The Steel Guitar Forum

I was taught to play by tab first, then to read music,
and later learned to play by ear. Just lucky, I guess.

C. E. Jackson

All of your answers have given me a desire to use a simple beginning piano book, and try to learn to read music on the A6th tuning. I can sort of read on the piano, but never really gave the lap steel a shot.

My first instrument was piano, second flute and 3rd percussion, so i can read treble and bass clef well, alto clef w/ some practice. I can read/play single note lines standard notation on mandolin and bass guitar, i.e. instruments tuned in 4ths/5ths but basically not at all on 6 string guitar or PSG. Chords are tough on any string instrument, they're basically memorization.

But i think learning to read and learning theory/harmony are like learning any other skill, you just have to start your metronome slow, even ticking off half notes, and get a piece with clear recording or DVD/ video, then listen, read, play or something like that

I started on piano, by choice. I thought that gal on Lawrence Welk, Jo Ann Castle, who played all of that boogie and ragtime was the best thing I had ever heard.
I was 8, 1966. Parents sent me to a classic teacher, Had to learn scales, arpeggios and sight read. All of the theory really has helped alot going forward. I don't read very well anymore, the ear is much faster. When I gravitated towards guitar, all of the chord building, circle of fifths and other bits of theory made it easier to learn.
No regrets.

So Buddy might have got more gigs if he could read, but I don't feel that his career exactly failed as a result. No-one can do everything

Ian Rae wrote:So Buddy might have got more gigs if he could read, but I don't feel that his career exactly failed as a result. No-one can do everything

I've worked in pro situations where sight-reading is a prerequisite for getting the gig, like shows, theater, orchestral work, etc.

Likewise, the rock, folk, country and other styles of music have rarely if ever had any sheet music beyond a "cheat sheet" with chords or something, and that was not used live...much.

Some genres are still "by ear", as is most of the music of the world.

Still, I'm happy to know how to read and write staff notation.

Sheet music is tab for piano.

Ian Rae wrote:So Buddy might have got more gigs if he could read, but I don't feel that his career exactly failed as a result. No-one can do everything

Exactly. Buddy’s business was creating music on the spot in as few recorded takes as possible, like most of the great session players whose work we know and love. Sight reading is not a necessary skill for that approach.

Sheet music is tab for piano.

LOL

Sheet music is a universal language.
Erv

Erv Niehaus wrote:Sheet music is a universal language.
Erv

Your qualifier to the old cliche reminded me of a project I once thought up.

I have a book of Ragtime Piano pieces that I thought I would one day transcribe for guitar. This book is over two hundred pages. There must be a million notes in both clefs. If sheet music is the universal language, there is no hope for intelligent mass communication.

After about a month of trying to work out Maple Leaf, I quit and found an already existing (but disappointingly simple) guitar transcription.

There is definitely value in being able to read music, because the intricacies and subtleties of pieces like that are very difficult to learn by ear for lesser humans like me. And after a while, you can start hearing in your head what the notes are going to sound like. But I would much rather play than read, so I think I have to disagree your qualifier.

Erv Niehaus wrote:Sheet music is a universal language.
Erv

Before recording, sheet music was one of the best ways to try to preserve a musical piece so as to be performed later. Other than that, it's all up to a living tradition and human memory.

My guitar slinging buddy and I furnished the music for a wedding, just him and I.
We started out with three with another guy on bass.
But after a practice or two, he bowed out.
He only played by ear and couldn't pick up the chord changes.
Erv

Erv Niehaus wrote:Sheet music is a universal language.
Erv

Music is a universal language. Writing is one way to communicate it. Today, written lyrics with chord names are used much more than sheet music. But the sound of the music itself trumps all, now that we can record it. Musical sound is truly a universal language. You don't have to be a musician to understand it.

b0b wrote:

Erv Niehaus wrote:Sheet music is a universal language.
Erv

Music is a universal language. Writing is one way to communicate it. Today, written lyrics with chord names are used much more than sheet music. But the sound of the music itself trumps all, now that we can record it. Musical sound is truly a universal language. You don't have to be a musician to understand it.

Even though I love using staff notation in the right situations, what you say is so true.

Music is an ephemeral aural art. It only exists in live performance - and now, the audio or video performance which as you say, trumps all - but for centuries Western art music has reaped the benefits of a notation system that preserved music and allowed composers additional options when writing.

But as you say, notation on paper is no more a musical performance than a script of a play is the actual show.

"Musical sound is truly a universal language. You don't have to be a musician to understand it."

In one sense, I agree completely.

However, I've played music with enough non-Americans like Afghans, Greeks, Persians, Cantonese, etc. to know that music is not quite as universal as you assume, in that we may understand the music we grew up with but not necessarily the music of other cultures.

Finally, "understanding" music is not the same as emotionally enjoying it.

Most audiences enjoy music - I am not so sure about the "understanding" part!