How many of us can read music?

[Jack the Pearl]

I don't see much discussion of this so I suspect, without other evidence, that it's not a commonplace among us. I've taken lessons from two different professional guitarists that are also trained teachers. Both have told me that if I want to learn to read TAB they'll refer me to someone else.

I'm learning a piece at the moment that's actually one part of a composition written for 4 guitars. I got the bass part, although it's not played on a bass. So now I know the difficulty of "reading" a part consisting of notes all written below the standard scale lines. They look strangely unfamiliar and I've had to annotate the sheets to keep me on track.

Is this difficult for everyone? Is using annotations cheating? My wife, a pianist, tells me that this is difficult for her and that she doesn't regard annotations as cheating.

So what do you folks think?

[RP]

There's an oft repeated exchange between two guitar players:

Player 1: Can you read music?

Player 2: Yeh, but not enough to hurt my playing...

[rick-slo]

Treble clef or bass clef or both? Like most things it does get less troublesome with practice. Do have to keep at it or memory of what you learned slips.

[birdsong]

Define “read” ……

[TBman]

I can sort of read treble. I can name the notes, find them on the guitar pretty quickly (some instantly), but I can't "read music" in the way a musician does (play it as they sight read it for the first time)

[bkepler]

As a music teacher, and music reader, annotations are very helpful. I use them with my students regularly. When they get their supply list at the beginning of the year they always make such a big deal over “why is there a pencil on the list??” We mark a lot of things in the music. The thing I try to drive home is that these markings are helpful hints, not transcribing what’s already there. I’ve found that there’s a correlation between amount of extra stuff written and how much they ignore rhythmic value or rests (which they rarely mark).

There’s this idea that tablature was invented by guitarists who didn’t want to learn how to read “real music”. In reality, they’re notation systems that have existed simultaneously for a very long time. I use both and like them for different reasons. I think tablature is very good at breaking down intricate ideas into the mechanics of how it works on the instrument. I don’t find it leads to much fluency or sight reading ability. It’s also pretty instrument specific. If you’re playing with other instruments, the common language of staff notation really helps.

And yes, ledger lines can be a drag. Reading flute music usually results in a good deal of annotation for me.

[Chipotle]

Yes, I can read (and write) music, but "reading music" isn't necessarily synonymous with "being a good sight reader". Like all skills, there is a continuum. And even people who are very fluent at reading normal text still like to read something over before having to perform it, rather than reciting it "cold". They may even mark up the text as well to help.

I would have been in big trouble if I'd forgotten to bring a pencil to choir practice back in the day. Whether to help me with spots I had trouble or remind myself of the director's instructions, it was a critical tool to have.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Jack the Pearl

...I've taken lessons from two different professional guitarists that are also trained teachers. Both have told me that if I want to learn to read TAB they'll refer me to someone else...

So what do you folks think?

I agree 100%, and when I was teaching privately I used to do precisely the same for several reasons:

• In practice it's no harder to actually read standard notation than tab - and as stated above, there's always the option of annotation for difficult fingerings;
• Standard notation uses, in addition to the notes themselves, markings for tempo, dynamics, and interpretation which allow you to play a piece as the composer intended without an audio guideline;
• If you're going to function in a polyglot society you need a common language, and for musicians who play different instruments that language is standard notation: it's not all about "guitar," and FYI orchestral-string/woodwind/brass/keyboard/percussion players don't "do tab";
• If you think you might want to compose/arrange on a semi-pro/professional level, you'll need to be proficient in reading/writing standard notation - time is money in the recording studio, and it saves a heluva lot of both if you can walk in with pre-written part sheets for the supporting players to peruse and practice while you're setting up and getting your own levels...
• Quite frankly that request always sent up a red flag, that this person wasn't/isn't serious about their musical pursuits: bottom line here is that if you sign up for lessons I promise not to waste your time - but I have every right to expect the same in return...

[difalkner]

I sing in choir and ensembles at church and can hit a note if you point out which you want me to sing, but I have no idea what that note is. I also play guitar in our Praise Band and I play chords and have a chord sheet on my iPad but I don't do tab. I understand tab and can figure it out slowly but it's cumbersome to me so I don't bother.

I can sight read chords.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Jack the Pearl

Is this difficult for everyone? Is using annotations cheating? My wife, a pianist, tells me that this is difficult for her and that she doesn't regard annotations as cheating.... So what do you folks think?

Not sure what you mean by "annotations," but reading music is nasty. I've played keyboards for 60+ years. I've had some lessons. I know how to read, but never got anywhere close to sight-reading. I mainly play by ear, both keys and guitars. I might look up the chords online for a more complicated piece. I don't do tabs.

[rllink]

I guess I can read music. I learned to play the tonette in fourth grade. Every Good Boy Does Fine for the lines FACE for the spaces, Quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, I know all them and the rests. I mean, reading music at that level takes a fourth grade intelligence. But I don't use it much in my guitar playing. I don't sight read, not because I can't, but that's not how I play music. But if I see a piece of sheet music I know what it is.

[schmalex]

I can sightread both hands on piano pieces at maybe 25% of tempo for most pieces.

I’m newer at guitar though, and have trouble maintaining finger accuracy while looking at sheet music. Maybe one day…

[BluesKing777]

As I have related other places, an acoustic guitar was given to me when I about 8 years old, right place, right time - Dad and I were at his manager's house for dinner and his wife had just bought a new acoustic....and I was was staring with mouth open as she played folky sort of things...and she gave me her old acoustic!

Wahoo! But then...what do I do with this thing? No idea!

And the parents openly discouraged me from being a guitar player but after a relentless campaign for guitar lessons, I was sent to a class lesson arrangement at a music school. Hooray!

And we learned the hard way, old school rap on the knuckles learn the music notes on paper, in your head before transferring to the guitar board......phew!

Now after brushing up regularly over the years, I thank the teacher mentally daily as I sight read my huge amount of guitar oriented music books - the ones in the early days were real stinkers written by a sax player or such but these days, the guitar books are sensational. No excuse really, is there? Arrangements with music, Guitar Tab, famous songs and tunes and...everything under the sun!

And I keep buying the books, prefer them to online stuff - finish with it, put it in the bookshelf! Grab that one another time.....no searching online ( I do database searching as part of my job and don't really want to look at a computer any more than I have to - forum except! .....)


BluesKing777.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Jack the Pearl

…Is this difficult for everyone? Is using annotations cheating? My wife, a pianist, tells me that this is difficult for her and that she doesn't regard annotations as cheating.

So what do you folks think?

Hi JtP…
I have a college degree in music, and learned to read music when I was 8 yrs old. I'm also versed in chord charts, Nashville numbering, Solfege (both fixed Do and moving Do), and figured bass.

I taught fingerstyle (intermediate and advanced) and my experience with guitarists is most classically trained guitarists read, and in fact have problems learning to improvise spontaneously, and figure out musical 'things' without a score. They take pride in their ability to read scores.

Jazz players are split between those who read and those who don't. There are some really proficient readers in the Jazz community who also improvise quite easily and freely.

And non-classical players (folk, country, rock, metal etc) mostly do not know how to read music. And they are much more likely to be proficient at improvising.

I don't think in terms of keys or chord charts, but much more in alphanumeric expressions of chords and intervals. I can read, but when I'm playing on a Worship Team they are just going to send song charts with chords above lyrics.

A great barrier to players who know how to read music, and want to learn to play popular music is the lack of scores. Popular music comes and goes so quickly, and scores tend to be published in 'original' keys…which are often nearly impossible to adapt quickly to guitar.

Historically, there have been many types of notation.

Notation was critically necessary before we had personal recording devices for the purpose of sharing and reproducing music. No radio, no phonographs, just the local musicians playing at the pub, or the city orchestra performing concerts, or the church organist.

And in the late 1800s when John Philip Sousa was traveling, if you went to a Sousa concert the only way to re-live it was to buy a piano score (or guitar, or fiddle, etc). And they sold scores at concerts. Note reading was a big deal.

When I had a recording studio, a family came to me with phonograph records of their Uncles and Aunts and Grandfather playing popular living room music on fiddle, guitar and piano while singing (from the 1920s). I devised a way to sync it to an adjustable phonograph player to restore it to concert pitch and transferred these to CD.

They still value and distribute them to family members a couple decades later.

[Mandobart]

I grew up learning classical violin. I'm still a very fluent sight reader on violin and mandolin (treble clef). Around 8th grade I started playing electric bass guitar and learned to read bass clef for bass guitar, but not as fluently as I can read treble clef on violin/mandolin. At the same time I started learning bluegrass fiddle the old school oral/aural way - nothing written down.

In 9th grade I taught myself 6 string guitar using chord sheets/songbooks and picking out songs by ear. Many years later I learned to correlate frets on the guitar to notes in the bass and treble clefs, but I'm still not as good at sightreading on guitar as I am on other instruments. I do find it more difficult sight reading when there are multiple ledger lines above or below the staff lines.

The majority of the songs I learn are by ear now, then chord charts, then notation. I've never pursued learning tab for any instrument (yet).

These are all useful tools. It's never a waste of time or effort IMO to learn to use a new tool.