I learned to read music notation forty years ago and there are times when I use it on stage and times that I play by memory. It really depends on the genre of music I'm performing. Do you need to read notation to create and perform music? of course not. But I've always said to anyone who is critical of musicians using the skill of reading notation, that if it was possible to give these non believers excellent reading skills for one week and then took them away, they would beg to have it back. The thing is, once you see and hear what can be achieved they would never want to lose that ability. Some say readers are just playing the notes. How come none of us can recite Martin Luther Kings speech ' I have a Dream' and sound like him. To all you none readers, don't criticize what you can't see or hear. It doesn't mean its not there.

Elffin


Just out of interest... How many people can read and play the music shown in piano roll view? Seen a few videos on youtube with some people making 'tutorials' for different songs using a prv or piano roll.. I can't adjust to it..  But thats just me I suppose..

I read music very fluently, it's how I was trained, alongside a lot of ear training and performing from a young age. I still prefer the PRV for entering music (or playing a keyboard although I suck), I find it substantially quicker than using notation. Far quicker to enter and edit.
 
Everyone here is likely going to base their opinions on their own experiences and needs, understandably. From a personal perspective, the issue is that a well-rounded, or as you might say "working" musician, ultimately has to know their instrument inside out. As a guitarist, for example, you will not likely find a complete method based on tab or diagrams. Can you instantly name the notes of a F#m7b5 chord? How fast can you find B note on every string? Can you play thru a specific set of seemingly unrelated chords? Can you properly interpret a baroque piece? Improvise over Georgia? It takes knowledge to be able to do these things whether the knowledge is taught/passed along thru reading or other methods (it can be done!).
 
So how does one gain that knowledge? Generally speaking the only way to truly understand your instrument is to follow a complete path that encompasses scales, chords/arps, ear training etc. and without reading how is all this information communicated between people because ultimately, like cliff says, music is a language. As I said, it can be done, but usually only thru self-determination and some external guidance.
 
Don't get me wrong, one doesn't necessarily need all these skills to be a great performer or good musician in certain genres. I'm not sure Stevie Ray Vaughn could read a note. But for every famous musician out there, there are a thousand working musicians like myself who have to morph between numerous roles to survive. If I had not developed my skills thru reading it's questionable if I would have been able to get by as I have.
 
These skills also give you far greater control over your own music. You can tell other musicians what want from them and follow specific instructions just as easily if you speak and understand the language.
 
To put some numbers into perspective: I studied at GIT for one year after university, I was big into the Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen stuff at the time but had been convinced by my (excellent) guitar teacher at the time to become a more complete musician and was seriously studying jazz. His thinking was that, while I waited to get famous, I could make a living as a "musician" instead of pumping gas or studying law or something else which pretty much takes you out of the game. When I got to GIT there were about 700 guitarists studying there at the same time, only 3 players were given "Vocational Honors" which signified the school had enough faith in you to sign a document saying they felt you were capable or adapting to pretty much any musical situation.
 
Find me a player who doesn't read and I'll show you someone who likely can't quickly adapt to many paying musical situations and doesn't really "see" music as a whole. There may be exceptions, but few.
 
The irony (?) here is I'm pro-notation but never use it in Sonar, so I could care less at the moment. I use external notation programs. It would take more than a small makeover for Sonar to suit my notation needs so it;s just not in my radar.

djwayne


Sorry, but when I see a local musician on stage with his notebook showing him the chords to the songs which he should know, I just cringe. Excuse me while I turn the page !! You want me to play what song ?? Just a minute, let me look it up !!

It's really a crutch.
 
 

Yeah, because the local musician is not a relatively complete musician. If they learned to read (or understand the principles of music) they would probably find it far easier to memorize chords. On the flip side, memorizing chords likely will not help you to learn to read (or understand the principles of music).

Interesting posts people..

One thing that noticed as a teacher is that everybody has a different angle and approach... and all bases need time to develop..

I fully recognize the frustrations of notation, Over the last year the vast majority of my kids can use PRV well... Its accessable, easy to edit note durations and easy to alter velocities. It leads them to the journeys end.. 

Anyhow ... I do wish Cakewalk would just annouce that there will not be SV improvents just to stop 'whithering hope' I get with a mention of an update to Sonar. Forum members have argued long enough on the issue for years... 

Sorry I started a little emotion here.  Here are my opinions:
• I have some training and I am most comfortable working in Staff view.
• Being able to read and write music has been very handy, especially working with session players/singers in studios.  Jingle singers, background singers, and demo singers really appreciate the music and it helps me ensure I get things the way I want.  Sheet music is a must for string sections, etc.  I use the lead sheet as a chord chart for guitarists, bass players, etc.
• All that said, some very fine players don't read music and I respect that.  Whether or not that is a problem depends on with whom they work, how they work, what type of music they play, etc.  No problem.
• I like staff view for writing even when it is pop or rock because it helps me visualize what I am doing.  I switch to PRV sometimes to see note lengths, or event list to see data.  But many people write fabulous music without ever seeing a staff.
 
People who speak, read, and write think in words.  People who grew up with sheet music visualize tunes that way.  When I am singing, I see the notes on the staff mentally.  Not good or bad—just how it is for some people. 

I don't think my song is finished until I have a printed lead sheet, but that's just my OCD need for completeness.

This is The Mighty Konrad and I approved this message.

Music notation is a way to preserve the composer's ideas the way it was originally envisioned so that it can be performed by others and handed down to future generations. Without notation, we would not have the incredible works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Debussy, Williams, etc. It would be like history before the advent of writing where stories were handed down from generation to generation, but the accuracy of the events would change as time passed and memories faded. Music that has not been notated has to be either learned or transcribed from recordings, if they exist, and the accuracy of the transcription is dependent on the quality of the transcriber. Anyone whose ever used the UltimateGuitar.com website will notice that no two transcriptions of the same song are the same and many of them are erroneous. Of course, some styles of music, like jazz or rock (with exceptions), aren't really intended to be played exactly the same every time so transcription is not as important, although there's composers like Suzanne Ciani, Chick Corea and Frank Zappa that took the time to write the notation so that the performers could play the parts as intended (subject to the performer's interpretation). In the end, the onus is on the composer: if he or she wants his musical ideas to be communicated and preserved as accurately as possible, they have to write it down otherwise, there will be wide interpretations of their ideas which may or may not convey the original intent of the piece. l

Well said, daveny5.

sharke

djwayne


Sorry, but when I see a local musician on stage with his notebook showing him the chords to the songs which he should know, I just cringe. Excuse me while I turn the page !! You want me to play what song ?? Just a minute, let me look it up !!

It's really a crutch.

What? Nuts! How do you know that the non-reading musician on the same stage didn't sit for hours at home learning his parts from a score? Look at the various bands Zappa put together over the years...none of them played from a score onstage, but you can bet your ass they spend countless hours reading from Zappa's written parts in rehearsals. 


The same with, say, a classical guitarist. I can rustle up a repertoire of Bach pieces, even a couple of fugues, that I can perform without the music. But let me tell you it takes hours of practice and memorization with the score first. 


Also, it depends what kind of music you're playing. If you're improvising blues or jazz, you're not going to be reading your lines off of a page, because quite obviously improvisation is from the head. But if you're playing someone's jazz arrangement, what's the best way for the composer to communicate the parts to everyone? Why, written music of course. If you're playing hard rock or some other "popular" genre, there's no need to bring written music into it, because the parts are infinitely simpler to memorize. 


You seem to be prejudiced against written notation and people who use it. Don't be - it's just another form of communication. It's a tool. And it opens more doors than you can possibly imagine. Same with a study of music theory. Back when I was 21, a guitarist friend of mine mocked me for knowing all about harmony and chord construction. He said, music's not about numbers or symbols, it's about playing from the heart. Well 20 years later, he's still bashing out the same three chords and it sounds as boring as hell. What on earth could you have against people broadening their horizons and expanding their skill set? 

Nicely put Sharke. I especially love the point about the difference between "art" music and pop.
 
I'll never understand those who dump on notation just because they can't read. No one is saying you have to read. To be fair though, just becuase someone can't read does not mean they can't be as good or better than one who can. The non-readers downfall is that they can't read. The non-reader may be better than the reader but the reader would get the gig as a session player because the reader can read the music. It's not even session work. There is theatre.
 
I got gigs in several plays over better players because I could read. And yes, I read the music as I performed. I was doing a buch of stuff at the time. A band (electric guitar), the play (bass), college (classical guitar) as well as teaching. The band was easy stuff. Classic rock, some country and even alternative. Never need music for that. I could sight read the bass guitar easily at the time. Not only was I reading the music for the plays but I was in the jazz band at Wright State as well as a classical guitar major. Try doing all that without being able to read. It can be done but out of 10,000 people maybe one or two of them may have the golden ears and talent.

daveny5


Music notation is a way to preserve the composer's ideas the way it was originally envisioned so that it can be performed by others and handed down to future generations. Without notation, we would not have the incredible works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Debussy, Williams, etc. It would be like history before the advent of writing where stories were handed down from generation to generation, but the accuracy of the events would change as time passed and memories faded. Music that has not been notated has to be either learned or transcribed from recordings, if they exist, and the accuracy of the transcription is dependent on the quality of the transcriber. Anyone whose ever used the UltimateGuitar.com website will notice that no two transcriptions of the same song are the same and many of them are erroneous. Of course, some styles of music, like jazz or rock (with exceptions), aren't really intended to be played exactly the same every time so transcription is not as important, although there's composers like Suzanne Ciani, Chick Corea and Frank Zappa that took the time to write the notation so that the performers could play the parts as intended (subject to the performer's interpretation). In the end, the onus is on the composer: if he or she wants his musical ideas to be communicated and preserved as accurately as possible, they have to write it down otherwise, there will be wide interpretations of their ideas which may or may not convey the original intent of the piece. l

It's a breath of fresh air to read something intelligent about notation on this forum as the above person wrote.  I would add that one of the reasons notation is so powerful is that for over 1000 years musicians have been refining and developing it.  By bringing another powerful sense to music creation, the eye, the ear now has another sense to help create more complex, interesting and more developed composition.  So, in essence, notation is not only used to comunicate ideas and their interpretation to other musicians for performance, it also exists to give composers a way to develop form, to develop variations and discover the potential in a musical thought.  Notation is also extremely valuable in music education.   There are a lot of fine players and fine songwriters that don't read music, but there are no fine composers, orchestrators and arrangers that don't understand the written language of music and that don't use it in their work.   It is sad and frustrating to know that the Cakewalk culture is apparently indifferent to the role notation has in midi editing and sequencing.  The people here who clamour about Sonar's notation doing what Sibelius or Finale does don't understand the difference between a DAW and a notation program.  If Cakewalk would focus on making the staff view a high-end MIDI input tool (a good start would be a commitment to fix the bugs) it would be the best DAW around.  But I don't think they ever will.  I'll probably be using Sonar 7.0.2 for the rest of my life for this reason, which isn't such a bad deal.  I would be happily surprised if Cakewalk actually puts any energy into fixing the staff view bugs or, God forbid, improving it a bit, taking into account what composers would like. 
 
Jerry Gerber
www.jerrygerber.com