Self Taught: Yea or Nay

[Knavery]

I voted for "I'll Pass" because nobody is really self-taught unless they live in a vacuum. Therefore, anyone who claims to be self taught must be some kind of egomaniac, and I don't want to hear what they have to say musically.

I'm pretty sure that's not what the OP meant. He meant learning on his own via books, internet, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume he didn't mean in a vacuum--just no teacher.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

There are amazing players who are self taught, and there are awful ones. There are amazing players who are classically trained and there are awful ones. This is NOT the way to judge a musician! But before hearing a player, if you hear the words "self taught," in that instinctual gut-check part of yourself, do your expectations go up or down.

Definitely explain your choice if you want, but lets avoid the lists of names if at all possible. I doubt there is a player alive who would say "all self taught players are good/bad" or "all trained players are good/bad." The examples either way sort of prove jack, and I'm wondering what your gut tells you.

I've been playing bass for about 20 years. I've never had a lesson, I've never read anything about music, I know nothing more than major and minor scales (and not by numbers or notes), I've progressed very slowly throughout the years, just learned how to pluck with my fingers and use my pinky over the last year, and anyone who's ever seen me play, or heard me on a recording thinks I'm the freaking man! I can play. I play. Do I know what I'm doing? Yes. Do I know why it sounds good? Hell no. But, it does none the less. I've been playing long enough to know what, where, and how. The why, is what gets me. Not the feel. Not the sound. I play bass. But I dont, for the life of me, "know how to play" bass. Music does just come naturally for me. A lot of things do actually. Ive never had to work at it. I just do it. But, when told numbers, and such relating to music as a study, I just pretend I'm listening and say alright got it. I pick it up almost instantly most of the time. Or, I just drop a line off the top of my head and let them take it. I can do anything on my bass. Once again, I dont know how to do anything though. I just do it.

Self taught at its finest. Could I benefit from lessons? Yup. Anybody could. Even the teachers. Do I need them? Nope. Does anybody? Not really. You just need a desire, a little coordination, and a lot of time. I have thought about getting lessons quite a few times, but I'm always on the, "I don't want to pay for it" side of the fence.

Okay, I'm done now. I'm gonna go beat my solid bodied wooden lover for a while.

 

[ObsessiveArcher]

I voted Self Taught because, I essentially am, at least on bass.
I was taught music theory and how to play a saxophone and barisax in middle/high school.
But I learned how to play the bass by myself.

 

[klejst]

I was self-taught.

 

[Humbled]

Did I attend a Conservatory? No.

Do I have a lot of teachers? Yes.

Did any of them get paid? ...Two. ...Six if you include Public School educators.

Do I care about credentials? ...Not when it comes to musicians.
.

 

[PWRL]

I'm primarily self-taught, although in the last few years, I've checked out some random stuff on YouTube that have helped me out.

 

[Nev375]

Ok, so I clearly failed to describe what I'm asking. What I want is your blind date thoughts. If a friend is setting you up on a blind date and says "They're X, Y, Z, oh and they're a golfer [or insert random hobby]" No sane person then stomps out of the room refusing to go on the date, but in that microsecond after you hear "golfer," a picture forms, not complexly, not well thought out, but there's an instant where those words process instinctually before your brain gets to take over and say "obviously that doesn't matter to understanding who this person is."

Not everyone thinks like this. I don't get "gut feelings" or "instincts". When I hear "self-taught" it is immediately disregarded as irrelevant. You might as well be asking how people feel about musicians with blue eyes. I don't form any images and don't correlate it to other self taught musicians I know.

Also your poll is invalid and does not conform to TB customs. You are supposed to put a carrots option.

 

[Tnavis]

I've learned that musicians who lead with "i'm self taught!" tend to be more arrogant, regardless of whether or not they are talented.

I mean, it's certainly possible that there exist people who are completely self-taught; but while I myself have taken only a handful of official bass lessons in my life, I would never say I was self-taught. I learned from every song I listened to, every bassist I've seen live, and for the matter, every other musician I've listened to my entire life, and I continue to be taught by others every single day.

 

[stringtapper]

False dichotomy. Some of us are both.

 

[BarfanyShart]

1970: "Isn't the best teacher, like, life, man?"
2020: "Isn't the best teacher, like, Youtube, Bruh?"

 

[Real Soon]

It's an easy thing to lay prejudices along with.

Self-taught: undisciplined, only good at what they like playing, defensive, unwilling to learn from textbooks

Trained: overly reliant on stylistic rules, inflexible, self-aggrandizing, gets hung up on theory


Having taken lessons on other instruments, but then being self-taught on bass, allows me to comfortably be the worst of both sides

 

[Blaze Barlow]

There are amazing players who are self taught, and there are awful ones. There are amazing players who are classically trained and there are awful ones. This is NOT the way to judge a musician! But before hearing a player, if you hear the words "self taught," in that instinctual gut-check part of yourself, do your expectations go up or down.

Definitely explain your choice if you want, but lets avoid the lists of names if at all possible. I doubt there is a player alive who would say "all self taught players are good/bad" or "all trained players are good/bad." The examples either way sort of prove jack, and I'm wondering what your gut tells you.

self taught or trained doesnt make any difference to me..what my ears enjoy hearing is what I look for...and I like melodic playing up and down the neck...one of my all time favorites is Gary Thain on the Uriah Heep albums..especially the album "the magicians birthday"..I never tire of his smooth style and always moving outside the box.........and I also like Chris Squire..his sound on so many albums is unforgetable.."close to the edge" is my favorite of his..then there is Tommy Shannon from Stevie Ray Vaughn...his groove is planted and ever present..the album "couldnt stand the weather" comes to mind..buy and enjoy what your ears like..life is too short..

 

[Ric5]

There are amazing players who are self taught, and there are awful ones. There are amazing players who are classically trained and there are awful ones. This is NOT the way to judge a musician! But before hearing a player, if you hear the words "self taught," in that instinctual gut-check part of yourself, do your expectations go up or down.

Definitely explain your choice if you want, but lets avoid the lists of names if at all possible. I doubt there is a player alive who would say "all self taught players are good/bad" or "all trained players are good/bad." The examples either way sort of prove jack, and I'm wondering what your gut tells you.

I had some lessons and I also taught myself …

You should lean how to read music, and know some theory, but most bass players don't need to speed read.

Also get an acoustic guitar and a keyboard and learn to play chords. Good basslines are sometimes based on chord notes.

 

[scottfeldstein]

Without having read a single response before posting my own, I consider myself self-taught. I did have lessons when I was 15. I don't recall that I learned much from them. I really learned how to play by listening to my favorite records and lifting the needle to hear a passage over and over and over again until I could figure it out. It was Geddy. It was Geezer. It was John Paul Jones and John Entwistle. It was Prince and Sting.

After a while I figured out the standard conventions, the common patterns. I learned to hear them right away and my ability to learn a piece of popular music went from days to minutes. I trained my ears. I trained my hands and my brain.

I'm not a technical player. I use patterns and riffs that I know and like. If there's anything good about what I'm doing I hope it's that I have good taste. I know when to play that riff and when not to. I know when to rest and when to let it rip.

 

[Splash7]

Yea! Wait......what was the question?

 

[wes stephenson]

There are amazing players who are self taught, and there are awful ones. There are amazing players who are classically trained and there are awful ones. This is NOT the way to judge a musician! But before hearing a player, if you hear the words "self taught," in that instinctual gut-check part of yourself, do your expectations go up or down.

Definitely explain your choice if you want, but lets avoid the lists of names if at all possible. I doubt there is a player alive who would say "all self taught players are good/bad" or "all trained players are good/bad." The examples either way sort of prove jack, and I'm wondering what your gut tells you.

My big thing is just don’t suck. I don’t care how you get to the point that you don’t suck just as long as you get there.

 

[bondibox]

I'd say there's insufficient information. At the least I'd need to know how long they've been playing. If it's less than a year, then self taught is a huge red flag. If it's 5 years or more, then respect.

 

[Sav'nBass]

My ears make the assessment ... It does not matter how a musician was taught... What matters is how well they learned and applied what they learned. A good player is a good player ... Self taught to me does not mean poorly taught it just means that you never had formal lessons. The closest I ever came to a formal lesson was Scott's Bass Lessons... Does that make me self taught? The term is deceptive and too broad to define outside of hearing a musician play ... It is like the guy who says he doesn't know music theory but if you tell him to play in A minor and he can .. he knows some theory...

 

[TrevorR]

No, I wasn't asking anything even sort of like that. In fact there was no "point," I was asking what your gut says at the words self taught. Obviously logically it's not a distinction that matters once you hear the musician, which is why I was avoiding the lists of names. Pino Palladino and Danny Elfman aren't related at all to what I was asking, unless they inform that .1 second instinctual feeling you get when you hear the phrase. Just like the gut feeling humans get with every phrase. We process faster than we think.

Well you needed a third option which I suspect the vast majority would tick... “My gut doesn’t make a judgement at this stage.”

 

[glocke1]

Self taught works brilliantly if you have an inherent musical gift. Everyone else needs more traditional teaching. However, even the most brilliant self-taught players will benefit from some study of music fundamentals and basic theory and notation, even if it's study they do on their own.

This saves me a lot of typing..Agree 100%.

I know a couple of people that are self taught. They play in bands, and they play out but are largely limited to what they can play. They aren't bad players, they are just limited to what they can do.

A few have songs that they wrote, but since they lack music theory knowledge, they are largely unable to communicate either verbally or in written form how their tunes go, instead it is a lot of them playing something and wanting others to figure out what they are doing.

Common theme(s) to a lot of the "self-taught" players I've run into is pride in largely being ignorant to music theory and also disparaging folks who have a background in theory or who are studying.

One episode that stands out to me is a singer in one band stating that she didn't know what is meant by a chord being "minor". Willfull ignorance. I just don't get it.