Players that won't learn a note

[dkelley]

Those who are oddly trying to cite musicians who can't read music as idols.... you DO realize that they could all read and write nashville notation, right? or basic chord charts? Every damn one of them could figure stuff out that way or use it as a guideline to figure out where they were in the songs.

 

[2F/2F]

Most people are idiots, in nearly any field.

 

[MegaSwing]

Most people are idiots, in nearly any field.

I am particularly troubled by this notion when I fly in an airplane.

 

[Patchman777]

Several famous guitarists can’t read music
Srevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Tommy Emmanuel

 

[Patchman777]

Blues guitarist (RIP) Johnny Winter once told me he plays out of position. A lot of these cats may not read music per se but they understand and of course utilize major and minor Pentatonics and are able to navigate through basic chord charts.

 

[Core Creek]

You stopped a song during a gig????

Wow.

There are different schools of thought on this and I wouldn’t say it’s the end of the world having to restart a song…

I did a sub gig on bass a few years ago where the keyboardist came in a half step high on a Heart song. The second I played my first note I knew what was happening, but the other players didn’t have good enough ears to understand. I immediately had to tell the guitarists what was happening and after a rough minute we pulled it together. Sure, we didn’t stop, but it was pretty horrible. It could have been easily avoided if the band just stopped and restarted in the right key… but no one but me knew it was happening.

Happened with a decent pro band I play guitar with a few months ago… other guitarist started Fight for your Right a whole step up… I looked at his hands, saw what key he was in, and off we go…. But the bassist stubbornly played it in the original key….the entire song! I’d argue he couldn’t hear the difference, but with his personality I’d say it was probably just stubbornnesses. It was a wreck the whole song… and this was a well paid gig.

Sometimes restarting is just a lot less messy.

 

[fishdude101101]

Why do people think learning all the notes on the fretboard is a challenge. I've seen dozens of YouTube videos trying to so some secret way to learn it it. Thr only secret is that they repeat in the same order.

I guess some of us are more gifted with this side of things, myself included whereas some are more physically gifted with a better ear or chops. For myself it's ways been the physical limitations that get me.

 

[Harper]

I know that some players are self-obsessed, but this?

This you? You have to either be making these stories up or you are terrible at picking people to play with.

“You run into an a**hole in the morning, you ran into an a**hole. If you run into a**holes all day, you're the a**hole.” - Raylan Givens

 

[SubSpec]

Well, I'm sympathetic to both sides here. I'm basically that lady, have been writing music by ear for a couple decades and despite majoring in (and flunking out of) music in college, I still notate by string and fret. When I auditioned the department director strongly emphasized how difficult it would be with no foundational knowledge or prior formal education, but let me into the program based on my compositions and ear. He was obviously mistaken in giving me the chance, because as with every other time I have made efforts to learn theory I failed. Maybe one day it will click, it isn't for lack of effort, but there is a disconnect for me.

At the same time I would not have the audacity to think I could play in a band. I understand that type of collaboration requires being able to communicate effectively in the common language, something I can't do. So in that sense there might be arrogance on the part of these musicians.

Or it may be that she is not playing in a band and that this musician is writing the music and it is in fact her music and her band that you have chosen to join, or, you have otherwise chosen to join in a collaborative work with her where one of her major contributions is songwriting. It's hard to play a song that hasn't been written, there is no music without someone crafting it, regardless of their command of the language. Don't get me wrong, improvisation is a thing, but it's not the thing you hear on the radio.

 

[Harper]

Several famous guitarists can’t read music
Srevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Tommy Emmanuel

It’s funny when people use these examples. “Paul McCartney can’t read music and doesn’t know theory!” Well, you and I are not Paul McCartney….

 

[Neon Blues]

Yeah, I would have been out. My bands have been either tribute or Blues with older guys who all had excellent theory knowledge, I was usually the least educated.

My favourite is still the Nirvana Tribute band I auditioned for and when I turned up, I found out that it was just a drummer and had no guitarist either. We got into small argument when I insisted you can't rehearse Nirvana songs without a singer or guitarist.

 

[Jason Sypher]

Music is a language. She is saying “I don’t need to learn letters”! Fine. But we can’t talk.

 

[MegaSwing]

You don’t need to be that deep into theory to accumulate the knowledge to deal with other musicians. But it can’t be something that you’re making up. The language is the language. Period.

Still, every player has their own level of fluency. Swinging is an elusive, organic craft. That’s your groove.

 

[LBS-bass]

I don't know about y'all, but I've always preferred to play with people I could learn from; better musicians than I.

There's an inverse to that relationship, though. Implication says that someone is putting up with you when they are better than you are. And that's kind of what we're talking about here. Is this player bringing enough ability or potential to the table that it's worth being a bit of a mentor? Is it someone who can benefit from what you're talking about as a player? If it's just someone who's clueless, it never hurts to offer them a clue. But if it's someone who's not open to learning, there's no exchange of knowledge happening.

 

[dkelley]

It’s funny when people use these examples. “Paul McCartney can’t read music and doesn’t know theory!” Well, you and I are not Paul McCartney….

paul knew enough to create, in his head, a light opera, and record it's parts and dictate the rest to a transcriber and orchestral arranger who could help Paul understand the ranges of the instruments and what each can and cannot do, etc. He still knew exactly what he was playing and dictating to them, he knew the note names... which is the entire point here.

This thread isn't about reading/writing music. It's about understanding the (mostly)common language of music.... letters with sharps and flats and how they translate to the instrument you play.

 

[Neon Blues]

Wes Montgomery didn’t read, but he was fluent in the language.

I wish I knew as little about music as Wes.

 

[SteveCS]

but it's not OK to actively avoid learning things from a misguided sense of pride or "I'm better than you" or some other weird hangup that makes you defensive when you're confronted with your own deficits.

The most common (BS) excuse is that folks are afraid to learn stuff for fear of stifling creativity, originality and so on.

Sight reading and knowledge of music theory are related but one doesn't imply the other.
...
I struggle with sight reading. Not being able to read music doesn't imply you don't understand music theory.

True, but at the same time, reading (looking, understanding and maybe audiating) and sight-reading (playing/performing from a score at sight in real-time) are also very much not the same thing.

 

[Jason Sypher]

Thread gone astray. Reading and knowing the notes are two entirely different things. The apparent hubris of the OP’s subject is nothing more than insecure fronting. If she can play, nobody would care at all, in fact, this thread would be about an amazing musician who doesn’t even know the names of the notes but plays incredibly. There are many paths to becoming a musician, but for most, knowing the notes is the very beginning of a very long journey. A journey that has no shame, unless of course you argue you are ABOVE the journey, ABOVE music.

 

[mmon77]

I am (was?) one of those people the OP is talking about. I can listen to something, and just learn to play it. I don't need to know notes. You can play a cover song, and I can tell that you transposed it down a half-step so that your singer can sing it. It is a gift, and it can also be a crutch.

I find it hard to practice the things that most people have to learn to even be able to play an instrument. On the one hand, I don't absolutely need to know them. On the other, I learned that in order to be able to play with other people, you do need to learn notes, keys, chords names, etc. Because of the latter, I've made an effort to try and learn some music theory, where the notes are, the names of chords, etc.

Whether or not the person the Op is referencing wants to learn notes is their decision. It's not a reason to insult them or try and tear them down. In the end, yes, they will probably be limiting themself. Then again, with the technology we have these days, you can be a one-person band and be quite successful.

 

[Oldscoolfool]

Once saw a guy get shamed and kicked off of this website for starting this exact same conversation. His statement was so controversial it instantly infuriated members of the site, and they began arguing with him, even though his intention apparently wasn't to start an argument but a conversation, like someone has done here. But rather than having a problem with several people who began arguing with him, the moderators told him to take his argument somewhere else and he was banned for life - or so his account of what happened went.

It wasn't even that his post was off topic, he commented on a thread about learning where the notes are on the fretboard, and his comment was that some of the best guitarists he has ever played with were self taught and did not know theory.

His opinion isn't so outlandish that he deserved to be called a troll, in fact Metallica's bass player, Cliff Burton, was the only member of the band who new theory and he began teaching the other guys at the time they were recording Master of Puppets, their third album, by which time they had been touring worldwide for years.

Similarly, Flea went to UC to learn music theory after the Red Hot Chili Peppers had recorded something like 8 or 9 albums.

I always felt sorry for that guy and thought it was wrong, the way he was treated simply for expressing an unpopular point of view. I'm almost shocked to see the same discussion being allowed, with no one attacking the OP.