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OK, no doubt this question has been asked before, but would be interesting to see which way people here do it.
For my part as a guy who has played cornet in a brass band and trumpet in a general entertainment, (Mainly sax's) band, I can read and play to the tadpoles on lines, and also with a bit of work on finding the right notes, play a tune without the dots. I also did a bit of messing about on guitar with only a basic knowledge of a few chords. So I suppose you could say I can do a bit of both.
However who else can read music and play from it, and who are the guys who get by without knowing what the written music means and play entirely by ear or what they hear.




Hi you all

In my personal view, I think that being able to read and write music is important. It's work and sweat, but it opens a lot of doors. One has to train the ear, but if you play only by ear, seems to me, you get limited very fast. Talking about jazz (tenor sax) and because the ear tends to keep what it likes, I wonder if someone that uses only his/her ear, doesn't become repetitious after a while ? I don't see the point in memorizing everything. More liberty ? I don't think so. Like Stan said, if you don't throw at me too much chromaticism and complicated rhythms, I sight read fairly well. Nonetheless, I prefer to have the time to learn a piece and once it's in my fingers, then the score becomes a guideline. I mean, it's not because you look at a score while playing that your improvisation becomes rigid or less free. You can still do whatever you want. Anyway, I never play off charts that don't have the melody. For me, in improvisation, melody and harmony are entangled with one another. Plus, with my personal fake book, mixed with my own stuff, totaling more than 250 pages and still growing, I could never (well at least I couldn't) memorize all of that. Anyway, I don't want to give myself the extra strain of trying to memorize everything, I just want to play. Reading music ables me to flip the pages of my book and play what's in front of me. Reading music also facilitates communication with other musicians. You just pass on the parts and start playing. Everybody "speaks" the same language.

I think there are dual sides in jazz. More knowledge and technique gives you more freedom, but personally, playing jazz is also about learning to put your knowledge in the background. By nature, jazz is not "clinical". You have to let it flow and not ask yourself too much questions when you play. Like I said before, even if your ears keep what they like, reading music while playing doesn't force you to always do the same thing. I surely cannot retrace note for note the path I took during this or that improv. Maybe I'm not scholar enough, but I wouldn't want to explain everything either. Each time you enter a new improv, you also have to surprise yourself. But because certain jazz musicians memorize everything, doesn't mean that they play by ear and don't read music ! I guess it means they have a good memory. I don't want to minimize the feat of memorizing, I'm the first one to be astonished at seeing musicians render theme after theme, with the right melody and harmony. All the musicians I hear about, (in jazz at least) that reached a high level of playing, have acquired the knowledge of music.

I also play classical guitar and clarinet. That's another world. Even if there's place for interpretation, you're definitely closer to the score. If you don't read music it's hard to get by. I started in music playing Delta blues guitar, with Stefan Grossman's books. In those days I did meet a guy who played Bach's lute suites on the guitar by ear (right notes, right fingering). At the time I was only reading guitar tablature and asked him to show me, so I transcribed parts of Bach's suites in tablature. And for a year or so that's how I started to learn classical music. It was a good exercise, 'cause tablature can give you a hint of rhythm, but practically nothing, so it's all in your head / fingers. But after a while, I wanted to learn more guitar pieces and reading music was the only way to help me move forward. Surprisingly, only with the guitar, do I memorize whole pieces, without any effort, after a while I just know them by heart.

Reading music is also a way for me to recognize the intentions of the composer. He/she didn't only write arbitrary white and black dots and letters above, on a sheet of paper. Before improvising, I always learn a theme throughout. The composer wants to pass on some feelings, emotions of pleasure, joy, sadness or whatever. Every choice being subjective, I still think that acquiring the knowledge of music helps me get closer to the composer's intention.

Last edited by Pierre Julien; 01/23/11 05:21 AM.
Best of all and hope your day is a nice one

Pierre

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