Sheet music is important though. you've got to start from somewhere. I don't think you're going to be able to learn to play a part in an orchestral symphony by listening to recordings for example. Composers put a lot of details into their scores and it's best to use those details as the starting point, otherwise you're just deriving from other interpretations. In jazz it's a bit different because you can learn the heads and the changes by ear, but then what happens when you're playing in a bigband? Then it's orchestrated jazz so you have to be good at reading AND playing by ear and getting the feel of it through what you hear as well as through what you see. If you're learning a complicated soli section by ear, then you can almost guarantee that everyone's going to interpret it differently. You need the same starting point, ie what's written on the page to get everyone to do it together. Small ensembles like pop bands or whatever well they work like small jazz ensembles and often the pen never touches the page, but that's a special case really.
Thank you for your kind comment, shineon. Wisdom? I'm not going to go that far... Experience? Yeah, I'll go with that. I've been playing longer than some of you guys have been alive; been banging on things far longer than that. And you might have heard the old saying that goes "even a blind man can see through a brick wall given enough time". I'm also blessed to play with other musicians that approach music the same way - the song is a waypoint where we meet and then jump from. Parachutes optional.
sheet music isn't all that important... jimi hendrix, stevie ray vaughan, noel gallagher, brian wilson, and so many others never learned to read sheet music. i dont find it to be necessary at all. theory, on the other hand, i find to be extremely necessary when it comes to guitar. for me, anyways. :H
Sheet music is a helpful piece of learning - it trims off so many corners. But it isn't mandatory in order to play. It's the same with theory. But both are essential if you want to make a living playing music - provided you aren't extremely favored by the muses and Lady Luck and get your break as a garage band. The statistics do not favor that happening, though. You can be a very skilled player, gifted even. But if you audition for a studio gig or for a position in an orchestra pit, you better be able to read and you better know your theory. Everyone who sucessfully lands that gig will know both. In those settings, time is money - lots and lots of money. The music director will not wait for someone to get the song by ear and the studio boss simply can't afford to. From an orchestra standpoint, yes, composers can put many details into their scores. Conductors, too, can make the slightest of modifications to a score to suit them. Knowing the theory of music helps one to understand that shift, and when one understands something the mind processes it much quicker. Jazz has it's sheet music as well. Go into a jazz studio gig as a hired musician without knowing how to read charts and without an intimate knowledge of the theory of the genre and you are going to be bounced in a short New York minute. I'm also willing to bet that damn near every musician playing in a jazz group knows how to read charts and knows jazz genre theory, if not more. Of course, all the above doesn't matter one whit if you don't know how to do one thing that so many overlook or never talk about... HOW TO LISTEN!!!!!!!!!
i can read a little, but i really dont find it necessary to play improv, or to even write songs for that matter. but since i started learning theory everything seems easier... perhaps ill pay more attention to music-reading if i get a bass guitar soon. i havent yet really bothered to play lead, so being able to read music prolly wouldnt do a thing for me, at this point anyway. ah but yes, in my opinion, i'm a great listener. :H
for me, sheet music is good for me to remember melodys. I create many, but i forgot probably 90% of them in an instant. But sheet music isnt everything, just somewhere to start. Theory is a very important aspect in being a musician. Its the best way to communicate with other musicians, and see how everything fits together. Its all very interesting to learn, and much is gained from the knowledge.
i usually do :H, but i still forget to write my stuff down... i spent 5 years learning music purely by ear, but learning theory really put things together. Just my opinon.
i started learning theory a couple weeks ago, and all ready im finding everything to be much easier.. ill just start messing around in a certain key, and the lyrics just flow right out of me. sometimes it takes a little thievery, but hey, everybody steals.
well just as long as its not exactly the same notes and progressions, then its all good. And its not stealing...its influencial
I thought we might leave guitars out of it just this once. No disrespect to the top guitarists you mentioned (let's not mention noel gallagher), but there's a lot more to music than improvising on the guitar or playing in a rock/indie/metal band.
so how far would rock and roll go w/o rhythm? and my defensive joke: What do you call a banjo player with a beeper? Optimistic. A bagpiper with an agent? delusional! told to me by a banjo-picker!
Hm... I play drums, sort of, and I never played sheet music. I only play good music. No really, the only thing I played with the music printed out was Paranoid by Black Sabbath (well, with B|o-o-o-o-| style sheet music anyway), usually I just do what I want. I'm not good enough yet to start playing other people's songs. I practise blast beats and other simple things and stuff. Just for recreation, you know?
"Ah well, what do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A Drummer. " hey, so where would you be without one?
I play the drums in my band, and i write most of the songs. realityneversticks (Our singer), writes the rest. I never learnt how to read sheet music...i think that reading music for the drums is pretty useless...i just play by ear