PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic How many of you can take a song you've heard before - with really simple chords in 1 or 2 keys - and

Capos:

I've never used a capo, although I think they have a use.

But pressing down on a string between the frets raises the pitch a bit. Putting a capo on and pressing a string raises it twice as much. How much depends on how high the strings are from the neck.

Perhaps it's not enough for most ears to hear, and in many cases that includes my own, especially for solo guitar or one guitar bass and drums. But since I know it does, I would only use the capo when other solutions fail.

But that's me, and I'm probably being over the top in that respect. After all a lot of players I admire use them.

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Reading:

Don't confuse reading with sight-reading.

When I was in school and in practice reading, I could sight-read just about anything you put in front of me, no matter how difficult on the saxophone. I haven't had to do that in years, but a day of practice would get me right back into the swing of it.

I can sight-read just about anything I see in a fake book on the sax and when I was doing sessions, anything they put in front of me. Something real tricky give me a moment to count it out in my head before reading and I'm fine.

But there is a limit, put a transcribed Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie solo in front of me and I would have to read it slow a few times before going 300bpm.

On the guitar, I can read music, but only sight-read simple songs. More complex songs I'd have to 'woodshed' before playing them competently. But that's still reading, just not sight reading.

If you can read music but not sight read, it just takes time and experience to get there.

I believe all musicians should learn to read music, but I don't think all need to sight-read.

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Reading vs. Ears:

Simple answer, it's best to have both skills.

You can get by with either skill, but you can get a lot better if you have both skills.

You can be an auto mechanic without learning to read your native language (in my case English). But without being able to read the repair manual, you won't be able to diagnose and fix every car that comes into your shop, and it will take you more time and trial and error for anything new.

You need good ears, even if you read music. Put a complex piece of music in front of me and a recording of the music, I'll choose to learn it from the music first. Why? Reading will give me the notes, the right notes, first time around, even in complex, dense chords. Then I'll use my ears to get the proper style of the music, to keep my sax in tune (saxes aren't in tune with themselves, we have to adjust each note with our ears and lip), and when I've learned it, I'll decide if I want to change anything or not.

I remember the first song I learned 'by ear' on the sax, Harlem Nocturne. It took days to figure each note out. I could have sight-read the song, even at that young age.

We had a request to learn "Just Another Day In Paradise" by Bertie Higgins. It wasn't a big hit, and so finding the music was almost impossible. I prefer to have the right chords and then substitute when and if I want to.

The chords aren't difficult at all, and I had what I thought were the right ones but I questioned a couple that worked, but didn't sound quite right.

So I posted on a forum or two asking if anybody knew the correct chords. About a dozen people generously used their ears and took the time to figure out the chords, and I ended up with a dozen similar but different versions of the chords.

I found a used copy on eBay, bought it, and found we were all wrong. Nobody figured these simple chords out right.

In addition the music had the background song-specific licks written in notation, and that saved me a lot of time figuring them out. I changed them to steel drum, changed the feel a little to make it more lively for live performance.

The guy who requested it, a regular customer at a club we played in, liked it, appreciated it, and told us our arrangement was even better than the record.

Not reading and not knowing theory is going about music the hard way. It's finding your way through the forest without knowing about the trail markers.

There are plenty of excuses for not knowing how to read music and not learning theory, but IMHO there are no defenses.

If you want to be a better player than you already are, take the time to learn.

Insights and incites by Notes