Could Bill Monroe Read Music??

[Nalapombu]

Hey all,

Something I have wondered about is whether Monroe could read music. I suspect he couldn't, but that is a guess.

Back then and in rural Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia, did the majority of Mandolin players simply learn by watching and listening to others and then going over it again and again until they got it right?

When Monroe came up with his songs on the Mando, do you think he wrote down a tab for it or what? Did he even bother with writing it down or making sure it was noted?

Just curious.

Thanks
Nalajr

[Ivan Kelsall]

It's a pretty well known fact that Bill's eyesight was 'less than good'. In the DVD ''Bill Monroe - Father of Bluegrass Music'',Bill himself says that because of his poor eyesight,he couldn't learn the written music at his church & had to learn the tunes by ear. What he meant by 'music' is possibly the old 'shape note' music that was used back then,not proper musical notation. But,with his poor eyesight,it didn't matter,he couldn't read it anyway.
Regarding his own music,i think it was a matter of repetition until the song/tune was second nature to him. I suspect that most other country performers (& maybe most 'non-country' performers as well) travelled the same path,
Ivan

[Mike Bunting]

He sure as heck didn't write tab. All in the ears.

[DataNick]

In the same part of the documentary he says that he determined that he would always learn "my music" by ear. According to John Hartford later on in the film he states that Monroe's belief was that the only way for you to learn his music was by him or someone teaching you by ear & demonstration. The "aural" tradition was probably the preferred method of music transmission in the Appalachia of those days; which is really from the colonial era thru the 20th century (early to mid at least)

[OldSausage]

What he meant by 'music' is possibly the old 'shape note' music that was used back then,not proper musical notation.

The only difference between shape note notation and 'proper' musical notation is that the note heads have different shapes, but it is identical in every other respect - just completely normal musical notation with this one added feature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note

[Nick Eanet]

Pavarotti could not read music...

[OldSausage]

Pavarotti could not read music...

Pavarotti denied that claim when interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in 2005.

[DavidKOS]

Yes but in that documentary he mentioned learning mandolin from an older fellow who must have had some traditional Italian mandolin training, as he advised Bill to use his little finger properly.

[Timbofood]

Not well enough to hurt the music! Harr De Harr! Terrible joke, sorry.
I was at a party once where I was introduced "He can't read music." I was not pleased, I stated that I simply "did not" read. And for the style of music I play, it is no crime not to read. I could learn to read if I really wanted to.
Nick, I have heard that Hartford, Monroe story before and always liked it, I am of the "aural" tradition for this style of music too, get the tune in your head then, teach your fingers where to go!

[DataNick]

Tim,

This also for me is what is fascinating about the "Uncle Pen" album. Monroe working out with Kenny Baker all of those "Old-Time" fiddle tunes by aural memory, and we are left, with other sources as well, a fairly accurate representation of "Old-Time" fiddle tunes that are very old, and that reflect the Kentucky fiddling tradition from the area that Bill Monroe was from.

[DavidKOS]

Pavarotti could not read music...

I don't think he played mandolin either.

[f5loar]

When Monroe was asked if he could read music he simply said "Why that ain't no part of nothin' ". Earl Scruggs could not read either and I doubt seriously any of the first generation bluegrass artist could read. Maybe Jesse McReynolds learned it later on. I'm pretty safe in saying Jimmy Martin couldn't read a lick.

[Tobin]

So how did Bill remember new tunes that he composed? Especially if it was a work in progress over time? I mean, did he just keep playing it over and over and tweaking it until he had it memorized by repetition, or did he have some other method for putting them to paper so he could remember them later?

[DataNick]

So how did Bill remember new tunes that he composed? Especially if it was a work in progress over time? I mean, did he just keep playing it over and over and tweaking it until he had it memorized by repetition, or did he have some other method for putting them to paper so he could remember them later?

Perhaps as I often do when writing a song, that he wrote the chords over the words...as far as instrumental, probably as you suggest to a degree; just playing it enough to have it memorized.

What we often don't realize is that each one of us has an aural memory that is different. I just met & played with a fiddler last week by the name of John-Michael Brooks, who among other things recently graduated from Berklee. He is the first person that I've ever met who possesses what I would call an "audio-graphic" mind, like a photo-graphic mind. Whatever he hears, he knows or has committed to memory very quickly. From the time that a song is played once or twice via instrument break in a jam, he not only has it committed to memory, but plays incredible licks around the melody as well. Incredible gift! Just about every fiddle tune or song we played he had never heard or learned, but after one or two passes, played it spot-on. He's also the only guy I've seen in a jam where once he starts a break, the other fiddlers stop chopping or doing fills and just stand there watching him!

[SincereCorgi]

So how did Bill remember new tunes that he composed? Especially if it was a work in progress over time? I mean, did he just keep playing it over and over and tweaking it until he had it memorized by repetition, or did he have some other method for putting them to paper so he could remember them later?

There's a thread down in the bluegrass section about Bela Flek giving a speech at IBMA, including an anecdote about Monroe coming up to him at a festival to 'give' him a tune he'd just written. It sounds like he basically played it for him once, wished him well, and wandered off. I imagine he composed tunes a lot in this manner, some sticking and some evaporating right away.

[JeffD]

Same way we do, he learned them off his CDs. Oh wait.... never mind.

[Willie Poole]

I am certainly no Bill Monroe but I cannot read music and when I hear a song for the first time I can usually do a decent job of taking a break on it, the ones that have words are much easier than the instrumentals, just yesterday I played a show and by request my guitar player threw a song at us that I had never heard and I took my turn at my break and what I did sounded good according to him and other band members...I think it comes from knowing how to make the chords in a few different ways on the neck and then you find the lead notes easier.....It`s not reading music but it is "knowing some music theory" and also many years of playing....I certainly have not memorized all of the songs that I play and I doubt very much if I play them all the same way every time I do them....

Willie

[Timbofood]

I can hold my own on a "new" tune in a jam. I have been known to do well through a new song or something I may have heard somewhere and then end up on the spot in a jam or even on stage. I am with you Willie, I have a working knowledge of theory, albeit somewhat limited, but, it's called playing music and not perfecting music. I don't play the same tune the same way every time either.

[AlanN]

I'm with Willie on this. If you've been around this music for long enough, have enough of an ear and can play, you hardly have to hear the thing once to get the essence of the melody. It's what I look for in pickers and miss it when I don't see it in the people I jam with.

[journeybear]

When Monroe was asked if he could read music he simply said "Why that ain't no part of nothin' ". Earl Scruggs could not read either and I doubt seriously any of the first generation bluegrass artist could read. Maybe Jesse McReynolds learned it later on. I'm pretty safe in saying Jimmy Martin couldn't read a lick.

Well, then - I'm in good company! Well, I can read, not sight read. I mean, plunk some sheet music in front of me, I won't be able to play it straight away, but give me enough time, I'll figure it out. But then, I do have glasses.

So how did Bill remember new tunes that he composed? Especially if it was a work in progress over time? I mean, did he just keep playing it over and over and tweaking it until he had it memorized by repetition, or did he have some other method for putting them to paper so he could remember them later?

It sounds like his mind was trained to store and recall all these tunes, even the ones he was working on - though I get the impression he wrote them pretty quickly, in a matter of minutes or hours, not days or weeks or months. The anecdote told by Bela Fleck seems to show that he expected other musicians were the same, at least the top flight ones.

Hank Williams said if it took him more than fifteen minutes to write a song he knew the idea wasn't any good, and he would throw it away. And he wrote more than 500 songs. Those were different times, when the oral/aural tradition was stronger, largely by necessity, when people had to memorize more because there was no internet with search engines nor iPads to store the songs in your repertoire, when you had to learn how songs go and what the words are rather than learn how to look them up. You had to develop this sort of recall, and the best players did. So it seems, to me, anyway.

[Tobin]

I'm with Willie on this. If you've been around this music for long enough, have enough of an ear and can play, you hardly have to hear the thing once to get the essence of the melody. It's what I look for in pickers and miss it when I don't see it in the people I jam with.

I can get the essence of a melody in one hearing. But remembering it exactly, and not getting it jumbled up with the other 100+ tunes that are already stored in there, is a different matter altogether! I have nothing but respect for those who learn this way and manage to retain it accurately.

[DavidKOS]

So how did Bill remember new tunes that he composed? Especially if it was a work in progress over time? I mean, did he just keep playing it over and over and tweaking it until he had it memorized by repetition, or did he have some other method for putting them to paper so he could remember them later?

If you have ever been around a lot of guys that are ear players, with "big" ears, that's how they are. They remember stuff because it's in their inner ear, and they have a great memory for music.

I've been around musicians from many aural traditions -even some great jazzers- and it's pretty amazing what the human memory can do.

[Charley wild]

I'm like Willie and AlanN. I played non-pedal steel for a singer for years back in the late 60's until around 1980. He hated to rehearse.
If he had a new tune no matter if I'd heard it or not, he just told me what key and he would kick it off on guitar and away we went! The more you do it the better you get at it.
I loved it! How many lead players get that kind of freedom?!!

[Nick Triesch]

Bocelli cannot read a note.

[barney 59]

I was with Jethro Burns when someone asked the question "So how many songs do you know?" His reply was that he actually did one time start to compile a list and quit at 800! "That is-- tunes that I can perform without practicing before hand."