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Reading music and elitism

#182
JimmyM said:
Two things:

1. Not sure where the idea of having a good ear and knowing how to read became mutually exclusive, but it definitely didn't come from readers. If anything, reading totally sharpened my already good ear skills, and other readers will tell you the same thing.

2. I'll repeat a paragraph I wrote to a guy who learned to read when he was a kid but never used it on a gig:

"It isn't all about sticking a sheet of music under your nose and being able to sight read it. It's about learning chord structure, it's about learning the names of the notes you're playing, it's also about understanding what's going on with music at a higher level than you had before, which I'm sure happened with you. If you never read another sheet of music again in your life, you benefitted from it."
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All true, which is why the best readers do not sound like they are reading!

I love to read and from time to time, I make a pretty good living doing it. I do respect the fact that a career in music is not for everyone..more power to the non-reading hobbyists and professionals! Good on ya!

But here's a thought: if fewer people read, then it's kind of like the old "job security" joke. More reading gigs for me and others like me!

So basically I don't give a fig if you read or not and how a reader/non reader feels about it is irrelevant to me. There will always be a demand for reading musicians.
 
#184
Gaius46 said:
I respectfully have to disagree about the distinction between hobbyist and professional musician. I'm a hobbyist insofar as I have a day job that pays the bills and my playing is mostly relegated to weekend bar gigs but I can read both treble and and bass clef and regularly - daily - exercise the skill. I also find a good deal of personal satisfaction in being able to sight read a piece of music - maybe I'm just weird. I also know several pianists, a number of solo guitar players and couple of violinists all of whom play for themselves or at most do the ocassional restaurant gig and all of whom read anywhere from adequately to extremely well.

I never understood what the controversy was about. Outside the relatively small world of guitar players and bassists who play pop/rock covers people who learn to play an instrument are pretty much expected to learn to read.
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I think I was misunderstood here. I simply meant I've never been handed TAB in a professional working situation. Lots of hobbyists, enthusiasts and part time players can (and do) read very well. I'm not practicing because I' m waiting on the rest of the band so we can leave for our "ahem" reading gig. ;)
 
#185
I spent years reading music, music major in college blah, blah, blah.

I use it a lot when directing choirs or this and that.....but I've never read a note playing bass. Never even seen a bass part in my life written for bass guitar.

It's always behind the scenes though. When we're playing a song I've never heard of before that the crowd yells out for, the guy who knows it can just yell out the chord and we can get through it. It's nice to plunk out a part on piano when I might have to.

My grandfather never read music and he played piano for the old silent movies downtown. Wouldn't say he wasn't a real musician......... just not as complete as he could have been.

I spent too much time with notes on a page I think, and not enough on improvisation, so I'm weak there.
 
#187
My reading skills are poor because I play 99% from charts and improvise most everything I play. But, I can read if I have the time and work through the selection. Tabs I guess are good for learning where to position your fret hand, but I can't "see" the "shape" of the song with tabs like I can with standard written music. Then again, if you look at examples of written music from hundreds of years ago, it is nothing like our standard form today. Look at how our own English language has evolved over hundreds of years. The medium changes, yet we still communicate. The same with how music is written, the medium changes, yet we still play music.
 
#188
puddin tame said:
The novice player?

What about the advanced player that quickly wants to learn a popular rock song? Or doesn't want to take 20 minutes teaching his guitarist a riff when he can just tab it out then play it for him? Or wants to jott down an idea before it is forgotten?

All possible with notation but IMO easier with tab
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I disagree. An advanced player would never have to use tabs. If he's advanced he doesn't need tabs to "quickly learn a popular rock song", all he needs in decent pair of ears and a lead sheet at the most. Tabs no...
 
#189
What's wrong with having an elite?

There is a downside to reading, which is attrition. Traditional instruments give kids an advantage by starting them at a much younger age, but still, a huge fraction simply give up. It's a steep learning curve because reading is pretty much useless until one can do it pretty well, and there are very few opportunities within the world of guitar oriented music to practice the skill under live fire.
 
#190
sevenyearsdown said:
Is it just me, or do you guys think tab is primarily out there for people playing rock/pop music?

The minute a started gravitating towards other genres (ie. classical, jazz, studying), tab was no longer available.
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It's more than that; not only is it almost exclusively "for people playing rock/pop music", but it's also almost exclusively for people playing other people's rock/pop music that's already been recorded.

Tabulature is more a form of transcription than of idea communication. You almost never hear of a composer handing out tabs to a brand new, never-before-heard, never-previously-recorded piece of music...because tabs don't communicate the sort of information required to transform a page full of written characters into a musical performance. The missing piece in tabs is the Goal, the Platonic Ideal, the Original Performance...iow, a recording...which you need to have heard in advance before being able to fully make use of the info contained in the tabs.
 
#191
Roy Vogt said:
I think I was misunderstood here. I simply meant I've never been handed TAB in a professional working situation. Lots of hobbyists, enthusiasts and part time players can (and do) read very well. I'm not practicing because I' m waiting on the rest of the band so we can leave for our "ahem" reading gig. ;)
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Yep I misunderstood. Apologies.

Have a good *reading* gig.
 
#192
JimmyM said:
Why can't you just write the notes out, then let the player decide how he or she's going to play it?

Writing out certain things that are unique to the instrument are nothing new in notation. Violins always have bowing instructions along with the notes, we as bass players might get a little instruction from time to time as well. I've seem "T" and "P" indicating a slap part, or a wiggly line to indicate a heavy vibrato, or things like that. I suspect it's the same in steel guitar world as well. I'm sure they have a way of writing out notation that can instruct them exactly what to do with the pedals and the bar. And I'm sure most good pedal steel players don't need the music telling them where to bar or what pedals to push, either...when I give someone a sheet of music, I figure they know how to play their instrument already ;)
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I play pedal steel. I can read music. I'm one of the few. You can put the notes in front of me and I'll figure out how to play them. However, if you want it to sound like pedal steel, (especially E9), the stuff that can't be notated comes into play. Any arranger who knows anything at all about pedal steel will confirm what I'm saying. Tab is invaluable for instructional purposes on this instrument.
 
#194
JimmyM said:
Why can't you just write the notes out, then let the player decide how he or she's going to play it?

Writing out certain things that are unique to the instrument are nothing new in notation. Violins always have bowing instructions along with the notes, we as bass players might get a little instruction from time to time as well. I've seem "T" and "P" indicating a slap part, or a wiggly line to indicate a heavy vibrato, or things like that. I suspect it's the same in steel guitar world as well. I'm sure they have a way of writing out notation that can instruct them exactly what to do with the pedals and the bar. And I'm sure most good pedal steel players don't need the music telling them where to bar or what pedals to push, either...when I give someone a sheet of music, I figure they know how to play their instrument already ;)
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Bassists also get that same notation, up bow, down bow, play by striking the stick on the string as opposed to the hair, slides, harmonics, etc.
 
#195
OK, I was just searching for the effects used by the sax player in Pink Floyd and ran across a Link Removed.

This is possibly the worst idea ever.
Who could possibly get the idea of the sax solo from Money from this:

Money - Pink Floyd

Difficulty: Medium
Alto sax:

(2:03)
eb…
B C# B Ab Ab Ab, Ab
ab f# eb f# ab ab
Ab F# Ab Ab~
eb… (palm key) f# ab f# ab, ab f# eb B~ B~
Ab F# Ab
F# Ab, Ab, B C#

B eb f# ab~~~ ab/f#…

c# b ab f#, ab f# eb, C# B Ab, C# B Ab F# Ab
ab~ f# eb, f#~ eb C#, eb~ C# B, Ab
c#.. b ab b ab~ ab/f#
eb…~~~
ab.. ab.. f# ab. b ab. f#
ab.. ab.. f# ab f# eb, C# B F#, Ab.. B
Ab, Ab, Ab, Ab
Ab B, C# eb, f# f#, ab ab, f# ab
eb…~~~ (palm key)
B C#.. e.. f#.. ab.. b.. ab…
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To any serious musician, this would get you laughed out the door if you handed this to a sax player. It is unintelligible gibberish. I know this solo inside out and have been performing it for years. This in no way resembles ... anything really.:scowl:

While tab for bass isn't quite as ridiculous, there is so much information missing from tab as to make it a joke as a performing tool. For study purposes it is useful and I can appreciate what it brings to the table. However, as a working musician, I'd decline any gig where they were giving me tab to play from.:spit:
 
#196
That sax tab is amazing! Speechless!
I'm at soundcheck for my gig. We're the incidental band for the Julep fundraiser in Louisville. 90 minutes before Rodney Atkins. Looks like about 700 people at The Galt House.Home by midnight and I'm probably getting paid what Rodney's bassist is getting for the date.
Yep, another lame reading gig.....;)
 
#198
I find reading music to be convenient when playing sax, but I don't want to take the time to learn it all over again for bass. Different key and different names for the written notes, and on a bass each note has several positions. I'm doing fine using my ears, or a tab once in a (long) while if a song is really long or the mix too bad for me to hear the bassline.
 
#199
I've been playing stringed instruments for over 30 years. Having multiple places where notes occur isn't a limitation of standard notation. It illustrates how weak the player is more than anything. If you know your instrument, and where the notes are, reading is SO much easier - it's almost like cheating! But you have to work it out to make it this easy. Invest now, get the profits later. Oh wait a minute that sounds like something political, guess it only works if you are one of the elite.
 
#200
carl h. said:
If you know your instrument, and where the notes are, reading is SO much easier - it's almost like cheating!
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I tried to make that point earlier. If you learn note names rather than fret positions, then notation is easy and tab is hard.

I still have to stop and think if someone says "A string 11th fret", but "A flat" is dead simple, also available to me in different places and octaves!
 

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