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Read or ear ? What do you prefer ?

It's not an "or" situation but if I had to pick one it would be ear. Reading can be a crutch. I've done my share of reading gigs where I would pull up some of the charts long after they really should've been committed to memory. You have to ween yourself off of those charts.
 
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I'm pretty good at playing by ear but I wish I was adept at reading. It would be so much easier learning new songs or subbing with sheet music only.
Tabs alone don't count because more times than not they are incorrect unless they are on the same page as a music sheet with treble and bass clef and the tab.
 
Since I have no formal training whatsoever and can't read a note of music, it's all by ear for me. It's worked for me for many years and I've just never bothered to learn. The only potential downside is that sometimes what I think I'm hearing isn't really what's happening so often I don't play things EXACTLY how they were or are played by the original composers. This bothers some people. I'm not a purist so you get MY rendition most of the time, but my band mates never complain because it's not so drastic that the song becomes unrecognizable. If someone says "that's not what so and so does" or "that's not how it was played originally" I usually tell them to stay home next time and listen to the album or go see the actual band and even then often times they don't even play their own stuff "right" or the same way twice. Heck, I never play a song the same way twice anyway.
 
i played trumpet/keys / bass ... back in the day ... i used a 'C' trumpet ... since i was usually to drunk to transpose while playing keys/trumpet at the same time .. !!

reading is important ... but the shock of going from a Classically trained pianist , ... into Jazz studies was quite a shock .. ! then i had a greater appreciation for ' playing by ear ' ...

i think we should know/use Both .. !
I'm confused . C trumpet ? Trumpet is normally a Bb instrument like tenor sax or treble clef trombone or baritone horn . A "C" instrument refers to an instrument like flute which is non-transposive whereas a C is a C . On trumpet a C is actually a Bb .
 
I'm confused . C trumpet ? Trumpet is normally a Bb instrument like tenor sax or treble clef trombone or baritone horn . A "C" instrument refers to an instrument like flute which is non-transposive whereas a C is a C . On trumpet a C is actually a Bb .
Trumpets come in several different keys. Bb is the most common, but there are also trumpets in C, Eb, D, F, G, A, and even pocket trumpets and bass trumpets in Bb. While the Bb trumpet is the most common, the C trumpet is the second most common and is used mainly in orchestral settings.
 
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Trumpets come in several different keys. Bb is the most common, but there are also trumpets in C, Eb, D, F, G, A, and even pocket trumpets and bass trumpets in Bb. While the Bb trumpet is the most common, the C trumpet is the second most common and is used mainly in orchestral settings.
You are correct . Though , I've written a couple of horn concertos and I always write the trumpet as a Bb instrument . But , that's because that is what I'm used to .
 
If I'm emulating or copying a cover tune, it will be by sight and ear. In most cases the song really moves me and I get into the feel and the groove of the melody and changes. And if there are tricky parts that evade me, I turn to the tab for note for note solutions. But for composition and creating my own bass lines, it's all by ear and trial and error to find something that fits well.
 
At this age (65) I'm more that sure that neither is more important than the other. I would say if talking to someone under the age of 22 or thereabouts, learn both as well as you can, you never know what doors will open. (chance favors the prepared mind).
However, after playing and getting gigs for 10 years or so if you find that one way is working, clearly it will be very difficult to add the other skill (although still a good idea).
 
When I get handed a 30 song setlist that I don't know, with a week till the first rehearsal, it's a must. It takes me an hour to learn and memorize a song by ear—I can transcribe it in 15 minutes, then read it later.

And it takes yours truly like 10hrs to accomplish such a thing, (of course maybe if I didn't obsess over all the little nuances, I dunno). But in any case I'm still tabbing, and as I go along I'm like yeah, ya know if I would just take the time and learn to read and transcribe in standard notation, when I come back to this after not practicing...
 
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And it takes yours truly like 10hrs to accomplish such a thing.
Yeah, but our experiences are vastly different. I'm a product of public school band programs, where you start reading right away. I also have a Music Education degree, and am an experienced arranger.

And I didn't start that fast. I got better and quicker over time. It wasn't till my 30's I could do it in 15 minutes.

Trust me, if you'd been reading since you were 10, and transcribing since high school, and you were in your 50's, you could do it in 15-30 minutes, too.
 
Yeah, but our experiences are vastly different. I'm a product of public school band programs, where you start reading right away. I also have a Music Education degree, and am an experienced arranger.

And I didn't start that fast. I got better and quicker over time. It wasn't till my 30's I could do it in 15 minutes.

Trust me, if you'd been reading since you were 10, and transcribing since high school, and you were in your 50's, you could do it in 15-30 minutes, too.

Thanks dream, yeah I'm not as experienced, not close and I know there ain't no "magic pill". I think many of us loose sight(or just don't know) what it really takes to play at higher levels. And sometimes I'm looking for shortcuts in a compressed 1-1.5hr a night practice, and there are little voices telling me..c'mon man you got limited time here, learn this stuff, hurry, nah doesn't work that way, need to focus that's all.
 
Pick ups must have been hidden by an arm, they are still there, although the neck has warped out beyond normal truss or heat treatment after 40 years, not sure if its worth fixing.

Denny might be able to do something with it.

I bought Barry Regula's old SD Curlee over 30 years ago, just to have something to bang around on and eventually thought about having it fixed- it was bowed, twisted and crooked across the width, so it was essentially useless. Denny told me about Birdsong Guitars, in Texas, so I called. They had begun making Curlee basses with several improvements and repairing/refurbing it turned out to be more than it's worth, so I let it go until about a year later, when I received an e-mail to say that he had gotten the motherlode of original SD Curlee parts and if I was interested in a neck, he has some. I'm not done with it, but it's definitely turning into a nice player. Installed a new Hipshot bridge (removed the Badass II, which wasn't right for it, anyway) and refinished it. I'm adding a block of bronze under the backside of the bridge (toward the strap button) to make it hang correctly, too (they all had terrible balance). Bad photo, but it's a huge improvement over its condition when I got it.
 

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Well, my reading i horrible.

I need to count my way through a sheet note for note with my index finger to be able to figure out what to play, so naturally I would say ear.

But as I only ever played original music and mostly have been free to write my own parts for my instrument it has never really been a problem to me.

Now I do also compose, but here I just use a midi grid with a piano roll on the side using graphical bars for plotting in the notes, their length and individual volume, and in case I really would need to get it down on standard notation it is as easy as pushing a button and the program translate the midi grid and the bars I made to notes on a sheet ready to print out.