Could Bill Monroe Read Music??

[barney 59]

Bocelli cannot read a note.

I'll bet he can!

[fatt-dad]

I'm willing to bet, even if the answer is yes, it'd have little to do with his playing.

f-d

[Nalapombu]

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys. Just makes me have that much more fascination and respect for those guys that gave us the music we love so much today. It's just incredible to be able to do the things with an instrument that they did and you all talk about doing. I'd love to have that ability. Maybe I could get someone to sneak up on me from behind and hit me in the head with a brick....then when I wake up my brain might reconfigure itself and I'll be a Mandolin Savant.

[Jon Hall]

I think that I read in a Doc Watson biography that he learn to read music notation in braille.

[DataNick]

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys. Just makes me have that much more fascination and respect for those guys that gave us the music we love so much today. It's just incredible to be able to do the things with an instrument that they did and you all talk about doing. I'd love to have that ability. Maybe I could get someone to sneak up on me from behind and hit me in the head with a brick....then when I wake up my brain might reconfigure itself and I'll be a Mandolin Savant.

No knock on the head necessary, just go down to the crossroads!

[Austin Bob]

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys. Just makes me have that much more fascination and respect for those guys that gave us the music we love so much today. It's just incredible to be able to do the things with an instrument that they did and you all talk about doing. I'd love to have that ability. Maybe I could get someone to sneak up on me from behind and hit me in the head with a brick....then when I wake up my brain might reconfigure itself and I'll be a Mandolin Savant.

This pretty much sums up my thinking. Many of the truly great players and innovators seem to have an innate ability to create and play music that the vast majority of us simply don't have. To me, it has little to do with reading music, or even formal training, but much more with having that special gift of being able to take an abstract thought or simply a musical idea and translate it directly to the instrument.

[Billbass1]

Add all of the Beatles to the list of those not being able to read music .

[fatt-dad]

I just returned from a jam and there's a bass player (upright) that (apparently) plays for our symphony. Don't know, 'cause I haven't been to the symphony lately. No doubt he can read music. He really can't quite fit into the jam (yet). He's getting much better. Mostly, he doesn't have the beat or the bass note isn't "there" where/when it needs to be there. Nothing fancy, just helpful bass note stuff.

To me, you have to have so many notes beneath your fingers that your mind just knows how to produce the sound. What your fingers are doing is an instinct. Just like talking or singing is to folks. Reading music helps inform that process and the mind can certainly direct the fingers and such. It's all a matter of fluency. I think Bill was quite fluent. I also think we can all get fluent too. We'll just sound different and maybe speak a different language (i.e., genre).

f-d

[Petrus]

Bocelli cannot read a note.

I know you're trying to be funny (that's the sort of quip I'd make myself had I thought of it!), but music notation is available in braille, fwiw. (Nothin' against "dark humor" though ... har har.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=brai...sm=93&tbm=isch

[Petrus]

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?

Others have addressed this question in this thread w/regards to Monroe specifically, but I might add that when it comes to reading music, we don't even need to bother with qualifications like "back then" or limit it to rural areas. My suspicion is that most non-classical musicians in most parts of the world, even today, get along fine without actually reading music. Many compromise by using tablature, which I think we all resort to from time to time. I think learning music by listening and watching other musicians is a time honored method of apprenticeship.

I'm a middle-aged amateur and just barely above beginner level, but when I look back in my life, if I had the choice to either a) spend more time studying and reading notation or b) spend more time watching and listening to real musicians, I'd choose "b." It's not even close.

I studied violin starting in elementary school, and unfortunately for us poor kids, the emphasis was primarily on reading the notes and then playing "properly." Of course, the focus was on classical pieces where reading is much more critical than in folk, but still. I don't think kids are served well by music training that emphasizes reading over listening. Today, I work mainly off tablature (trying to wean myself off it and relearning notation though, so that I can access a wider body of sheet music), and have to force myself to put the damn sheet of paper down and actually listen sometimes.

BTW, some folks say using tab is cheating, which is balderdash (pardon my French.) Tablature goes back to the Middle Ages, fwiw, so it's at least as old as the notation system.

[Ivan Kelsall]

AlanN is spot on. Us folks who've been around Bluegrass music for a long time & have learned mostly by ear,get pretty good at hearing the 'bare bones' of a tune & of being able to get our fingers around it pretty quickly. It's one of those things that you become good at over time & its a good 'tool' to have. I'm very sure that only constant repetition was the way most of our top players of past eras got new tunes into their heads. I'm not sure if it's in the book ''Masters of The 5-string Banjo'',but i read somewhere that Bela Fleck said that he records all his practice sessions just in case he comes up with a new lick/melody etc. I wish i'd done that myself. I remember having a 'pickalong' on banjo to some bluegrass records one afternoon & i played my own break on one tune that was really incredible - you guys would have been totally blown away !. I went back & re-played the song so i could play the same break again & i couldn't remember a single note of it,nuff said !,
Ivan

[Dave Hanson]

When asked if he could read music Pete Seeger replied, ' yes, but not enough to damage my playing '

Dave H

[Timbofood]

I just read a bit and indeed the Beatles did not read music. So, there is one more interesting facet to the pros and cons of reading music.

[brunello97]

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.

I love this story.

Mick

[Bertram Henze]

Beethoven couldn't hear music - together they'd have been the ideal team.

[farmerjones]

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys. Just makes me have that much more fascination and respect for those guys that gave us the music we love so much today. It's just incredible to be able to do the things with an instrument that they did and you all talk about doing. I'd love to have that ability. Maybe I could get someone to sneak up on me from behind and hit me in the head with a brick....then when I wake up my brain might reconfigure itself and I'll be a Mandolin Savant.

Just play a lot.
You're typing in a language much more difficult than music. How many stories or jokes do you know? If there were no books you'd still know how to speak. We miss the language connection because it was introduced so early in our lives. But if we have played music for as long as we've been able to speak, it would be as second nature. If this is what you want, concentrate on it. One song/tune leads to two songs, that leads to three songs, that. . . .

After a bit, you'll hear one song/tune sound similar to another, brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, especially in a given style. You'll find there's only so much that makes up a waltz. After a bit you'll find a semi-finite number of chord progressions. I guess it's call pattern recognition.

[Timbofood]

I suppose one argument might be that you can't "see" sound but only a written representation?
Reminds me of a scene in "The Cowboys" when one of the kids is playing guitar and explaining that "reading music is like arithmetic, it ain't hard.", the other one says "Looks like fly specks to me!"

[DavidKOS]

Not so much about Bill Monroe but about reading music vs. the aural tradition.

I come from New Orleans, and got my music education there, from just learning to play and instrument (uke, guitar, bass, then mandolin), which included BOTH reading music and playing "classics" but also learning jazz, rock and other tunes by ear.

The first band I played in had both charts for the arranged tunes, but we also had a 2nd book in our head of country, rock and Dixieland tunes.

I am grateful to have had to learn to do both.

Reading music notation, though, is no more like actually making music than reading the script of a play is an actual play.

Both have to be realized; when the music is actually made, no listener can tell if the guy is reading or playing by ear, if it's well done.

I've found that a surprising number of world folk musicians can read music, even if the main thrust of the traditions are aural.

I've seen Irish, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Greek, Latin-American and other musicians play what seems to be only by ear - and have found out that they also could read and transcribe their traditional music.

Of course many cannot, but I was very pleased at how many I've met that are musically literate.

The two ways of learning music are not mutually exclusive.

[bobby bill]

I just read a bit and indeed the Beatles did not read music. So, there is one more interesting facet to the pros and cons of reading music.

An interesting facet of some sort, but I do not see how it relates to the "pros and cons of reading music." Did an inability to read music cause the Beatles to play good music? Did such inability cause them to play bad music? (My view is that neither statement would be accurate.) I am totally missing the causal link between the one small skill set (reading music) and the sound one makes.

To refer to the "cons of reading music" seems to suggest that possessing this skill set somehow inhibits or prevents a person from playing good music. Surely this disability (being able to read) can be overcome.

[Billbass1]

Any additional skill, including the ability to read music, is a very good thing.
Does it detract from ones talent , natural abilities, and desire to play and make
your best music ? Well, I guess that's the real question .............

[Michael Weaver]

Beethoven couldn't hear music - together they'd have been the ideal team.

You spelled idle wrong.

[DavidKOS]

I am totally missing the causal link between the one small skill set (reading music) and the sound one makes.

To refer to the "cons of reading music" seems to suggest that possessing this skill set somehow inhibits or prevents a person from playing good music. Surely this disability (being able to read) can be overcome.

Any additional skill, including the ability to read music, is a very good thing.
Does it detract from ones talent , natural abilities, and desire to play and make
your best music ? Well, I guess that's the real question .............

The idea that reading music can hurt you ear playing is pure nonsense invented by the lazy to cover up for not learning to read.

Granted, one can make a great career without a note of sheet music, but that is not a causal issue in this debate.

The real issue is that ANY musical skills all help.

Of course if you have a good ear, you can learn to play almost anything - even Charlie Parker, who could read, preferred to play by ear, which in his case was an amazing ear.

Reading music hurts your ability to play by ear as much as reading words inhibits your ability to speak.

It only gives you extra tools in the toolkit.

"I play by ear, but not enough to hurt my sight-reading"

[Michael Weaver]

The idea that reading music can hurt you ear playing is pure nonsense invented by the lazy to cover up for not learning to read. Granted, one can make a great career without a note of sheet music, but that is not a causal issue in this debate. The real issue is that ANY musical skills all help. Of course if you have a good ear, you can learn to play almost anything - even Charlie Parker, who could read, preferred to play by ear, which in his case was an amazing ear. Reading music hurts your ability to play by ear as much as reading words inhibits your ability to speak. It only gives you extra tools in the toolkit. "I play by ear, but not enough to hurt my sight-reading"

I definitely agree!

[mbruno]

IMO reading music for bluegrass tunes isn't really required - so long as you know the major scales and major pentatonic (and in Bill's case, minor & blues pentatonic too) every note you need is right there with few exceptions. It's similar to early blues and jazz vs. today's super complex blues and jazz. In the beginning, the melodies were 100% from vocals with few deviations - over time, the script flipped and now in much of blues and jazz, the instrumentals have become equal or greater than the vocals (though the melody is still king).

Bluegrass has had a slower evolution - probably because Jazz / Blues moved to cities really quickly with the advent of R&B and Rock n Roll. When Dizzy & Charlie Parker were playing in the 50's, people were JUST starting to go to music school for Jazz. Bluegrass is just starting (last 10 year maybe) to move into main stream and have musicians go to school to learn on bluegrass instruments. Thanks for that goes to Thile, Fleck, and the like that have moved the "standard" up.

So, I highly doubt that any of the first generation bluegrassers could read or, if they could, learned to further their bluegrass career (most probably learned some piano in church). Today though, it's becoming more the norm. Even still - the source (i.e. recording) always trumps written music. Nothing will compare with studying someone's riffs, pulling them apart, and reconstructing them as your own.

[mbruno]

and to the point of reading detracting from what you play - in some respects I can understand where you are coming from. Written music IS the way it is whereas aural studies are more open and "mistakes" made while learning can become the new way. That said, understanding how music is created, the cadences, and why some notes sound great and others don't is huge for improv and general song writing. You can learn all this without reading - just like you could learn to drive a car and follow the rules of the road without reading any books - but, reading the books may help you from breaking a few laws / costing you a lot of money. In music, learning the "laws" will help you break them when you want to rather than by accident - meaning you can write more interesting music. Least that's my opinion