"Musicians who cannot read music play better than those that can"

[jaffa]

For every amazing musician who posses no formal musical background, there are 1000 untalented ones who no-one hears about.

On instruments such as the guitar as well, you obviously don't have to be able to sight read to play well, unless you're a classical guitarist, or in a jazz band, or a session musician the need to sight read will rarely arise. However what you do need to know, in order to be good, are the scales and chords, and ways the chords go together. Some people learn this by developing their musical ear using a process of trial and error, but the same can be accomplished much quicker by going to teacher and learning the background theory.

The very best musicians in the world are those in the top orchestras, or the top session musicians. All can read music.

However those that learn in an unorhadox fashion, and become the 1/1000 that get it right make some of the best music as they think about it in different ways to someone who is classically trained.

[daveT]

Fascinating, that there is absolutely no debate hear what-so-ever. I was hoping to press some brains on history. I find that people who make this quote are extremely ignorant in music history, etc. But I guess this is common knowledge on this forum.

It is very surprising to me. I argued agains 3 of my friends who believed the above quote is true. They are struggling musicians. Whatever.

As already said, thread over.

[Fatt Albert]

Here is an interesting question. There are two different methods for teaching classical musicians at a young age. In orchestral strings it is very common to use the Suzuki method which starts kids at a very young age (like 3) and focuses all of the early stages on just holding the instrument correctly and producing sound, and then moves directly on to listening to music and picking it up by ear. The players learn some pretty difficult music pretty young and don't learn to read music until much later.

The opposite approach is taken in the school band programs. These generally don't begin until the kids are around 10 or so. This method teaches one note and one rhythm at a time. Therefore, the first concert consists of the entire band playing one note for really long intervals. It takes quite a while to play anything difficult, but the ability to read music is considered to be the most important aspect. Listening is very much secondary.

Which method do you think produces better musicians more often?

[theBruiser500]

suzuki intuitively seems a lot a lot better. i think it'd be a lot harder to learn to have a good ear at music than it is to learn to read music on sheets

[NT!]

Suzuki definitely produces better musicians, though it's sometimes hard to say if it's because the kid starts at age 3 and the lessons are individualized. Anyone playing music seriously from that young of an age is going to have a phenomenal ear. I dated a girl who was a violinist and she had great ear skills, whereas I studied music for years and my ear sucks. She could pick up keys, harmonize and imitate melodies fairly easily, even on an unfamiliar instrument like a guitar.

Part of this, too, is that little kids will have a hard time learning to read music at the age where they can learn to hold and play an instrument, so it makes sense to get them comfortable with it and enjoying it as young as possible.

I wish I was young enough to go back and learn piano at age 3.

NT

[Fatt Albert]

This is my thought as well. The players that have learned from Suzuki method seem to have a much better understanding of what the music on the page is driving at. Although, it takes a long time for them to be proficient at sight-reading.

I think most highschool bands suffer because all of the students are just playing whats on the paper and not listening to see how it all fits together. This is also why it is so difficult to teach jazz improvization in high school.

i'll get off the soapbox now.

[ua1176]

[ QUOTE ]

I argued agains 3 of my friends who believed the above quote is true. They are struggling musicians. Whatever.


[/ QUOTE ]

have they considered that their lack of technical understanding is keeping a lot of the more lucrative music jobs off-limits to them? im a no-longer-struggling musician. once i started producing/engineering/arranging for other songwriters, a lot of work came my way. and i've worked with some brilliant artists who barely knew any theory. but i'd be in a very very poor financial state without my formal music education.

you know. its like this: if the singer/songwriter doesn't know how to read music and write a string chart....the producer damn well better be able to.

[daveT]

Suzuki method is good. As for a violinist, remember that part of bieng a good violinist is developing perfect pitch, without this you will never become good at violin. Also a guitar is basically a VionCello and a Violin combined with the C string dropped to B. Moving from Violing to guitar is not too difficult.

[Wynton]

[ QUOTE ]

The opposite approach is taken in the school band programs. These generally don't begin until the kids are around 10 or so. This method teaches one note and one rhythm at a time. Therefore, the first concert consists of the entire band playing one note for really long intervals. It takes quite a while to play anything difficult, but the ability to read music is considered to be the most important aspect. Listening is very much secondary.

Which method do you think produces better musicians more often?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not at all like the school band programs my kids have experienced (or even what I experienced decades ago). Their programs began a couple of years younger, and they certainly did not learn one note or one rhythm at a time.

[Wynton]

I'll just add a couple of more comments:

I think some of you are failing to distinguish "having a good ear," "playing by ear" and improvising. Many world-class musicians are incapable of improvising, yet they can fairly be described as having a great ear, and could likely "play by ear."

At the same time, just because one can improvise hardly means he or she is a superior musician.

For many people, if not most, the obstacle to improvising is simply fear, similar to how someone might feel the first time on a dance floor. It really is not difficult to introduce kids to improvisation. But after a certain age, people seem to get paralyzed at the thought of it. And the problem is that relatively few people willing to teach music to kids are themselves comfortable with improvising, or playing without everything written out exactly.

To me, the best way to learn any instrument is obviously a combination of methods.