it is a nice thing to learn, and it does take a little time to keep up on and not get rusty. There are certain situations that are MUCH easier if the musician can read music- and as fortune or misfortune would have it, I haven't been in any one of those for a long, long time. I do like the option if and when I so choose and as time allows, to sit down with an instrument technique book of some sort and work through an etude to take some rust off my playing of that very specific kind, the rust off my music reading, and even to the extent it qualifies for "sight reading" at my first interactions with that music.
Whatever my (very limited) necessary use these days, I'm confident that if I needed to, and has I have done in the past, I have the ability to figure out, hear, transcribe and even share notation and arrangements if I needed, and so I would say another benefit is being able to read music and to speak a common language of music to another musician, no matter what instrument, and to be able to relay often times VERY specific ideas about a melody, form, chord progression, song, etc... in that common language.
Some benefits of some things do not always pay immediate and often recurring dividends in the present and immediate future, but which value can clearly be seen to a degree in the long-term/hindsight.
I don't think I ever knew anyone who actually regretted learning how to read music.
