I can't read sheet music, and I just learn tunes by ear. Does anyone else do this? I got through school music classes without ever having to read notes, and learning music isn't hard for me. But should I learn now?
Perhaps most would agree, but it's never bad to have any skill.
If you have the opportunity, I would recommend it, but I do agree that it is not a necessary skill, just a potentially useful one - especially when it come's to learning tunes that you otherwise might not have the opportunity to actually hear.
This is OK as far as it goes but it does limit you to tunes that have been recorded or are being played in sessions. Being able to read allows you to delve into the many old collections of tunes and also browse through music books to find new tunes you might like to learn.
Bannerman, you forgot about learning from other people, and Anna has an excellent opportunity to do that.
It is certainly a useful tool Anna, but I wouldn't call it a top priority. Talk to your cousin Sean about it. I am sure that he would help, or for that matter Brian can teach you.
Hey Jode! Yeah, I was wondering if Brian would be patient enough to teach me to read music. I thought it might be good if I want to learn some out of books. Can't wait to see the boys next weekend!
Thanks, I'll talk to Sean too (can he read?).
Anna
Hey Dani-well! Haha... it's funny that we'd run into each other on here! I'm going to call you soon, because it turns out I might be able to visit you while you're in school in Cork!
As one who has been involved with Traditional Music for 62 years I am alwayas amused by the comments about playing by ear ..when as a child I sat with musicians playing in the Friday night get-togethers at the farm in Cumberland..ALL told me that I should learn to read music as I would then have access to a wider selection of music...This fad for not learning the dots seem to have grown up much more recently perhaps because of easy access to recorded music means that you can play tunes over and over to learn them this was not so with these old musicians. A much better skill in their eyes was to write down what you heard..Then to "make it your own!" The same comment was made about learning clog dance steps ..i.e don't copy slavishly "Make them your own"
Learn to read, just don't let it hurt your playin' is all.
Think of an actor. As actor can learn parts directly from other actors, or from recorded performances of other actors, but this is going to be inherently limiting. An actor who knows how to read has whole other vistas open by going to the library and reading scripts, poetry, etc.
But the point of a script isn't to read it. It's to memorize it as quickly as posslble and then work with the "inner" ear to convert those words into a personal performance.
If you learn to read a language your world of language suddenly opens up to include all of that language's literature and not just what you hear (and often misunderstand) on the street. If you learn to read music the entire world of music opens up to you, and not just what you hear at music class or in a session.
But just like no one wants to hear an actor read a script no one really wants to hear a musician read a score either. A good "ear" is what's important, or rather that portion of the brain that contains musical concepts. Musical notation expands the scope of what you can apply that "ear" to. Used properly it can only benefit you.
Using it improperly, to replace your brain, is equivilent to getting a lobotomy.
It is such a useful skill to have. Hear a snatch of a tune you like on the radio, concert, or session, but not enough times to hear the melody? If you can read music, you can look the tune up and *reconstruct what it sounded like.* If yer already learning by listening then there's little danger that the printed symbols will somehow corrupt your ear.
If you’re still in junior high school, I’d certainly recommend learning to read music. You sound like a talented individual and should not stifle any of your potential abilities. If hearing music and replicating it is easy for you…God Bless. You should keep working this way! Things don’t always come easy in life though… sometimes you have to work hard and sometimes that pays off. So, if at school they teach you to read music, definitely pay attention. You’re there…you may as well learn what they're trying to show you. After JHS & HS, if you decided, you don’t have to read another note…but you should have tools to decided from.
Anna, I agree that you should learn to read music, as it can be of assistance in many circumstances. But it is truly not a great way to LEARN the music as a whole.
Reading music is, as KFG says, an interpretation. However, we are not talking about words here. A better analogy would be learning to act a play in another language. You can read and memorize the words, but you cannot express them until you know the language. What is worse, the notes do not translate directly.
I encourage you to learn how to read music, but I also encourage you to use it only as a secondary method to learning.
Yes, I have learned tunes through reading music (and still play some of them), but it is much more difficult to turn them into lovely music than the tunes that I have learned by ear.
Has anybody else ever learned a tune from sheet music alone and gotten decent results? It's neither impossible nor magical. It's relatively easy, *provided* you know the conventions of the genre.
I would say slow airs and pibroch would be the exception to the above.
No problem Anna. It won't mess you up, as long as you depend upon your ear and your heart.
Wormdiet, I have learned tunes from sheet music alone and have gotten decent results. But, mostly, I forget those tunes, or simply have a hard time remembering how they start. There are exceptions.
As Wreckin 'rea said above, learning by ear just turned out to be easier in the long run. I can actually remember the tunes to play them later. There were a few good tunes that I liked to play out of the Northern Fiddler. Someone borrowed the book, never gave it back, and now I have lost those tunes because the book is out of print.
I vote that by ear is best, but I've filled in a LOT of gaps in my musical life by learning to read a bit.
I had to learn to read scores as a recording engineer. I can't sight-read and play from the page, but when I've been flummoxed, confused or stuck as an accompanist, it's been really great to be able to refer to some pages of written music (I try to use several, they're all different it seems) to find out what that elusive note might be that suggests the Right Chord or ... a Better Chord, perhaps.
I have some old manuscripts in some books, and I can barely get thru them, but it's nice to be able to crawl thru them and try to piece together a melody rather than to have to importune a melodist to try and sight-read it so I can hear it...
Jode - Good point. I find that I am *motivated* to learn tunes nearly exclusively by hearing them first. I've poured over tunebooks and bypassed tunes because they seemed "boring" at the time, only to fall in love with them later after hearing them done well.
Hi Ana,
This is the only way I've ever learned tunes. It has its advantages and disadvantages. My grand parents were good fiddlers and I learned this from them. In the CCE I'd record and learn from the recordings.
S
Dot reading really is a skill worth cultivating, even if only slowly.
If you can't read the tadpoles, you can only learn from people you meet or people you hear playing from a recording.
The amount of tunebooks and dots available on the internet is immense and you can learn tunes that no one has recorded and no one in your session plays.
It really is relaxing to be able to open a book and play 20 tunes off the page and decide which ones you like and which you don't. How long would it take you to do this by ear?
You can't dot tunes down either if you can't read them.
I was listening to a piper from Ireland recently and he introduced a tune by stating that he had gotten this tune from a tune book and thought is was very nice and he wondered why he hadn’t heard it. When he played it for an American audience he was soon informed that Gerry Owen is well known in America but not played much.
It's useful to learn from music and by ear.
Why would one 'corrupt' the other? I suspect that those who can't (or won't) do either might put down the one they can't do! Since when has the acquisition of a new skill spoilt something????
Can't read music
Can't read music
I can't read sheet music, and I just learn tunes by ear. Does anyone else do this? I got through school music classes without ever having to read notes, and learning music isn't hard for me. But should I learn now?
Anna
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by m
Re: Can't read music
Most would agree that by ear is the best way to learn tunes - keep it up!
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by Kelpie
Re: Can't read music
Perhaps most would agree, but it's never bad to have any skill.
If you have the opportunity, I would recommend it, but I do agree that it is not a necessary skill, just a potentially useful one - especially when it come's to learning tunes that you otherwise might not have the opportunity to actually hear.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by FyfferGuy
Re: Can't read music
This is OK as far as it goes but it does limit you to tunes that have been recorded or are being played in sessions. Being able to read allows you to delve into the many old collections of tunes and also browse through music books to find new tunes you might like to learn.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by Bannerman
Re: Can't read music
I have learnt tunes in the past from notation, but I have`nt done that for a long time, now I normaly learn by ear. It`s quicker.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by wreckin` rea
Re: Can't read music
Bannerman, you forgot about learning from other people, and Anna has an excellent opportunity to do that.
It is certainly a useful tool Anna, but I wouldn't call it a top priority. Talk to your cousin Sean about it. I am sure that he would help, or for that matter Brian can teach you.
Welcome to TheSession.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by Jode
Re: Can't read music
Hi Anna!
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by DTE
Re: Can't read music
..."by ear is the best way to learn tunes"
Word.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by Pádraig
Re: Can't read music
learning by ear is a great quality to have... but i really would suggest learning by sheet music as well. you never know when you would need it!
plus, there are so many versions of the same tunes out there, to be able to get the proper version down first via sheet music.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by picking up that fiddle
Re: Can't read music
Hey Jode! Yeah, I was wondering if Brian would be patient enough to teach me to read music. I thought it might be good if I want to learn some out of books. Can't wait to see the boys next weekend!
Thanks, I'll talk to Sean too (can he read?).
Anna
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by m
Re: Can't read music
" proper version down first..."
Please, PUTF, define " proper " before all hell breaks loose.........
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Can't read music
Hey Dani-well! Haha... it's funny that we'd run into each other on here! I'm going to call you soon, because it turns out I might be able to visit you while you're in school in Cork!
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by m
Re: Can't read music
As one who has been involved with Traditional Music for 62 years I am alwayas amused by the comments about playing by ear ..when as a child I sat with musicians playing in the Friday night get-togethers at the farm in Cumberland..ALL told me that I should learn to read music as I would then have access to a wider selection of music...This fad for not learning the dots seem to have grown up much more recently perhaps because of easy access to recorded music means that you can play tunes over and over to learn them this was not so with these old musicians. A much better skill in their eyes was to write down what you heard..Then to "make it your own!" The same comment was made about learning clog dance steps ..i.e don't copy slavishly "Make them your own"
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by alexboydell
Re: Can't read music
Learn to read, just don't let it hurt your playin' is all.
Think of an actor. As actor can learn parts directly from other actors, or from recorded performances of other actors, but this is going to be inherently limiting. An actor who knows how to read has whole other vistas open by going to the library and reading scripts, poetry, etc.
But the point of a script isn't to read it. It's to memorize it as quickly as posslble and then work with the "inner" ear to convert those words into a personal performance.
If you learn to read a language your world of language suddenly opens up to include all of that language's literature and not just what you hear (and often misunderstand) on the street. If you learn to read music the entire world of music opens up to you, and not just what you hear at music class or in a session.
But just like no one wants to hear an actor read a script no one really wants to hear a musician read a score either. A good "ear" is what's important, or rather that portion of the brain that contains musical concepts. Musical notation expands the scope of what you can apply that "ear" to. Used properly it can only benefit you.
Using it improperly, to replace your brain, is equivilent to getting a lobotomy.
Don't do that.
KFG
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by KFG
Re: Can't read music
It is such a useful skill to have. Hear a snatch of a tune you like on the radio, concert, or session, but not enough times to hear the melody? If you can read music, you can look the tune up and *reconstruct what it sounded like.* If yer already learning by listening then there's little danger that the printed symbols will somehow corrupt your ear.
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Can't read music
Where's the edit function when ya need it?
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Can't read music
Thanks everyone!
# Posted on May 31st 2005 by m
Re: Can't read music
If you’re still in junior high school, I’d certainly recommend learning to read music. You sound like a talented individual and should not stifle any of your potential abilities. If hearing music and replicating it is easy for you…God Bless. You should keep working this way! Things don’t always come easy in life though… sometimes you have to work hard and sometimes that pays off. So, if at school they teach you to read music, definitely pay attention. You’re there…you may as well learn what they're trying to show you. After JHS & HS, if you decided, you don’t have to read another note…but you should have tools to decided from.
(Did you ever see the music Drum Line?)
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by Pete D
Re: Can't read music
the movie that is! what's on my mind?
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by Pete D
Re: Can't read music
Anna, I agree that you should learn to read music, as it can be of assistance in many circumstances. But it is truly not a great way to LEARN the music as a whole.
Reading music is, as KFG says, an interpretation. However, we are not talking about words here. A better analogy would be learning to act a play in another language. You can read and memorize the words, but you cannot express them until you know the language. What is worse, the notes do not translate directly.
I encourage you to learn how to read music, but I also encourage you to use it only as a secondary method to learning.
Yes, I have learned tunes through reading music (and still play some of them), but it is much more difficult to turn them into lovely music than the tunes that I have learned by ear.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by Jode
Re: Can't read music
Hey Jode. I think I will learn how to read music, but not as my way of learning tunes. I hope it won't mess me up too much!
(And Pete D, yes I saw Drum Line, that was really good!)
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by m
Re: Can't read music
Has anybody else ever learned a tune from sheet music alone and gotten decent results? It's neither impossible nor magical. It's relatively easy, *provided* you know the conventions of the genre.
I would say slow airs and pibroch would be the exception to the above.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Can't read music
No problem Anna. It won't mess you up, as long as you depend upon your ear and your heart.
Wormdiet, I have learned tunes from sheet music alone and have gotten decent results. But, mostly, I forget those tunes, or simply have a hard time remembering how they start. There are exceptions.
As Wreckin 'rea said above, learning by ear just turned out to be easier in the long run. I can actually remember the tunes to play them later. There were a few good tunes that I liked to play out of the Northern Fiddler. Someone borrowed the book, never gave it back, and now I have lost those tunes because the book is out of print.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by Jode
Re: Can't read music
I vote that by ear is best, but I've filled in a LOT of gaps in my musical life by learning to read a bit.
I had to learn to read scores as a recording engineer. I can't sight-read and play from the page, but when I've been flummoxed, confused or stuck as an accompanist, it's been really great to be able to refer to some pages of written music (I try to use several, they're all different it seems) to find out what that elusive note might be that suggests the Right Chord or ... a Better Chord, perhaps.
I have some old manuscripts in some books, and I can barely get thru them, but it's nice to be able to crawl thru them and try to piece together a melody rather than to have to importune a melodist to try and sight-read it so I can hear it...
stv
www.cdbaby.com/Culchies
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by stv culchie
Re: Can't read music
Jode - Good point. I find that I am *motivated* to learn tunes nearly exclusively by hearing them first. I've poured over tunebooks and bypassed tunes because they seemed "boring" at the time, only to fall in love with them later after hearing them done well.
But a few I've done from scratch.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Can't read music
When not learning by ear, tabs(not "sheet music") works for me. I usually get the tunes from this site and convert them into tablature.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by ecidralla
Re: Can't read music
Hi Ana,
This is the only way I've ever learned tunes. It has its advantages and disadvantages. My grand parents were good fiddlers and I learned this from them. In the CCE I'd record and learn from the recordings.
S
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Can't read music
Dot reading really is a skill worth cultivating, even if only slowly.
If you can't read the tadpoles, you can only learn from people you meet or people you hear playing from a recording.
The amount of tunebooks and dots available on the internet is immense and you can learn tunes that no one has recorded and no one in your session plays.
It really is relaxing to be able to open a book and play 20 tunes off the page and decide which ones you like and which you don't. How long would it take you to do this by ear?
You can't dot tunes down either if you can't read them.
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Can't read music
As far as learning tunes from books goes.....
I was listening to a piper from Ireland recently and he introduced a tune by stating that he had gotten this tune from a tune book and thought is was very nice and he wondered why he hadn’t heard it. When he played it for an American audience he was soon informed that Gerry Owen is well known in America but not played much.
Obscure tunes from tune books : )
# Posted on June 1st 2005 by baglady
Re: Can't read music
There is no 'should'.
It's useful to learn from music and by ear.
Why would one 'corrupt' the other? I suspect that those who can't (or won't) do either might put down the one they can't do! Since when has the acquisition of a new skill spoilt something????
# Posted on June 5th 2005 by flying tigerpig
Re: Can't read music
some of the best can't, equally some of the best can, so who's writting it down and passing judgement?
'true trad' will survive, as it has, without it _so who dares to question it?
i can't and am no purest, but even if i were . . .
# Posted on June 6th 2005 by lisaniska
Re: Can't read music
_trust in your own pair of (pink) ears . . .
# Posted on June 15th 2005 by lisaniska