How many people here can read music?

[octatonic]

Just wondering how many people here can read standard notation?
To what sort of level?

Can you sight read in different keys?
At what sort of tempo?

[<jbc>]

I can decode standard notation (for the classical guitar, with suggested fingerings &tc.), but not in real time.

I can play single note lead sheets, and harmonize if the chords aren't too crazy. I find I stumble over time signature changes and stuff like that. Plus I need to play the hard bits thru until I find fingerings that work for me.

Getting more complicated rhythms down is hard, much harder for me than pitch. And readability of published music varies greatly. Good editions are better.

I've seen some classical players that could read the music, and then play it later by memory.

[Paul G.]

Well, I usta could.

But sight-reading is a skill that requires constant practice, and, well I don't.

It doesn't help that my eyesight gets worse every year.

"How do you get a piano player to shut up? Take away his sheet music."

"How do you get a guitar player to shut up? Put a sheet of music in front of him."

Old joke, somewhat true.

P.

[Bangbang]

I am slowly learning but using tab for now.

[Tim Armstrong]

I could sight-read fairly well thirty years ago, but like Paul G., I unfortunately let that skill atrophy. Now it might as well be Sanskrit...

Cheers, Tim

[Talmir]

I try and practice it as much as I can, but so far I am very hectic and FAR from being able to do it in real time.. But getting better every week :)

[Mike Armstrong]

...fitfully, but with interest...

Howdy, folks!!! I'm Tim's brother...followed a post into this joint, seems like an interesting place...

Like my brother, I used to read music, back when I had to in school, but I'm a lot better deciphering tablature nowadays. One of my guitar students is in the jazz band at the local high school, so I've been helping her read through some of the jazz standards like "Satin Doll" & "Billies' Bounce"...it's been painful for both of us!!!

Mike A.

[greggorypeccary]

I can read since I started in elementary school, but can't sight read. Never really could, I always needed to hear something before I could decode those black dots. So I guess I can't really read, but I do know what that stuff on paper is supposed to mean!

[superchicken_VI]

I can read music as fluently as English, and am at a loss without it when playing trumpet and severely hampered without it when singing. To graduate with my music degree, I had to be able to conduct from a score with around 30 individual lines of music and catch and correct errors in performance. I can read scores and "hear" the music in full context. Years of experience in ear training, sight singing, and score reading.

For guitar, I read well enough to get the idea of what I need to be doing, but I have to go slowly and write cheats into the music to know what to do. I cannot sightread on guitar. I would say I'm functionally literate, but that doesn't mean I can operate in real-time. I can read a C7 chord, and know to play a C7 chord, but I'm not necessarily playing the correct C7 chord. Thankfully, most of the charts I've been handed over the years have chord names over hash marks for guitar parts, and then single lines written out, and I can manage that with one practice session to learn those lines.

As a guitar player, traditional notation is not important to me. TAB is more functional for me as a shorthand and learning format. As an overall musician, however, traditional notation is vital. Understanding traditional notation also makes life much easier when dealing with other musicians.

[trag-o-caster]

I can read VERY slowly...

I almost never use it (or tab) though.

[neocaster]

Welcome Mike. Decipher is exactly the word I was thinking. It's code to me. I can get it, but as a realtime playing tool, it's useless to me. I'm not real interested in practicing it as a new player, but it's on the agenda for when I'm more proficient in some simpler disciplines.

[Tim Armstrong]

Originally Posted by Mike Armstrong

...fitfully, but with interest...

Howdy, folks!!! I'm Tim's brother...followed a post into this joint, seems like an interesting place...

Is this what I get for breaking the wings off your model airplanes when we were kids???





Cheers, Mike's Brother

[<jbc>]

Originally Posted by superchicken_VI

I can read a C7 chord, and know to play a C7 chord, but I'm not necessarily playing the correct C7 chord.

What makes reading lead sheets for guitar particularly difficult is not knowing the correct position beforehand. On piano there is a one-to-one relationship between the written and played note, on guitar not so much.

Man would I like to be able to read and comp in real time, but its just a hobby.

[TexGoneNW]

Yeah, I can read & can sight read okay in most standard keys.

Don't put "The Black Page" in front of me and expect note-for-note at tempo, though.

[jcayer]

I can decode the black dots in treble and bass clef, not while playing tho...

I have trouble with trying to translate the "speed" of the differents notes (half, quarter, etc...) I know what they mean but just can't figure it out while playing. I have to listen to the song to understand the length off the notes.

But I'm having fun

[Chris Browne]

I can read a bit - I started getting interested in Irish/Celtic traditional music a while ago and I really enjoy sitting down with a book of fiddle tunes and learning them on the guitar. Pretty low level stuff, but I've managed to learn songs that I've never actually heard before, and I think that's pretty cool.

[shoebox22]

Busted. I was a piano teacher fercryingoutloud!

[bowlfreshener]

They need to make a Hooked On Phonics for reading music, then maybe I wouldn't be musically illiterate...

[Doug Ferguson]

Just barely -- enough to figure out the key and the melody. My mom was a piano teacher and tried to get me to play piano and read music, but the guitar was and is the instrument of my heart. I discovered early on reading music wasn't necessarily required to play guitar, especially blues and rock -- just listen, follow along, and learn. There are times when I wish I read better than I do, but not enough to motivate me to take the time to learn.

[Jakedog]

I used to be a great reader. I played horn from 4th grade all the way through high school, and was a really, really, good sight reader. Treble clef, bass clef, time sigs., dynamics, the whole nine. Haven't picked up a horn now in almost eighteen years, and haven't read much in that time either.

I recently tried again to read some guitar notation, and boy do I suck at it. I can do it, but it takes forever. I can read chord and number charts well, good enough to get me through any freelance gig I'm going to get where it might be required, which ain't many. I started playing guitar by ear when I was twelve though, and that's what I do most of the time. If I throw on a CD, it takes me about half a second to figure out what key a song is in, and I can learn a whole discs worth of tunes in the time it takes me to run through it three times. It would take me days to read all of the music, so most of the time I just stick with my ear, and if the tunes are really complicated, I'll make myself a cheat sheet. I hate looking at my notebook on stage, (I think it just looks lazy when I see people who aren't in an orchestra with music stands) but if the gig is a one-off sub situation, I really don't see the point of completely memorizing a bunch of songs I may never play again.


Jake

[chaddukes]

Like others have said, I used to be pretty good at it, but not after years of not practicing that skill. I was never a great reader, but I could read. Now, I can read through a Mel Bay 1 book with no trouble....maybe Book 2 or 3...but after that I lose it.

[tboy]

Amazing how many people could, and now can't. I'm right in there with them. I had it.... and mostly lost it. It's not like riding a bike, I guess.

Did Satchmo actually say, "not enough so that it hurts my playing," or is that just a myth? My money says he could read like crazy.

[Dan German]

Originally Posted by neocaster

Welcome Mike. Decipher is exactly the word I was thinking. It's code to me. I can get it, but as a realtime playing tool, it's useless to me.

Yup, that describes me too. My mom was a music teacher (voice and piano) so she tried to convince me that I had to know it as well as I know English, but you don't really need to sight-read to be a hobby-level guitar player. If I have to, I can transcribe a melody into tab so that I can learn it.

[maestrovert]

i spell, if that makes any sense to ya....

[dsharman]

I read fairly well for a guitarist, but when I play in pit orchestras or other similar settings I feel woefully inadequate. I need to go over the charts before hand to determine where I want play certain passages and to work out tricky parts. I can't just do a straight read through on a full show like the orchestral players can. I also agree that it's a "use it or lose it" skill. My reading declined from the days when I read everyday. I have tried to reincorporate reading into my daily routine and am seeing improvement.

[blue metalflake]

Don't really read at all. Understand the basics, so given lots of time, I can work out at the rate of a few notes per minute.

[gibsonjunkie]

I am like a lot of others here - I used to be able to read music quite well, mostly for keyboards, but that has atrophied. I still write standard musical scoring when I write music - I use a program called Musictime which is pretty decent for the price.

[Tony474]

I studied music theory at school up to to a basic standard - the old G.C.E. "O"-level (British readers of a certain age will know what that is). It involved elementary harmonic structure, dictation (i.e. scoring a heard melody), composition of a few bars of 4-part harmony, etc., plus knowledge of some set works. No instrumental skill was required at that level.

I've never been able to sight-read fluently on guitar, though I did start to do it umpteen years ago in an abortive exercise in learning tenor sax. However, stick the dots in front of me and I'm perfectly capable of working the tune out bar by bar. I can also dot out a piece to show someone else how a tune goes, which has come in handy on the odd occasion.

Strangely I don't find tab all that helpful, mostly because of the lack of time values.

[Tele295]

I can sight read cello (better at bass clef than tenor clef) and bass music pretty easily, due to my time in the symphony.

Sight reading piano isn't as tough as deciphering the same complex chords on guitar. Let me clarify that - I can read it OK, finding the voicing on the guitar is sometimes tricky.

[teleman65]

I can read but my sight reading leaves something to be desired. I was better when I was younger.

[bender-freak]

can't do it well enough to even qualify in the low entry level...and the older i get, the more i think i have cheated myself because i never really learned

[jazztele]

yes, but my sight reading could be a lot better...

i'm pretty good as far as note names, in any key, but throw a weird rhythm at me and i'm gonna have to count it out...it gets better everyday, as long as i keep doing it.

[OldMan]

I can decipher it if given enough time but I'm very slow. I really am an "ear" player. You should see the callouses on my lobes.

[Joe-Bob]

I can read music well. Treble clef, bass clef, and all the C clefs.

Take a class!

[Telarkaster]

I started off playing classical guitar, so yes I had to learn how to read. It wasn't the notes but their time value that was tricky. Counting out the beats and figuring out the melody to something you've never heard before was challenging, but rewarding. After a while I got half way decent at it. You need it for chamber music, when 3 or 4 guitarists play different lines in a Baroque piece. Each line on it's own doesn't mean anything, but put them together and it's magic. Think of Bach's bass lines...

When I started to play electric, I made a conscious effort to try to forget everything I learned on classical guitar. I learned patterns, boxes, riffing off chords, bending notes, playing with the thumb, etc...

I relearned my classical stuff later and it paid off big time. To this day I don't play with a pick. When I break a nail I'd rather not play guitar at all until it grows back.

I haven't learned any new classical pieces in quite a while, so I don't know how well I can read now though

[RomanS]

I can read music - had to learn it when I learned to play the clarinet as a kid.

Now, sight-reading with is a different story - I can kind of do it, if there'S only one or two # or b's, or if there are only single-note lines & double-stops.
Anything more complicated I need to decipher slowly, note by note...

[crawdad]

I learned and I can still do it sort of--but not in real time. My problem was that I never really had an application for it. All my musical adventures have been the "by ear" type.

[echale iii]

I got a book on music theory for Christmas, and I'm slowly teaching myself how to read music and some stuff about music theory....

Not that I'm a killer guitarist or anything, but the things I "discovered" while noodling around over the past 31 years and those that I have done instinctively all along, as well as how to string together notes and make up/alter chords I learned by listening to music in general are all written down in that book instead of just residing in my head.... It's pretty cool!

[RevMike]

In the immortal words of Louis "The Lip" Prima...."I tell ya hon, I read a lil' but not enough to hurt me none."

[TG]

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

I could sight-read fairly well thirty years ago, but like Paul G., I unfortunately let that skill atrophy. Now it might as well be Sanskrit...

Same here.