Could Bill Monroe Read Music??

[Willie Poole]

I once knew a violin player that played classical music and he heard us playing some bluegrass one day and took out his fiddle and said he loved the sound of what we were doing and he used his musical skills to fit right in, his parents didn`t like him doing that because they had spent a lot of money to get him to be a real good classical violist...

Also on another note, my wife plays clarinet and she reads music and can play a song 100 times by reading the music and she couldn`t play it without the music in front of her on the 101st time if she tried, so it is a different thing with different people, some people learn musical theory and that's how they are able to play by ear, just knowing which notes make up a certain chord is what makes it easy for me as long as I can hear what chord the song is going to, some songs that throw in minors when they aren`t needed tend to make me work a bit harder to get them down where it sounds decent...

Very interesting responses to this, I never even have learned to read tabs either, I know how they are suppose to be read but I can usually learn a song quicker by just playing it by ear than figuring out the string and fret positions...I can read enough music to know what notes are making up a song but I can`t read them fast enough to help me learn a song on the spur of the moment....I don`t know an 1/8 note from a 1/4 note and if I did I wouldn`t know what it meant as far as how long to hold the note....MAYBE ONE OF THESE DAYS....

Willie

[allenhopkins]

Monroe's biographer agrees that his poor eyesight limited his music-reading ability, leading him to drop out of singing school in KY after only a year.

The back of Pete Seeger's How To Play the 5-String Banjo book has a quote from "an old-time banjo player, interviewed around 1850":

"Can I read notes? Hell, there are no notes to a banjo. You just play it."

…which sorta sums up the "folkie" response to reading standard notation, and often to music theory in general. Personally, I've found a little theory -- most of which I learned in junior high -- to be helpful: chord construction, scales, frequently used chord patterns, etc. I definitely can "read but not sight-read," and can even transcribe music into standard notation to share with others.

Knowing how to read standard notation, and knowing a little bit of theory, can be useful tools in any musician's toolbox. How much any musician uses them, or the extent to which he/she is dependent on them, is another question.

[DavidKOS]

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.

Nothing wrong with aural traditions!

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

Good points.

My real issue is that learning to be musically literate cannot HURT any of your ear skills.

I was taught that a "complete" musician could play by ear and read.

As far as learning music that is part of an aural tradition from notes on paper, I agree that there are some dangers there.

The notation can at best be for one performance or setting of the tune. Some great players never played the same tune exactly the same way each time, so if you transcribe a performance then it is just one of many possible setting for the tune.

If you already are familiar with a musical style, though, you can learn new tunes through sheet music, but it's still best to hear them played by a master player too.

[Bertram Henze]

I remember an Irish session where three violinists appeared (no, not fiddlers. Violinists.) They sat round a table, placed music sheets on it and played a set of tunes, fast. It did not sound like Irish music at all, rather like a string quartet hastily running for the restrooms, in the burning sunshine of the other musicians' bewildered gazes.

What caused this pathetic intermezzo? Sheet music? Nope - it was the musicians' belief that their sheet music contained all the information they needed, while it really left them without expression, ornaments, bowing hints etc.

Bottom line: you can use whatever tools neccessary if you know exactly what they do and what not.

[journeybear]

... "Hell, there are no notes to a banjo. You just play it."

That explains so much of what I've experienced from banjo players! Says so much in just a few words. Brevity is the soul of wit.

I once knew a violin player that played classical music and he heard us playing some bluegrass one day and took out his fiddle and said he loved the sound of what we were doing and he used his musical skills to fit right in, his parents didn't like him doing that because they had spent a lot of money to get him to be a real good classical violist...

Also on another note, my wife plays clarinet and she reads music and can play a song 100 times by reading the music and she couldn't play it without the music in front of her on the 101st time if she tried, so it is a different thing with different people,

My experience has been surprisingly weighted toward the latter. I used to live in a town where a friend hosted a monthly hootenanny for well over a decade, and all sorts of musicians traipsed through there in that time, including a few classically trained violinists. All but one of them were completely flummoxed and unable to participate in jamming. Now, upon occasion, one or another would find a chance to play something from his repertoire, perhaps while someone played accompaniment on the piano in the parlor, but playing like a fiddler would do was out of their realm. A couple of times one explained to me how their training had led them to link their playing to sight-reading (I'm paraphrasing), which I found (and still find) baffling. It seems to me that at some point, one would achieve enough familiarity with one's instrument to facilitate playing by ear in response to what others were playing in an improvisational manner - ie, jam. Perhaps this is more difficult for someone who has been classically trained. And maybe this is why there are improvisation classes taught in music schools. Not so much to unlearn what students have already learned, but to learn such techniques and coordinate them with what they already have learned.

[DavidKOS]

I remember an Irish session where three violinists appeared (no, not fiddlers. Violinists.) They sat round a table, placed music sheets on it and played a set of tunes, fast. It did not sound like Irish music at all, rather like a string quartet hastily running for the restrooms, in the burning sunshine of the other musicians' bewildered gazes.

What caused this pathetic intermezzo? Sheet music? Nope - it was the musicians' belief that their sheet music contained all the information they needed, while it really left them without expression, ornaments, bowing hints etc.

Bottom line: you can use whatever tools neccessary if you know exactly what they do and what not.

God, I've heard that in several styles of music.

Maybe they could read the notes, but they sure had no concept of style. It makes you wonder if they ever heard real session tunes.

BTW, you could notate an Irish tune with all the ornaments, but it would be a lot more difficult to read, and only one of many possible versions of the tune.

But who reads at Irish sessions? Most session players know hundreds of tunes by ear.

[Polecat]

Being able to read (and write) musical notation is a useful skill, and in no way detrimental to learning by ear or improvising. The case of "legit" musicians being unable to play without dots or "aural tradidion" musicians finding them stultifying bears witness more to the skills they have developed through the discipline they follow than any innate quality of any "traditional" or "formal" style. With very few exceptions (Pablo Casals "reconstructed" the Bach solo cello pieces from sheet music), "classical" music requires an intimate knowledge of the interpretation of the piece by other artists in order to play a satisfying version; the lack of similar knowledge in the "traditional" vein is what caused Bertram's violinists to play the music so "wrong" (though who knows, perhaps they liked it that way - the concept of right and wrong is about as applicable to music as it is to religion).
I find the easiest way to learn a tune is to notate it myself from a recording I like; it is quicker than endlessly repeating the melody until it forces its way into my brain (I also learn the lyrics to a new song fastest by writing them out). It's one way to do it, not the only or the best way for everybody, but it works for me. On the other hand, I understand how tab works but I find it hard to read, because I've never really persevered at learning it properly.
Not being blessed with Big Mon's creative genius, I do not want to forget even one of my musical ideas, and often come home from work with a sheet of scruffy paper with hand-drawn staves and two or three bars of melody or a bass line to remind me, and sometimes even then I can't reconstruct what it was I was thinking of.
I can't claim to know "hundreds of tunes", but I would guess that I know the words, tune and chords to between two and three hundred songs I've learned in my fifty-odd years, some of which I would be very embarrassed to admit to

[JeffD]

One has trouble learning and playing by ear not because of being paper trained, but because of not working on learning and playing by ear.

Just as those who learn and play by ear but cannot read, its not because they play by ear, its because of not working on learning to read.

And a third - not being able to improvise is not because of paper or ear, its because of not working on improvising.

[JeffD]

I can read, but I certainly cannot play like Bill. And forgetting how to read is not going to help that a bit.

[MikeEdgerton]

I love it when someone is playing a song and you can hear another song under it so you just go with what you know. Do the song "Ring the bell". Now play "That old mountain dew" for the break. You'll look like a proverbial musical genius. Welcome to bluegrass.

[bobby bill]

Seems like everyone has a story about the classically trained whiz-kid who cannot even play "Happy Birthday" by ear. There is often just a hint of smugness in the telling, as if this poor guy just wasted years of hard work learning to play. But there is also a hint that somehow his classical training (and reading ability) prevented his learning to play by ear.


One might just as easily wonder why the classically trained violinist cannot play oboe. After all, notes are notes. Or possibly, it is because the violinist never studied the oboe. Similarly, it is possible that the aforementioned whiz-kid never studied playing things by ear. Although some folks have better ears than others, generally speaking one must study and practice things in order to learn them.

So when the next tired story of the aurally handicapped sight-reading genius crops up, please consider that it is not such an amazing phenomenon, and that it is likely due to a lack of training in that area rather than his sight-reading brain cells somehow sucking up and destroying his ear-training brain cells.

[journeybear]

One has trouble learning and playing by ear not because of being paper trained, but because of not working on learning and playing by ear.

Just as those who learn and play by ear but cannot read, its not because they play by ear, its because of not working on learning to read.

And a third - not being able to improvise is not because of paper or ear, its because of not working on improvising.

Good points. It's not that learning one way makes it impossible to learn another way, but neglecting to learn the other way as well as the first might cause problems. It's being exclusive rather than inclusive - learning just the one way than the several - that can impede one's learning. These methods interact.

[DavidKOS]

Although some folks have better ears than others, generally speaking one must study and practice things in order to learn them.

So when the next tired story of the aurally handicapped sight-reading genius crops up, please consider that it is not such an amazing phenomenon, and that it is likely due to a lack of training in that area rather than his sight-reading brain cells somehow sucking up and destroying his ear-training brain cells.

Ear training is a skill that should be part of a classical musician's training.

Any player that has had extensive training in reading, but not in ear playing, has had a flawed musical education.

Even with my band students, who mostly read parts, I spend time training their ears, like making them play back to me a phrase I play to them - no music at all.

[LongBlackVeil]

One has trouble learning and playing by ear not because of being paper trained, but because of not working on learning and playing by ear.

Just as those who learn and play by ear but cannot read, its not because they play by ear, its because of not working on learning to read.

And a third - not being able to improvise is not because of paper or ear, its because of not working on improvising.

indeed, all true.


(Somewhat unrelated) I think the more music theory you know, the better, no matter what. You dont lose soul by knowing music theory. You can certainly become a great player by not knowing a lick of it, but you would be better if you did know what was going on in the music you play

[OldSausage]

I was taught that a "complete" musician could play by ear and read.

I was taught they could unicycle too.

[JeffD]

I love it when someone is playing a song and you can hear another song under it so you just go with what you know. You'll look like a proverbial musical genius.

Its true.

[bobby bill]

Ear training is a skill that should be part of a classical musician's training.

Absolutely agree.

[DavidKOS]

I was taught they could unicycle too.

While playing, no less!

[Polecat]

Good points. It's not that learning one way makes it impossible to learn another way, but neglecting to learn the other way as well as the first might cause problems. It's being exclusive rather than inclusive - learning just the one way than the several - that can impede one's learning. These methods interact.

Absolutely! When I transcribe something in order to learn it, I play the recording, sing each phrase either with the musician or directly afterwards, then write it down. The combination of "ear training" and the formal approach bashes the melody into my brain and by the time I play the tune from my home made lead sheet, I have mainly learned it.

Although I would be the last to denigrate the value of formal tuition, I have had very little, beyond singing in a choir and rudimentary piano lessons as a child - I was allergic to discipline in my formative years and needed to do it for myself.

[Timbofood]

I think I have read and heard enough on this for the day, I'm out.
No, Bill didn't read.

[Mike Bunting]

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"

A friend of mine, a session player and producer summed it up nicely, "Knowing all the theory is great, but it doesn't mean much if you don't have the boogie."

[Mike Bunting]

Dp

[MikeEdgerton]

I think I have read and heard enough on this for the day, I'm out.
No, Bill didn't read.

OK, could he ride a unicycle?

[barney 59]

If I'm familiar with a tune I sometimes find that having the sheet music can be helpful in trying to learn to play the tune. If I have never heard the tune the sheet music is of no help to me what so ever. I, one summer worked(and just a worker bee mind you) at a Summer classical music program. I had some sheet music for some swing tunes that I was unfamiliar with and wanted to hear them at least once. I was surrounded by highly trained classical musicians but when I tried to get any of them to play my songs it came out as kind of nothing--they did not swing! I once was present when Kenny Baker was jamming with a Juliliard type that also played fiddle music and quite well, but by the book! After one particular tune the violinist turned to Kenny and said that what ever tune they were playing was not correct--insinuating that Kenny was playing it wrong. Kenny's reply was "Well that's the way I xy%$ing heard it!" Which to me is pretty much what folk music is.

[Austin Bob]

OK, could he ride a unicycle?

I'm not sure, but I know a guy who was a classically trained unicyclist, and for the life of him he could not ride a pogo stick.