I found the original posters reflections thought provoking.
I should explain that I usually work as Musical Director / Producer so have to engage musicians of varying competence in a variety of scenarios.
I have been tremendously fortunate to work with some extremely good musicians over the years whose playing and recordings everyone will be very familiar with.
The thing is, about half of the best musicians I have ever worked with couldn’t barely read a note of music and the other half could read very well indeed. The point being you have to engage your musicians and their abilities for the given situation, and indeed, the musical context involved.
Furthermore, I take the view that particular musicians excel at specific styles of music. That is not to suggest they are unable to perform in other styles well, as they surely can. The salient point is, that some musicians are totally brilliant, outstanding, in a particular musical style. Therefore, choose horses for courses, is my approach.
Lest anyone think that this approach could only be good in an absolutely idealistic, dream situation where one can pick whomever they want. I can categorically state that it actually works well in any scenario, at any level, professional and amateur alike. It’s simply a matter of fitting a round peg into a round hole, to use a popular analogy and good, plain, common sense.
A practical example that comes to mind would be when Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan (British guitar players) were recording session musicians, many, many, years ago.
Big Jim could actually read quite well, (after a distressingly catastrophic incident during a Film Call, where in spite of his excellent reputation he had been inappropriately engaged by a fixer, to play fully Notated Classical Guitar, written by an eminent Movie Composer, accompanied by a full Orchestra.
It was this difficult to get over incident, that compelled him to learn to read, with the kindly encouragement and assistance of a brother musician at the time.
Little Jim on the other hand was utterly useless at reading musical notation, with no inclination whatever to even try, but upon hearing the initial run through of the music, his creative talent got into gear, and he instinctively knew in his head what the music required, and more to the point, precisely what he was going to do. Chord Sheets gave sufficient and needed guidance to keep him on track..
Big Jim excelled at Standards, Pop, Rock and Roll and Country and Western, whilst Little Jim excelled at Standards, Pop, Blues and Heavy Rock, with a tremendous feel for those latter, particular styles.
As they worked together a very great deal of the time. Depending on the musical style of the recording or whether reading was actually required, one would take the lead and the other rhythm, or visa versa. They would regularly change around, without ego, depending on what either of them were best at. It worked well.
Musical Directors and Producers would regularly engage them together as a team, giving their production the best of all worlds available, for all the different tracks involved. Please forgive this real world practical explanation, involving Guitarists, but I simply don’t know of a better illustration to make this highly relevant point, than to explain it in this way.
I do believe it to be highly beneficial for every musician to learn to read at least to some extent, most especially if they are playing in a Musical Theatre situation.
But often on recordings, musicians are engaged by reputation for their experience and the musical chops they bring to a production. Along with their creative musical imagination, which truly can make all the difference in the world and the essential difference between a hit recording and one that goes absolutely nowhere.
Finally, I should explain that although I Arrange and Orchestrate, I studied Bass years ago under Carol, realising at the time how interesting and essential the Bass had become to modern styles of Musical recordings, moving far beyond walking patterns and basic musical foundations for other instruments to build over.
So, if I write a Musical Score, with genuine humility, I like to believe the Bass part will be written very much as a good Bassist would approach it and be perfectly notated, exactly as it should ideally be played. Sometimes the patterns are intrinsically tied to tightly interact with other musical sections parts, Horns for instance. Such Bass parts are required to be played as written, or the Arrangement wouldn’t work properly.
That situation apart, if the Bassist plays the part precisely as written that’s fine. However, I have learnt through hard won experience to develop the habit of saying to whomever I work with, “if you play this part as written its fine, but you may well feel you can better it, using your specialist knowledge, experience and creativity.
So, I give you your head, you have the freedom to develop the part the way you feel it should go. Hopefully you will prove to be a better player than I am an Arranger, and if you do, no-one will be happier than me, and I’ll ensure you’ll get the album credit for what you deliver.”
I really hope something here is encouragement and help, but the last paragraph for me, represents the very best approach to take in creative recording situations; in all but the times where the Bass part is written to dynamically interact with other musical parts in a Score.
