I find this puzzling I ask myself would a person with absolutely no musical understanding be interested in creating music. If so would they not at least attempt to get some basic understanding.

I once played guitar for an old time dance band back in the early 70's. The band leader insisted we could read and her best reader was her trumpet player. She would tell us what tunes we were playing and hand out the sheets. However, she would hand out the sheet say in the key of C the proceed to play in Bb. The next night play the same sheet and play in F or maybe A. I asked the trumpet player how he coped. His reply was " Don't tell her I can't really read. I just work out where she is and follow the dots up and down, I know how long the notes are, but I don't know what's what". My opinion was this guy knew music and did in fact sort of read and transpose on the fly better than most.

Over the years I have spent a lot of time helping people by backing folk in country music clubs. At these country music clubs members come along to sing a song. If you were lucky enough to get a chord sheet of any meaning you often had to listen to what the artist was doing and work things out on the fly. In these cases experience outweighs the ability to read. To be able to play solos based on what the artist was singing and or help them out when they faltered was a priority.

These days I can't read a note but I do understand what should go where. At 69 I can still play guitar blindfolded or behind my head. I just can't play it as well as I did 40 years ago but I still enjoy it and it is great to go around nursing homes (and other places) having people singing along with me and enjoying a good time.

My thoughts

Tony


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