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Reading music and elitism

#301
onosson said:
I think that was me, although that's not exactly what I said - I said that I could find "A flat" more quickly than if someone said "A string, 11th fret". I was trying to make the point that, since I originally learned note names rather than fret positions, sightreading for bass or guitar is easier than Tab because I think in terms of notes and not frets. I also made the point that someone who learned frets and not notes might have the opposite experience.
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Actually it was St. James of Apopka. ;)

I was only saying certain terms and concepts are getting mixed in this thread. Knowing about keys and chord structure doesn't require reading.

Also, it's said learning to read music is easy. But readers here are offended if you don't recognize all the hard work they put into it. :confused:
 
#302
I can read music as I used to play trumpet, but for some reason it was so much harder and slower for me to pick up reading music on the bass vs. trumpet. I think it is because I still kind of look at the fret board when learning something and TAB makes more visual sense.

Secondarily, I don't like being locked into someone elses lines and it provides me creative freedom when I can just see where the chord changes are and play what feels good to me. I'm not a professional though, I just play with people.
 
#303
Inability to read will reduce the opportunities available to any aspiring musician. At some point, if you take music seriously and want to advance as a professional, you will encounter the requirement.

Anyone can fart around in the basement, or maybe even get a few gigs at the local watering hole, and not be able to read.

So, I say that being able to read is not a requirement to enjoy playing an instrument, but it is a requirement to use music as a vocation.
 
#305
smeet said:
Pino Palladino. So reading is obviously useless.
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And yet...Pino has taken lessons with American expat bassist Joe Hubbard. I'm not sure they worked on reading, but given that Joe is a student of Charlie Banacos and Jeff Berlin I bet they did.
Just re-read the BP in question. They are asking about doing away with the TAB to add another lesson or column. Not a bad idea, but if it puts the non-readers off of learning an Esperanza Spalding line or a piece of bass history like "Melissa" it's creating a problem via unintended consequence. So....I would weigh in on the side of keeping notation and TAB for BP.
 
#306
WJGreer said:
Inability to read will reduce the opportunities available to any aspiring musician. At some point, if you take music seriously and want to advance as a professional, you will encounter the requirement.

Anyone can fart around in the basement, or maybe even get a few gigs at the local watering hole, and not be able to read.

So, I say that being able to read is not a requirement to enjoy playing an instrument, but it is a requirement to use music as a vocation.
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So mccartney, townsend, stevie wonder, etc weren't able to use music as a vocation?
 
#307
heffe said:
I can read music as I used to play trumpet, but for some reason it was so much harder and slower for me to pick up reading music on the bass vs. trumpet...
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This gets me too. I played tuba in school but i feel I'm re-learning reading. Maybe it's the years dormant and alcohol lol. I still know note values and all that. Just the actual notes them selves elude me. Granted I don't spend as much time on it as I should. I would like to pursue it more though.
 
#309
"I really wish that I had learned how to read music," Townshend remarks. "As a composer I can't communicate properly with other writers, collaborators, and players. I can write charts, but I can't read them. I find it difficult, even to read stuff that I've written. If I had learned how to read music, I think I would feel very differently about life and my work"
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Invalid Link Removed
 
#312
WJGreer said:
The winning numbers to the Powerball drawing Saturday night were 9, 12, 20, 44, 59, and 23. You can play those this Wednesday if you want, but they have no better chance of winning again than any other set.
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But if you cannot read and write or understand numbers......how do you know if you've won???? After all the terms and conditions as written may disqualify you from entering if you cannot apply them to you.
 
#313
nutdog said:
Actually it was St. James of Apopka. ;)

I was only saying certain terms and concepts are getting mixed in this thread. Knowing about keys and chord structure doesn't require reading.

Also, it's said learning to read music is easy. But readers here are offended if you don't recognize all the hard work they put into it. :confused:
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No certainly those concepts are learnable by anyone. I find that knowledge of any aspect of music builds on other knowledge that a person already has, as in any field. Someone who knows those things will have an advantage when learning to read music, so these areas are not completely divorced from each other. Unless they start out reading atonal music ... ?

Learning to read music is indeed easy. Reading complex music is obviously more difficult - I think it's that which takes the hard work. Almost anyone could learn to read Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a short period of time, for example. That's why those kinds of songs are taught in the earliest stages.
 
#314
electracoyote said:
Oh come on you guys.

Reading music in standard notation is A skill. ONE skill. It is not the be-all end-all ultimate definition of musical ability or talent, it's a tool, a language.
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Reading TAB in real time is also a skill. How many readers here can do it? :hiding:
 
#316
Painting by numbers would be a skill then. But yeah, I guess there is skill involved in staying in the lines...I could never do it. Wouldn't confuse it with being an artist, though.

And yes, I can read tab because my counting skills go well past 22 ;)

Oh, and you guys aren't Pino Palladino :p
 
#318
To take it back to Jimmy M's original point-
Wasn't about TAB or not, was about an attitude towards people who could read and regarded it as an important aspect in their bass playing.
There is no universal right or wrong, only what is applicable to an individual and their own needs, ambitions and aspirations.
I happen to believe that reading is a valuable skill which can offer much to any musician- on the other hand I can't slap- never seen the need for it, never learned it, never practiced it - it's not important to me in the way I play my bass and get enjoyment from it.
In another environment, for example, if I aspired to earn a living from playing my bass, I would be seriously disadvantaged in that ambition by an inability to do this.
If your toolbox of skills satisfies your needs then you are in a good ( although some would suggest stagnant) place- if not, do something about it.
However, please don't slag off other peoples experiences and viewpoints with generalizations, which if I read it correctly, is the point of the original post from Jimmy M -I don't care if you read SN or TAB, play from chord charts, listen and learn or extract the notes from the ether of the universe as long as it sounds good- and more importantly, your audience doesnt care either- but dont slag off the way others do it or attempt to denigrate others views and experiences because they are not your own, from a sense of insecurity or inverted snobbery, or indeed any other reason, there lies a dangerous path....IMHO, YMMV, no animals were harmed in the making of this post, etc etc :-)
(Apologies for the long post/rant, but IMHO, this is all getting a bit off the point)
 

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