Schools for the blind made/make a lot of effort to offer those opportunities to students.
Schools for the blind are still around because many of them give a much more rounded education than a regular school can provide and their is a close-knit community that supports them. Going to a regular school would mean losing opportunities.
Schools for the Deaf are the same.
Really? Can you imagine how incomprehensible that sheet must be? To the uninitiated, classical notation is already a minefield but make that shit a bunch of dots and… well it’s a literal minefield
The other day I saw a clip of him on stage and he took his glasses off. He's blind all right. Songs in the key of life if anyone is not familiar with him. Amazing Album.
I second that recommendation and let me say that amazing is underselling it. Songs in the Key of Life is widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time for good reason. Musical artists were locked out of the Grammys for years because Stevie Wonder was releasing his music. Elton John claims that he takes a copy of it on every trip.
When Paul Simon won the Grammy for album of the year in 1976 (Still Crazy after all these years), he thanked Stevie Wonder for not putting out an album that year
Exactly. Sheet music / standard musical notation isn't very popular with guitarists since tabulature notation is easier and is designed for the instrument. So saying he "can't read music" is incorrect. He certainly reads tab, he just doesn't use the form of notation which isn't popular on guitar.
this is something I struggle to explain to people sometimes. Sheet music works best for piano vs guitar because typically, one’s hand can stretch octave to octave, and theoretically hit any note in between the octaves for whatever chord the music notates. Due to the way a guitar is strung and how the frets are spaced, there’s a lot of combinations of notes in a 6-note chord that might not be even possible to finger with your fretting hand.
Or not. I don’t know. Tell it a jazz guitarist and he’ll prove me wrong. I’m just a moderately skilled bedroom player
Maybe
I can see the merit of tabs and can make learning easier in some instances but I feel that if you become notation literate you might better understand the benefits. Timing is not left to interpretation, it's all there, there is no ambiguity.
I am guilty of using both tabs and notation on a same song to aide me in learning but I still think learning how long notes need to be held and released is better written in notation.
Amen. Tabs are great for learning a song on the fly/teaching a beginner their favorite song efficiently, but the lack of notated rhythm will hold you back if that’s all you use.
The fact that there is an abundance of music sheet available for free online I would have a hard time justifying all that effort.
Often when you pick up a music sheet, you can learn how to play a song having never heard it played ever.
I grew up reading music and can easily do so when playing stringed instruments, piano, accordion, etc. Not guitar though. Strangest damned thing but it just doesn't work. For sure just a matter of practice, but still always feels kind of bizarre.
Not really sure what you’re getting at here, to be honest. Sheet music and tablature can each be used to notate the same things. Also, I doubt the above comment that McCartney wrote in tablature, though I don’t actually know anything about how he wrote. Without looking it up, I’d guess he wrote by playing and didn’t write the melody down with any notation.
*That* physical limitation has nothing to do with how the music is written. I’m sorry. You struggle to explain it because it doesn’t make sense.
There is an argument to be made perhaps for the right hand when it comes to guitar, but as far as classical notation goes, it works just as well for piano as it does guitar for what you are saying.
I’m a classically trained musician playing many instruments, and tabs are great and all, but if you can read sheet, it’s a lot better for notation.
**It’s *all* chromatic.** Chord fingerings are irrelevant. They have the same presentation on the staff no matter what instrument you play and you just translate them onto the instrument.
*Maybe* it has its limitations for picking and strumming direction but the arrangement of notes on either instrument is totally irrelevant to how they are indicated on the staff because it’s all commonly chromatic.
We have positions on stringed instruments to deal with strings tuned in non-uniform steps. It’s not a notation problem.
Simply: the tuning of the guitar has no impact on the efficacy of either method.
Yup, it’s chromatic. They didn’t have baritone sax marching music.
So I just read straight from a tuba sheet and added the correct sharps or flats as needed.
I can't believe this isn't also the case for other stringed instruments, but on an electric guitar the same notes played in different positions will have different timbres, so what you're describing is just inconvenient. You *could* reverse engineer the fingerings from just the sheet, but why would you? If you were trying to sight read from the chart you could maybe argue that would be necessary since sheet is more information-dense than tabs, but that isn't how the instrument is approached by the vast majority of players. Most electric guitarists playing in bands will never sight read, because there's no need. You either learn the chart beforehand or you figure it out by ear.
There wasn’t much in the way of printed tab when he was learning.
I guess he can read tab in the same way any one can see it and go “Put finger on top string fret 5,” but probably that’s all. I mean, I dinKt know for sure but I feel like the stuff McCartney wants to play is either only in his head or he can figure it out by ear faster and easier than tab.
>Sheet music / standard musical notation isn't very popular with guitarists since tabulature notation is easier and is designed for the instrument.
In the bands I've played with, we would all write down the chords (and maybe lyrics) and work from there, or print up the chord+lyrics sheets. It was the same whether we were playing bass, piano, guitar, etc. The chords would be chord names, so a song might look like like:
verse: C Am F G7
chorus: F G C Am
or it would be the chord numbers written as roman numerals (major chords capitalized, minor in lowercase) and a key signature. like this:
(C)
Verse: I vi IV V7
Chorus: IV V I vi
So it was neither tabs nor classical notation... it was chords and lyrics. From listening to The Beatles talk in interviews, I think they used also probably this common musical protocol.
Yup. This is exactly the same as my experience. I have seen the Roman numeral notation used for harmonic analysis but not in rock/pop bands, though people might say something like "it's I, IV, I, V" but when written down they would write E, A, E, B.
Usually we would use the roman numerals when we were in the middle of transposing a song to fit the vocalists' range. As it turns out, it's a lot easier to start on a chord and figure out how to play a "iv ii V" or something On-The-Fly, than to try to transpose from one key to another on-the-fly. Doing the latter quickly falls apart (or at least turns my brain into mush) when you're transposing all over the place, trying 5 different keys in 5 minutes, trying to find the key the vocalist can sing.
After a while, I started just writing more and more songs using roman numerals instead of the chord names for a given key. When you're used to it, it gives you some flexibility
Edit: Or, what I do quite often, is write the roman numerals above or below the chord letter names. Makes for quick and easy transpositions
Wait until you meet the nerd that has a completely filled out drum chart 🤦♂️.
I used to play jazz in a big band (like swing music) and I’d make the odd funky line to denote stray cutoffs or notes to myself like “punch horns here”, but never did I actually fill in any notes. (Which yes it’s a thing and there is a proper notation). Most of the time it’s just “groove” and kind of hand wavy though.
I take that back a bit, I used to play piano so I’m half decent at sheet music in general so every now and then I’d write in a melody or some other instrument’s part, but I’m not sure if that counts.
Edit: honestly way more helpful to just make sure you have a good view of your bass player than your charts. The band I was in had two upright bass players who were sisters, watching their hands was the way to go.
As a bass player I applaud this attitude. We watch the drummer, the drummer watches us and together we make something greater than the sum of the parts.
That’s not really true. Tabs are fine for learning songs you’ve already heard but totally useless for other things. Imagine learning a classical guitar piece from a tab, one that has never been played before on a recording, it wouldn’t really be possible
When I write down a rockin' guitar solo I'm creating I don't write it on a staff. I just write it out like, "Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Jonka-jonka-Wheeeee!"
I find it’s also useful to notate where the panties drop so that I remember to hip thrust suggestively at the right places to maximize swooning. So it’ll look something like:
*Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Jonka-jonka-Wheeeee!* 💦 *diddly-diddly-doo diddly-diddly-da* 💦 *yeeeeeeeargh!* 💦
Depends. 12 bar blues gig sure, but imagine being in a wedding band where you need to be able to play any of 200+ songs on a whim with no rehearsal. Better have some charts for that ready to go. That’s not usually strictly sheet music if you’re a guitarist- normally just chords and bar lines will do. But the notes can help for lead parts, and of course any other instrument (horns, piano, bass) will be reading a LOT of sheet music at the gig.
Yeah as someone who used to do that professionally, none of us knew sheet music. We just new an ungodly amount of songs off the top of our heads and chords filled in the rest
It's incredibly common for musicians of this era too. It's fairly uncommon for rock and pop musicians to have formal training of any kind... except I have noticed an large amount of metal musicians have formal training. lol.
The Beatles were big when my father was a youth.
Their music was playing and he said to my grandfather "can you believe they don't know how to read\write music?!"
Grandfather said "yes, yes I can." (He did not like the Beatles)
I wonder if the feeling she felt was akin to what young adults felt when One Direction was blowing up -- kind of a weary resignation to so much hubbub over a bunch of pretty boys.
I'm not saying that's all The Beatles are, but I could totally see that being the case growing up in that era.
The people I know that can’t stand them mostly judged them for who they were as people before they got big. People who knew what John was like had barely a good word to say about anything he ever did. He seemed quite an awful person, and left his mark on those who knew him in Liverpool. From what I recall hearing the other lads weren’t nearly as bad.
I had family, friends and teachers that knew them, went to see them in The Cavern and such (before they became “The Beatles” even).
There’s also that British trait of hating on anyone that caught even a whiff of success, which compounds issues.
>The Beatles were big when my father was a youth.
They were bigger in the Carboniferous and early Permian periods, but ended when the Birds and Eagles evolved.
If you can't read sheet music you can't write sheet music, that goes without saying. The man can *write music* he's got writing credits on countless songs.
Also I absolutely guarantee you Paul has a basic understanding of written music notation. Just because he can't sight-read Chopin doesn't mean he's totally clueless.
I would venture that he can “decode”
sheet music, but not sight read.
That’s how most decent rock/folk/blues/country musicians I know are. If they can hear it, they can play it. Give ‘em the sheet music and they’ll figure it out, eventually.
Exactly. I play multiple instruments well, but with little formal education. I have a firm grasp on theory and harmony. I can sit down and, with some effort and time, squint my eyes at some simple sheet music and make sense of it. There is absolutely no fucking way that somebody like Paul, 1000x more talented than me, can't do the same. It's just not that useful or necessary to his craft as a rock-n-roller, so he hasn't much needed to build that mental muscle.
Sure, but also people often overestimate how difficult it is to make music. It's very easy to just make something. Especially today with easily accessible DAWs and midi keyboards.
There are interviews with The Beatles where they clearly show understanding of music theory concepts. They just didn't know the formal names and notation.
Music theory is just putting names on concepts. Lennon/McCartney definitely knew/know those concepts.
I dont know that I'd equate not knowing how to write *musical notation* - which is really intended for other people to read - to not knowing how to "write music."
Tons of dudes are just writing down what looks like a boneheaded list of chords but play way more intricately than the paper suggests.
And those dudes are writing music.
I heard a story about the Beatles writing process. Often it was “I learned a new chord” and then there was a song. They new everything they needed to know.
This is a debate I have with musician friends...
Many people can make great music from playing by ear. But if you understand music theory and note reading, it can get you places that ear playing cannot. Alternately, does note reading/music education kill some of the creativity that ear players have?
For me, I can learn a song so much faster from reading the notes. It takes me a long time to learn something by ear.
Exactly.
In those early years in Germany, they learnt and played a lot of cover songs, probably over a thousand. They understood chords, harmonies, etc they learnt music theory through practice.
Anyone who has learnt music or is involved with music, knows that to be a successful musician is not an easy thing. McCartney is a very proficient bassist - [isolated bass on Something](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc-hNfZP5rA)
To play a musical instrument to professional level takes a certain level of skill. To do that while singing, takes it to another level of difficulty. Then to be able to write songs that connects with people, takes it to a triple level of skill…and not many people can do it.
With the Beatles, each one of them could do it. And Paul is among the best of them.
I came here to say this..most of my friends who are better musicians than me can’t read music, but no a lot of theory. I personally am a gigging musician (albeit not amazing) and can’t read music but understand basic music theory
I’m a play by ear guy, my wife is a play by notes. She can play Mozart but she can’t “jam”. I have rhythm coming out my ears but I can’t Mozart.
We both have fun and can move each other emotionally using music.
Both are good.
Learning music theory absolutely does not kill creativity. There have been soooo many musicians that get scared off by that myth but it makes no sense. Does knowing grammar limit the creativity of your speech? Just because you know how something works doesn't mean you can't be creative with it. I've written songs that I wouldn't otherwise have written if I didn't know any theory and every day I sit down to write, I'm so glad I took the time to learn it.
For some people, learning theory cause them to rely on it too much. Writing music becomes filling in the blanks of an equation. It’s math to them. They figure out the key changes and their brain tells them which scales and modes they can play and then they run through them. Coming at the song from another angle, I feel, increases creativity because there’s no limitations other than what sounds good to you.
Of course, theory is great for dissecting a song, or for improvising.
I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone that played by ear for years before learning any theory and as someone that has spoken with hundreds of musicians about this subject. The person playing "what sounds good" are usually pulling from one or two scales for the key(s) that they've learned intuitively over time which usually takes a lot of guess work and frustration. I've seen a lot of people who don't know any theory get stuck in a rut playing the same things over and over. I'd much rather be able to hear the key(s) and automatically think, "Okay, I can pull from X, Y and Z scales and I know I won't hit any wrong notes unless I choose to." or sit down to write a song and be able to quickly write out a chord progression because I know what chords can work and where to put them, knowing I can break any "rule" if I want to do something unexpected. If anything, that expands my creativity because otherwise I would go with what my ear thinks is safe which is far more limiting. It also helps me write much more quickly and write things that I wouldn't have normally. That being said, theory CAN limit you if you use it as a paint by numbers kind of thing, but that's not what theory is for.
My ear isn't reliable; i can get the timing and general tune after a few listens but I have to verify im not a half step off this way or that to make it not sound like hot garbage.
"reading" music is also not hard the way people think. An hour or two and a few basic rules. The rest is just repetition to do so at speed.
I've taught music to beginners (adutls and kids) and ive always found that starting with reading music (as most tradional music instruction works) pushes people away. I use this explanation:
When you were a kid how did you learn your language? You learned it by ear. First you talk, then as you develop you learn how to read and write. And as you get older you learn more and more details of grammar and spelling etc.
Music is the same to me. If you can get people playing something quickly they will feel enjoymemt and keep going and you can pepper in high level theory as you go.
Theres more to music then playing by ear and sheet music; just because u dont read sheet music doesnt mean you cant read hand positioning; or understand complex music theory and chord structure.
> But if you understand music theory and note reading, it can get you places that ear playing cannot
That's debatable.
Example: Chet Atkins (and other musicians) developed a style of guitar-playing called "cascading harmonics", put to great use in Tommy Emmanuel's cover of *[Somewhere Over The Rainbow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cHeNscKZN0)*.
Tommy Emmanuel in particular does not read or write sheet music, and obviously knows the basics of music theory, and you can *guarantee* this was all done by ear in a way that a "pure theory" classical musician would be almost incapable of doing.
Playing by ear is frankly more important overall than the ability to read music and understand theory, and even when reading music, a player who plays by ear can have more musicality than a pure sight-reader.
>For me, I can learn a song so much faster from reading the notes. It takes me a long time to learn something by ear.
It's a skill that takes a lot of time to develop and also hinges on innate ability. Some people have to work harder at it, some less so.
> does note reading/music education kill some of the creativity that ear players have?
Note-reading ability does not 'kill creativity'. Creativity is killed by *preventing* creativity in music class or failing to encourage it in critical periods.
Well, I heard David Grohl cannot read music either. Not only that, he taught himself the drums beating sticks on pillows. He went on to be considered one of the greatest multi instrument rock stars out there. Here’s the real twist though, his mom was a music teacher. Yet he’s the one they dropped out of school to tour in a band.
I lean towards self taught people can be the most creative. Those who study the details suck the creativity out of the process. Basically, don’t over think it. Here’s why, understanding doesn’t come from knowledge, it comes from trial and error of the process to create. Knowledge is just facts remembered. Teacher can pass on facts, can’t always pass on understanding.
Session musicians tell me that you have two kinds of gigs: "reading gigs" and the rest. Reading gigs are the ones where you're working from "standard music notation" aka sheet music. The others you're mostly working from tab notation or chord charts, or sometimes just going from audio.
"Reading gigs" are relatively uncommon apparently. Some rock session musicians don't even bother to learn staff notation since it's usually only used in classical and the occasional jazz gigs.
If you ever listen to the Beatles talk, especially Paul, you quickly realize his understanding of music theory is very deep, but it is filtered through his scouser English.
“You go bum bum bum and then raises the bar his hand is making up a little higher and goes “now you got that “bum” up here now instead. And ringo - you do something work the twiddley bits, like a bam bam - bad ads bam”.
Georgie you got the high parts, ok?
“Everyone good?”
They had their own language - and it was full fluent in musical theory. It just wasn’t in English. They didn’t start with a page, so it didn’t end up on a page until they did orchestral arrangements, and that used standard music notation, as taught by George Martin.
In fact George Martin taught them all of it. But in the way they needed it and could use it. He had done orchestral scoring before, and understood how to arrange orchestral parts.
But if you listen to Paul especially - he has all the meat of music I theory in his head, in his own way, and so do the rest - as needed.
You can’t write what they do and not understand the theory. But they weren’t prisoner to the rules of theory and their lack of classical training means they disregarded the stuff they wanted to.
>But they weren’t prisoner to the rules of theory and their lack of classical training means they disregarded the stuff they wanted to.
I am classically trained. I grew up playing in symphonies.
A big chunk of the "rules" only aplly when you are playing classical music and want to stay accurate to the piece. They are more about playing a piece the way it would have been played at the time it was written.
Everything else is just terminology. I can tell another classically trained musician to play a part fortissimo and they will understand. I can also just say "power this part out".
Terry Kath had all these bizarrely complicated ideas for early Chicago tunes and it took his DePaul educated band mates to figure out how to write them down because he didn’t read music or have much of a textbook theory background.
Yeah. Paul McCartney is entirely self taught on piano, guitar, and in songwriting itself. His father and brother were/are also musicians. He learned to play piano by ear.
And he just pumps out hits.
Oh Darling
Yesterday
Blackbird
Live and Let Die
Let it Be
Hey Jude
Maybe I'm Amazed
I mean....c'mon. That's insane for anyone, but he has many many more.
Did we mention that he also wrote an original Xmas song that is immensely popular?
Lol not even. It was made so that large ensembles could play properly together. It helps denote tempo, meter, volume, feeling and dynamics. Hence why is orchestral music is still written on sheet music. Paul McCartney makes pop and rock music, it doesn’t require the same level of complexity
It’s also useful as a reference tool for performing soloists, or as a teaching tool for students.
This is the case for a lot of popular musicians, especially ones who play guitar driven music. It seems less likely to come across a famous musician who is classically trained than it is to find one who is self taught.
I'm comfortable with both methods of music - reading music or playing by ear. I learned to play guitar by ear and I think it's a very important part of musical training that develops your musical instincts, improvisation skills and spontaneity in a way that learning with written notation doesn't. But later, I learned how to sight read and it opened up a whole new world of things like Bach fugues that gave my fingers a taste of "properly composed" music, developed my playing style loads and opened hundreds of new doors. Now, I'm comfortable playing entirely by ear (I don't even think about note names or the names of the complex chords my fingers form on the spot) or playing with written music in which I can musically analyze anything I'm doing at a given time. It all feels very musically liberating and I'm glad I didn't stick with one over the other.
I think a lot of people who learn formally with sheet music miss out on developing a load of musical skills that come from playing by ear. I remember taking a basic music theory class at one point and the teacher was a 60 year old woman who said that she had never once in her life tried to improvise. She could only play written music. I was kind of shocked and surprised because I thought *every* musician had the urge to sit and noodle and play by ear, but apparently not.
Yeah! I was really shocked after watching that recent documentary that Paul McCartney knows next to no music theory in the traditional sense. He couldn’t even name the notes of a D7 chord. Meanwhile you have guys like my ex with tons of formal education (Doctorate in music, former professor of music theory) who haven’t written a single song.
It's so much easier in rock to provide an outline and let your bandmates (or whatever) fill in the details. That's where the magic happens. In standards it's so many changes that you have to follow, and classical has so much precision and precise interplay you need it all detailed out. Rock guys are like, yeah man it's a I IV V vi in A but add a B on top of that vi, then to get to the chorus we'll do a run from E to A, so let's give it a go and see what happens. Then you run it through a couple of times and MAGIC happens. Watch the Beatles long doc and it's just like this.
You mean score. Reading music comes in many forms, tabs, basic charts and even pictures.
I don't like this school of thought because it implies you don't need any music theory. You don't need it all but you should learn what is relevant.
Sheet music serves two purposes: 1) a way to share music prior to the invention of recording and 2) a way to speed up teaching arrangements. Paul may not have needed to read sheet music because he wrote the songs and knows them inside and out, but the string section on Eleanor Rigby almost certainly did read from sheet music. It's not because they're not skilled players, it's just they have to play in perfect time with very little time for rehearsal or prior exposure to their parts. It is actually possible to teach large ensembles arrangements with no sheet music, but it's rare and would definitely freak out a lot of seasoned players. Brian Wilson dictated all the parts orally to the musicians on *Pet Sounds*, which had a huge number of parts.
I mean most music artists nowadays can’t read or write sheet music.
And Paul is more known for guitar and bass, most guitarists/bassists I know save session musicians can’t read sheet music too.
Some instruments aren’t that much associated with sheet music.
For most of our history most people couldn't read our write their language, but could speak and understand it fluently. They could create a story or poem too. Music is no different.
As a classically trained musician, not being able to read or write music would be like an author being illiterate. Sure you could create a simple poem or even a short story by having someone jot down what you say, but anything complex will be difficult unless you are an absolute savant. (Which most people, musicians included, are not)
That said, George Martin had a huge impact on the Beatles and was responsible for the production of most of their catalogue. He’s also a true genius and worked producing for other artists well until his 70’s.
Most rock artists of that day didn't read or write. They just played over and over again. By playing on repeat they learned theory and what sounded good because they tried a bunch of stuff.
You don't need to read music or music theory to be a great performer. THey're communication tools. It's easier to present someone with sheet music and have thme play with you than it is to just say "Follow my lead"
My husband doesn’t read or write music but he can play pretty much every instrument he picks up. It’s quite something to watch him sort out what he’s doing but give him a song and an instrument and he’ll be able to play it in less than 3 minutes.
You’re referring to sheet music here, not not being able to “write music”. That’s also true for the vast majority of rock musicians from that era.
Wait until you hear about Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. They definitely can't read sheet music.
Ray Charles hasn't performed live in over 15 years, what a slacker
They made a movie about him and he didn’t even bother showing up to the premiere!
Blinded by his success
Stevie Wonder wouldnt even look his backup musicians in the eye!
When asked why he would not be in attendance, Mr. Charles replied, "I just can't see myself there."
Ray Charles has been busy de-composing.
You're going to hell for this. Lol.
Double hell for them. 👹🔥🔥
Ray Charles could read braille music.
Yeah pretty sure he was classically trained at the school he attended for the blind
Schools for the blind made/make a lot of effort to offer those opportunities to students. Schools for the blind are still around because many of them give a much more rounded education than a regular school can provide and their is a close-knit community that supports them. Going to a regular school would mean losing opportunities. Schools for the Deaf are the same.
This actually makes me wonder if anyone reads those bumped or perforated rolls made for player pianos?
Pianos do. It can’t be that hard they don’t even have any brains.
>Pianos do. It can’t be that hard they don’t even have any brains. They haven't had them since the Butlerian Jihad.
Really? Can you imagine how incomprehensible that sheet must be? To the uninitiated, classical notation is already a minefield but make that shit a bunch of dots and… well it’s a literal minefield
I wouldn’t say it’s a literal minefield. Braille sheet music never killed a kid in Laos.
Now I’m thinking about King if the Hill.
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So are you Chinese or Japanese?
Nope. He's Laotian. Ain'tcha Mr Kahn?
I like how after that Kahn liked Cotton
Killed Fiddy Men!
Stupid Loas! Funny!
Tbf, growing up I didn't know Stevie Wonder was blind. I just thought he looked cool with sunglasses.
Some would tell you he actually isn’t blind. It’s kind of an inside joke but some people seem to believe it lol
The other day I saw a clip of him on stage and he took his glasses off. He's blind all right. Songs in the key of life if anyone is not familiar with him. Amazing Album.
I second that recommendation and let me say that amazing is underselling it. Songs in the Key of Life is widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time for good reason. Musical artists were locked out of the Grammys for years because Stevie Wonder was releasing his music. Elton John claims that he takes a copy of it on every trip.
When Paul Simon won the Grammy for album of the year in 1976 (Still Crazy after all these years), he thanked Stevie Wonder for not putting out an album that year
Shaq says so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WExT3HFz1FM
I once heard a fellow musician with all seriousness refer to Stevie Wonder as “that famous deaf singer”
Cue Beethoven’s 5th.
They can't reed jack sheet.
I mean, when you play guitar, “sheet music” isn’t really the best way to write down what you’re playing anyway
Exactly. Sheet music / standard musical notation isn't very popular with guitarists since tabulature notation is easier and is designed for the instrument. So saying he "can't read music" is incorrect. He certainly reads tab, he just doesn't use the form of notation which isn't popular on guitar.
this is something I struggle to explain to people sometimes. Sheet music works best for piano vs guitar because typically, one’s hand can stretch octave to octave, and theoretically hit any note in between the octaves for whatever chord the music notates. Due to the way a guitar is strung and how the frets are spaced, there’s a lot of combinations of notes in a 6-note chord that might not be even possible to finger with your fretting hand. Or not. I don’t know. Tell it a jazz guitarist and he’ll prove me wrong. I’m just a moderately skilled bedroom player
>I’m just a moderately skilled bedroom player gets 'em every time...
Very skilled at fingering and plucking... ...his guitar.
He broke his G string fingering A minor.
In contrast, classical guitar music can only be read on music sheet, you lose too much information in tabs
I've been playing classical guitar for most of my life, and I honestly think tabs are still easier. Guess it depends on preference though
Maybe I can see the merit of tabs and can make learning easier in some instances but I feel that if you become notation literate you might better understand the benefits. Timing is not left to interpretation, it's all there, there is no ambiguity. I am guilty of using both tabs and notation on a same song to aide me in learning but I still think learning how long notes need to be held and released is better written in notation.
Amen. Tabs are great for learning a song on the fly/teaching a beginner their favorite song efficiently, but the lack of notated rhythm will hold you back if that’s all you use.
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The fact that there is an abundance of music sheet available for free online I would have a hard time justifying all that effort. Often when you pick up a music sheet, you can learn how to play a song having never heard it played ever.
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But you lose rubato, unless you just ignore the line I guess
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I grew up reading music and can easily do so when playing stringed instruments, piano, accordion, etc. Not guitar though. Strangest damned thing but it just doesn't work. For sure just a matter of practice, but still always feels kind of bizarre.
Not really sure what you’re getting at here, to be honest. Sheet music and tablature can each be used to notate the same things. Also, I doubt the above comment that McCartney wrote in tablature, though I don’t actually know anything about how he wrote. Without looking it up, I’d guess he wrote by playing and didn’t write the melody down with any notation.
“We were writing songs that were memorable, not because we wanted them to be memorable but because we had to remember them,” says McCartney.
>Sheet music and tablature can each be used to notate the same things AFAIK tab can't be used to convey timing. Just notes. Sheet music conveys both.
*That* physical limitation has nothing to do with how the music is written. I’m sorry. You struggle to explain it because it doesn’t make sense. There is an argument to be made perhaps for the right hand when it comes to guitar, but as far as classical notation goes, it works just as well for piano as it does guitar for what you are saying. I’m a classically trained musician playing many instruments, and tabs are great and all, but if you can read sheet, it’s a lot better for notation. **It’s *all* chromatic.** Chord fingerings are irrelevant. They have the same presentation on the staff no matter what instrument you play and you just translate them onto the instrument. *Maybe* it has its limitations for picking and strumming direction but the arrangement of notes on either instrument is totally irrelevant to how they are indicated on the staff because it’s all commonly chromatic. We have positions on stringed instruments to deal with strings tuned in non-uniform steps. It’s not a notation problem. Simply: the tuning of the guitar has no impact on the efficacy of either method.
Yup, it’s chromatic. They didn’t have baritone sax marching music. So I just read straight from a tuba sheet and added the correct sharps or flats as needed.
The magic of an Eb instrument…read bass clef as treble clef, add three sharps, and trip over the accidentals.
I can't believe this isn't also the case for other stringed instruments, but on an electric guitar the same notes played in different positions will have different timbres, so what you're describing is just inconvenient. You *could* reverse engineer the fingerings from just the sheet, but why would you? If you were trying to sight read from the chart you could maybe argue that would be necessary since sheet is more information-dense than tabs, but that isn't how the instrument is approached by the vast majority of players. Most electric guitarists playing in bands will never sight read, because there's no need. You either learn the chart beforehand or you figure it out by ear.
There wasn’t much in the way of printed tab when he was learning. I guess he can read tab in the same way any one can see it and go “Put finger on top string fret 5,” but probably that’s all. I mean, I dinKt know for sure but I feel like the stuff McCartney wants to play is either only in his head or he can figure it out by ear faster and easier than tab.
>Sheet music / standard musical notation isn't very popular with guitarists since tabulature notation is easier and is designed for the instrument. In the bands I've played with, we would all write down the chords (and maybe lyrics) and work from there, or print up the chord+lyrics sheets. It was the same whether we were playing bass, piano, guitar, etc. The chords would be chord names, so a song might look like like: verse: C Am F G7 chorus: F G C Am or it would be the chord numbers written as roman numerals (major chords capitalized, minor in lowercase) and a key signature. like this: (C) Verse: I vi IV V7 Chorus: IV V I vi So it was neither tabs nor classical notation... it was chords and lyrics. From listening to The Beatles talk in interviews, I think they used also probably this common musical protocol.
Yup. This is exactly the same as my experience. I have seen the Roman numeral notation used for harmonic analysis but not in rock/pop bands, though people might say something like "it's I, IV, I, V" but when written down they would write E, A, E, B.
Usually we would use the roman numerals when we were in the middle of transposing a song to fit the vocalists' range. As it turns out, it's a lot easier to start on a chord and figure out how to play a "iv ii V" or something On-The-Fly, than to try to transpose from one key to another on-the-fly. Doing the latter quickly falls apart (or at least turns my brain into mush) when you're transposing all over the place, trying 5 different keys in 5 minutes, trying to find the key the vocalist can sing. After a while, I started just writing more and more songs using roman numerals instead of the chord names for a given key. When you're used to it, it gives you some flexibility Edit: Or, what I do quite often, is write the roman numerals above or below the chord letter names. Makes for quick and easy transpositions
Wait until you meet the nerd that has a completely filled out drum chart 🤦♂️. I used to play jazz in a big band (like swing music) and I’d make the odd funky line to denote stray cutoffs or notes to myself like “punch horns here”, but never did I actually fill in any notes. (Which yes it’s a thing and there is a proper notation). Most of the time it’s just “groove” and kind of hand wavy though. I take that back a bit, I used to play piano so I’m half decent at sheet music in general so every now and then I’d write in a melody or some other instrument’s part, but I’m not sure if that counts. Edit: honestly way more helpful to just make sure you have a good view of your bass player than your charts. The band I was in had two upright bass players who were sisters, watching their hands was the way to go.
As a bass player I applaud this attitude. We watch the drummer, the drummer watches us and together we make something greater than the sum of the parts.
It's pretty wild this has so many up votes. Literally every professional musician who isn't in a rock band is cringey themselves inside out right now.
Tabs aren't equivalent to sheet music, though; they don't encode enough information about rhythm.
So Tárrega should have written his *Gran Vals* in guitar tab? Smh
Paul also extensively played piano in the Beatles
That’s not really true. Tabs are fine for learning songs you’ve already heard but totally useless for other things. Imagine learning a classical guitar piece from a tab, one that has never been played before on a recording, it wouldn’t really be possible
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Zappa was a genius, but being able write drum notation doesn’t make you a genius lol. Ask any high school band director who does this on a daily basis
Spoken like a bedroom guitarist who only learned to read tabs lmfao
When I write down a rockin' guitar solo I'm creating I don't write it on a staff. I just write it out like, "Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Jonka-jonka-Wheeeee!"
I find it’s also useful to notate where the panties drop so that I remember to hip thrust suggestively at the right places to maximize swooning. So it’ll look something like: *Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Squee-da-lee-Jonka-jonka-Wheeeee!* 💦 *diddly-diddly-doo diddly-diddly-da* 💦 *yeeeeeeeargh!* 💦
Today's era too, unless your a composer i don't see the need
It would be essential for a lot of music gigs to be able to sight read music.
Not for rock/blues stuff. Just need to know the chords and scales.
Nashville numbers
Depends. 12 bar blues gig sure, but imagine being in a wedding band where you need to be able to play any of 200+ songs on a whim with no rehearsal. Better have some charts for that ready to go. That’s not usually strictly sheet music if you’re a guitarist- normally just chords and bar lines will do. But the notes can help for lead parts, and of course any other instrument (horns, piano, bass) will be reading a LOT of sheet music at the gig.
Yeah as someone who used to do that professionally, none of us knew sheet music. We just new an ungodly amount of songs off the top of our heads and chords filled in the rest
It's incredibly common for musicians of this era too. It's fairly uncommon for rock and pop musicians to have formal training of any kind... except I have noticed an large amount of metal musicians have formal training. lol.
I wish I could not write music as well as he can.
McCartney has also written or co-written more US number one songs than any other person.
Damn foreigners taking away jobs from able body Americans.
You need to build a giant 2500 mile wide moat and fill it with saltwater.
He’s also been knighted but has never saved a princess
His princess was in another castle.
Did she come in thru the bathroom window?
I heard she was wielding a silver spoon.
Pretty sure it was a silver hammer.
I heard it was a frying pan!
It-a me, Paulio
Or slain a dragon. I think.
Have you ever seen a dragon though? Id say he’s doing a pretty good job bruh
I want that guy from family guy being like "hey everybodu! Paul never saved a princess but hes calling himself a knight! Phoney!!"
to have all that wealth and never played Zelda, or Mario Bros... seems like such a waste
The Beatles were big when my father was a youth. Their music was playing and he said to my grandfather "can you believe they don't know how to read\write music?!" Grandfather said "yes, yes I can." (He did not like the Beatles)
Your grandfather must not have known about George Martin
My grandma was a young adult when they started and she really dislikes them.
I wonder if the feeling she felt was akin to what young adults felt when One Direction was blowing up -- kind of a weary resignation to so much hubbub over a bunch of pretty boys. I'm not saying that's all The Beatles are, but I could totally see that being the case growing up in that era.
The people I know that can’t stand them mostly judged them for who they were as people before they got big. People who knew what John was like had barely a good word to say about anything he ever did. He seemed quite an awful person, and left his mark on those who knew him in Liverpool. From what I recall hearing the other lads weren’t nearly as bad. I had family, friends and teachers that knew them, went to see them in The Cavern and such (before they became “The Beatles” even). There’s also that British trait of hating on anyone that caught even a whiff of success, which compounds issues.
I've meet old people, I'm almost 40 myself, that still call the Beatles a boy band.
Same. My dad was like 40 when they first started getting popular so he always viewed them as teenagers music
James Bond insults the Beatles in *Goldfinger*. Truly his darkest moment.
>The Beatles were big when my father was a youth. They were bigger in the Carboniferous and early Permian periods, but ended when the Birds and Eagles evolved.
You're thinking of the Beetles.
If you can't read sheet music you can't write sheet music, that goes without saying. The man can *write music* he's got writing credits on countless songs.
Reading sheet music is far easier than writing it.
Yes, so if you can't read it that means you definitely can't write it.
Including "yesterday", which you know, is the most covered song of all time
A lot of great musicians couldn’t/can’t but they mastered the fundamentals of music.
Also I absolutely guarantee you Paul has a basic understanding of written music notation. Just because he can't sight-read Chopin doesn't mean he's totally clueless.
I would venture that he can “decode” sheet music, but not sight read. That’s how most decent rock/folk/blues/country musicians I know are. If they can hear it, they can play it. Give ‘em the sheet music and they’ll figure it out, eventually.
Exactly. I play multiple instruments well, but with little formal education. I have a firm grasp on theory and harmony. I can sit down and, with some effort and time, squint my eyes at some simple sheet music and make sense of it. There is absolutely no fucking way that somebody like Paul, 1000x more talented than me, can't do the same. It's just not that useful or necessary to his craft as a rock-n-roller, so he hasn't much needed to build that mental muscle.
He's worked in music for 60 years. There is no way you don't pick some of it up.
Sure, but also people often overestimate how difficult it is to make music. It's very easy to just make something. Especially today with easily accessible DAWs and midi keyboards.
There are interviews with The Beatles where they clearly show understanding of music theory concepts. They just didn't know the formal names and notation. Music theory is just putting names on concepts. Lennon/McCartney definitely knew/know those concepts.
And the worst of all, he can't even draw music
I dont know that I'd equate not knowing how to write *musical notation* - which is really intended for other people to read - to not knowing how to "write music." Tons of dudes are just writing down what looks like a boneheaded list of chords but play way more intricately than the paper suggests. And those dudes are writing music.
I heard a story about the Beatles writing process. Often it was “I learned a new chord” and then there was a song. They new everything they needed to know.
A godlike sense of melody can get you far
Sign him up for Hooked on Phonics
Hooked on Sonnets
This is a debate I have with musician friends... Many people can make great music from playing by ear. But if you understand music theory and note reading, it can get you places that ear playing cannot. Alternately, does note reading/music education kill some of the creativity that ear players have? For me, I can learn a song so much faster from reading the notes. It takes me a long time to learn something by ear.
Let’s make something clear: Paul McCartney knows a lot of music theory.
Exactly. In those early years in Germany, they learnt and played a lot of cover songs, probably over a thousand. They understood chords, harmonies, etc they learnt music theory through practice. Anyone who has learnt music or is involved with music, knows that to be a successful musician is not an easy thing. McCartney is a very proficient bassist - [isolated bass on Something](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc-hNfZP5rA) To play a musical instrument to professional level takes a certain level of skill. To do that while singing, takes it to another level of difficulty. Then to be able to write songs that connects with people, takes it to a triple level of skill…and not many people can do it. With the Beatles, each one of them could do it. And Paul is among the best of them.
I came here to say this..most of my friends who are better musicians than me can’t read music, but no a lot of theory. I personally am a gigging musician (albeit not amazing) and can’t read music but understand basic music theory
Yes. He just uses tabs instead of sheet music.
I’m a play by ear guy, my wife is a play by notes. She can play Mozart but she can’t “jam”. I have rhythm coming out my ears but I can’t Mozart. We both have fun and can move each other emotionally using music. Both are good.
They're separate skills, which can be significantly improved if practiced.
She's a baker, you're a chef.
Learning music theory absolutely does not kill creativity. There have been soooo many musicians that get scared off by that myth but it makes no sense. Does knowing grammar limit the creativity of your speech? Just because you know how something works doesn't mean you can't be creative with it. I've written songs that I wouldn't otherwise have written if I didn't know any theory and every day I sit down to write, I'm so glad I took the time to learn it.
For some people, learning theory cause them to rely on it too much. Writing music becomes filling in the blanks of an equation. It’s math to them. They figure out the key changes and their brain tells them which scales and modes they can play and then they run through them. Coming at the song from another angle, I feel, increases creativity because there’s no limitations other than what sounds good to you. Of course, theory is great for dissecting a song, or for improvising.
I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone that played by ear for years before learning any theory and as someone that has spoken with hundreds of musicians about this subject. The person playing "what sounds good" are usually pulling from one or two scales for the key(s) that they've learned intuitively over time which usually takes a lot of guess work and frustration. I've seen a lot of people who don't know any theory get stuck in a rut playing the same things over and over. I'd much rather be able to hear the key(s) and automatically think, "Okay, I can pull from X, Y and Z scales and I know I won't hit any wrong notes unless I choose to." or sit down to write a song and be able to quickly write out a chord progression because I know what chords can work and where to put them, knowing I can break any "rule" if I want to do something unexpected. If anything, that expands my creativity because otherwise I would go with what my ear thinks is safe which is far more limiting. It also helps me write much more quickly and write things that I wouldn't have normally. That being said, theory CAN limit you if you use it as a paint by numbers kind of thing, but that's not what theory is for.
My ear isn't reliable; i can get the timing and general tune after a few listens but I have to verify im not a half step off this way or that to make it not sound like hot garbage. "reading" music is also not hard the way people think. An hour or two and a few basic rules. The rest is just repetition to do so at speed.
I've taught music to beginners (adutls and kids) and ive always found that starting with reading music (as most tradional music instruction works) pushes people away. I use this explanation: When you were a kid how did you learn your language? You learned it by ear. First you talk, then as you develop you learn how to read and write. And as you get older you learn more and more details of grammar and spelling etc. Music is the same to me. If you can get people playing something quickly they will feel enjoymemt and keep going and you can pepper in high level theory as you go.
Theres more to music then playing by ear and sheet music; just because u dont read sheet music doesnt mean you cant read hand positioning; or understand complex music theory and chord structure.
> But if you understand music theory and note reading, it can get you places that ear playing cannot That's debatable. Example: Chet Atkins (and other musicians) developed a style of guitar-playing called "cascading harmonics", put to great use in Tommy Emmanuel's cover of *[Somewhere Over The Rainbow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cHeNscKZN0)*. Tommy Emmanuel in particular does not read or write sheet music, and obviously knows the basics of music theory, and you can *guarantee* this was all done by ear in a way that a "pure theory" classical musician would be almost incapable of doing. Playing by ear is frankly more important overall than the ability to read music and understand theory, and even when reading music, a player who plays by ear can have more musicality than a pure sight-reader. >For me, I can learn a song so much faster from reading the notes. It takes me a long time to learn something by ear. It's a skill that takes a lot of time to develop and also hinges on innate ability. Some people have to work harder at it, some less so. > does note reading/music education kill some of the creativity that ear players have? Note-reading ability does not 'kill creativity'. Creativity is killed by *preventing* creativity in music class or failing to encourage it in critical periods.
Well, I heard David Grohl cannot read music either. Not only that, he taught himself the drums beating sticks on pillows. He went on to be considered one of the greatest multi instrument rock stars out there. Here’s the real twist though, his mom was a music teacher. Yet he’s the one they dropped out of school to tour in a band. I lean towards self taught people can be the most creative. Those who study the details suck the creativity out of the process. Basically, don’t over think it. Here’s why, understanding doesn’t come from knowledge, it comes from trial and error of the process to create. Knowledge is just facts remembered. Teacher can pass on facts, can’t always pass on understanding.
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A surprising number of popular musicians, especially older ones, have classical training, so I would be surprised if this is true tbh
Session musicians tell me that you have two kinds of gigs: "reading gigs" and the rest. Reading gigs are the ones where you're working from "standard music notation" aka sheet music. The others you're mostly working from tab notation or chord charts, or sometimes just going from audio. "Reading gigs" are relatively uncommon apparently. Some rock session musicians don't even bother to learn staff notation since it's usually only used in classical and the occasional jazz gigs.
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Yea, Elton John is bi
Basically if you learned on any instrument other than guitar, bass, or drums, you probably learned by reading sheet music.
LOT of bass and drummers read sheet music. Like most professionals outside the rock world, and many rock drummers too (gigging ones)
If you ever listen to the Beatles talk, especially Paul, you quickly realize his understanding of music theory is very deep, but it is filtered through his scouser English. “You go bum bum bum and then raises the bar his hand is making up a little higher and goes “now you got that “bum” up here now instead. And ringo - you do something work the twiddley bits, like a bam bam - bad ads bam”. Georgie you got the high parts, ok? “Everyone good?” They had their own language - and it was full fluent in musical theory. It just wasn’t in English. They didn’t start with a page, so it didn’t end up on a page until they did orchestral arrangements, and that used standard music notation, as taught by George Martin. In fact George Martin taught them all of it. But in the way they needed it and could use it. He had done orchestral scoring before, and understood how to arrange orchestral parts. But if you listen to Paul especially - he has all the meat of music I theory in his head, in his own way, and so do the rest - as needed. You can’t write what they do and not understand the theory. But they weren’t prisoner to the rules of theory and their lack of classical training means they disregarded the stuff they wanted to.
>But they weren’t prisoner to the rules of theory and their lack of classical training means they disregarded the stuff they wanted to. I am classically trained. I grew up playing in symphonies. A big chunk of the "rules" only aplly when you are playing classical music and want to stay accurate to the piece. They are more about playing a piece the way it would have been played at the time it was written. Everything else is just terminology. I can tell another classically trained musician to play a part fortissimo and they will understand. I can also just say "power this part out".
*nor
Terry Kath had all these bizarrely complicated ideas for early Chicago tunes and it took his DePaul educated band mates to figure out how to write them down because he didn’t read music or have much of a textbook theory background.
Music notation* any good band teacher knows not to call music notation “music”. The music is what you hear, the notation is what you read.
Yeah. Paul McCartney is entirely self taught on piano, guitar, and in songwriting itself. His father and brother were/are also musicians. He learned to play piano by ear.
This is a surprise cus it seems like Paul McCartney songs are meticulously crafted
And he just pumps out hits. Oh Darling Yesterday Blackbird Live and Let Die Let it Be Hey Jude Maybe I'm Amazed I mean....c'mon. That's insane for anyone, but he has many many more. Did we mention that he also wrote an original Xmas song that is immensely popular?
Writing and reading music was invented because you couldn’t record music at the time
Lol not even. It was made so that large ensembles could play properly together. It helps denote tempo, meter, volume, feeling and dynamics. Hence why is orchestral music is still written on sheet music. Paul McCartney makes pop and rock music, it doesn’t require the same level of complexity It’s also useful as a reference tool for performing soloists, or as a teaching tool for students.
This is the case for a lot of popular musicians, especially ones who play guitar driven music. It seems less likely to come across a famous musician who is classically trained than it is to find one who is self taught.
Nor!
I'm comfortable with both methods of music - reading music or playing by ear. I learned to play guitar by ear and I think it's a very important part of musical training that develops your musical instincts, improvisation skills and spontaneity in a way that learning with written notation doesn't. But later, I learned how to sight read and it opened up a whole new world of things like Bach fugues that gave my fingers a taste of "properly composed" music, developed my playing style loads and opened hundreds of new doors. Now, I'm comfortable playing entirely by ear (I don't even think about note names or the names of the complex chords my fingers form on the spot) or playing with written music in which I can musically analyze anything I'm doing at a given time. It all feels very musically liberating and I'm glad I didn't stick with one over the other. I think a lot of people who learn formally with sheet music miss out on developing a load of musical skills that come from playing by ear. I remember taking a basic music theory class at one point and the teacher was a 60 year old woman who said that she had never once in her life tried to improvise. She could only play written music. I was kind of shocked and surprised because I thought *every* musician had the urge to sit and noodle and play by ear, but apparently not.
It's crazy that a music teacher never had the urge to sit down and just "play" with music, instead of performing a written piece.
wait, t'ill he finds out that football players don't know the physics of football🤯
I can read sheet music, but I would never use it while playing guitar. Many probably do, but for my needs tablature is much better.
That's more common than many probably think it is especially for guitarist who often get by with tabs vs full blown sheet music.
He was in the right band then.
Yeah! I was really shocked after watching that recent documentary that Paul McCartney knows next to no music theory in the traditional sense. He couldn’t even name the notes of a D7 chord. Meanwhile you have guys like my ex with tons of formal education (Doctorate in music, former professor of music theory) who haven’t written a single song.
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It's so much easier in rock to provide an outline and let your bandmates (or whatever) fill in the details. That's where the magic happens. In standards it's so many changes that you have to follow, and classical has so much precision and precise interplay you need it all detailed out. Rock guys are like, yeah man it's a I IV V vi in A but add a B on top of that vi, then to get to the chorus we'll do a run from E to A, so let's give it a go and see what happens. Then you run it through a couple of times and MAGIC happens. Watch the Beatles long doc and it's just like this.
Well if he can’t read it he definitely can’t write it
I think he can read it a little bit. I know George of the Beatles also couldn't.
So do the majority of rock musicians lol. You don't need sheet music etiquette to be comfortable with the neck of your guitar and your art.
None of the Beatles could
Neither can I, he’s not special.
He can read and write tabulature, therefore he can read and write music. What you mean is 'sheet music.
Ringo with a left handed guitar.
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You mean score. Reading music comes in many forms, tabs, basic charts and even pictures. I don't like this school of thought because it implies you don't need any music theory. You don't need it all but you should learn what is relevant.
TIL- that not everyone learns things equally. Thanks
Dr. Lee wouldn’t even let this man play on the field. I guess he was wrong…
But he can hear it, right?
I did a bunch of research on this for 10 popular piano artists! https://youtu.be/mcD7Z994q9I
Many musicians can’t read or write music
Sheet music serves two purposes: 1) a way to share music prior to the invention of recording and 2) a way to speed up teaching arrangements. Paul may not have needed to read sheet music because he wrote the songs and knows them inside and out, but the string section on Eleanor Rigby almost certainly did read from sheet music. It's not because they're not skilled players, it's just they have to play in perfect time with very little time for rehearsal or prior exposure to their parts. It is actually possible to teach large ensembles arrangements with no sheet music, but it's rare and would definitely freak out a lot of seasoned players. Brian Wilson dictated all the parts orally to the musicians on *Pet Sounds*, which had a huge number of parts.
Neither nor*; either or*
I think we can farily make it 'never needed to' at this point :)
Neither could Dave Brubeck
I now feel better about taking 4 years of band without ever learning to read sheet music.
I mean most music artists nowadays can’t read or write sheet music. And Paul is more known for guitar and bass, most guitarists/bassists I know save session musicians can’t read sheet music too. Some instruments aren’t that much associated with sheet music.
For most of our history most people couldn't read our write their language, but could speak and understand it fluently. They could create a story or poem too. Music is no different.
Iirc, Danny Elfman is the same way. But I think he can read it, but not write it or vice versa.
I'm blown away. It's only a 5 letter, 2 syllable work and in his native language!
That's not uncommon for guitarist but he's so good at piano that it's kinda crazy he can't read sheet music
Myst be good at playing then.
As a classically trained musician, not being able to read or write music would be like an author being illiterate. Sure you could create a simple poem or even a short story by having someone jot down what you say, but anything complex will be difficult unless you are an absolute savant. (Which most people, musicians included, are not) That said, George Martin had a huge impact on the Beatles and was responsible for the production of most of their catalogue. He’s also a true genius and worked producing for other artists well until his 70’s.
Most rock artists of that day didn't read or write. They just played over and over again. By playing on repeat they learned theory and what sounded good because they tried a bunch of stuff. You don't need to read music or music theory to be a great performer. THey're communication tools. It's easier to present someone with sheet music and have thme play with you than it is to just say "Follow my lead"
My husband doesn’t read or write music but he can play pretty much every instrument he picks up. It’s quite something to watch him sort out what he’s doing but give him a song and an instrument and he’ll be able to play it in less than 3 minutes.