What's the Point of Reading Music

thegummy

To avoid derailing the Xmas gift thread, what are the benefits of a guitarist learning to read sheet music?

When I used to play keyboard I started to learn but then decided it was pointless unless I wanted to play complex pieces and there was no YouTube tutorial.

With guitar, is there any benefit?

VimFuego

for me it's merely a useful tool. I have a largish collection of fiddle tunes at home, and it's useful to be able to read them. From a theory POV it makes it easier for me to see at a glance what is happening melodically with a tune as I can see the intervals without having to work them out. And I learnt to read music from playing fiddle, so it was a by product. 

Paul_C

If your ambition to play includes situations where knowing how to sight read is the difference between getting a job and not, then yes.

If it only goes as far as playing at home, or being in a band with some mates, probably not.

stimpsonslostson

Standard notation is pretty much a universal language for musicians. 
Without it it's more difficult to communicate with other musicians. 
A LOT of guitarists seem bizarrely proud of an inability to read music. I confess I only really got to grips with it when learning piano. 

Lestratcaster

Makes it quicker to learn especially if you haven't heard the song/piece of music before.

Funkfingers

Paid employment, perhaps?

The flip side of this is that the guitarist must be willing and able to obey the manuscript instructions. Only first call session musicians get hired for their musical "personality". 

AlexC

Great for session musicians or people who want to play existing pieces of music. Fecking redundant for rock/pop guitarists doing their own stuff.

Alnico

thegummy said:

To avoid derailing the Xmas gift thread, what are the benefits of a guitarist learning to read sheet music?

When I used to play keyboard I started to learn but then decided it was pointless unless I wanted to play complex pieces and there was no YouTube tutorial.

With guitar, is there any benefit?

Yes and no.

Theory doesn't revolve around you being able to read sheet music as such but to understand the theory, I've always felt you need to understand notated music as well to galvanise it.

It's a minefield really but if you do take the time to look at music and in turn, theory, you'll see that even if you can't sight read for complex pieces, you'll still gain knowledge that will help you.

Just by learning some scales and their relative positions on the fretboard, I was able to play from the open bottom E string (So I'm in E obviously) right up to the 24th fret on the high E string and I was able to understand why I needed those fret positions. That was enough to make me want to learn more and it went from there.

I post this image all the time but seriously, if you just learnt the notes within each scale and then started applying that to the fretboard using this as a guide, you'd multiply what you know many times over in just one afternoon. Suddenly the patterns and shapes start jumping out at you.

https://i.imgur.com/q9qrjUf.jpg

If you want it in a Nutshell, it's not essential but it can help.

What do you want to get out of playing the guitar?

Who do you admire and what was their approach?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to any of this, it's all very personal.

siraxeman

I teach guitar in schools, and for a music service - they insist we use a tutor book and teach music notation. We can use tab/chord charts but for the main part it has to be standard notation. I aint the best reader by a long shot - pretty basic, but enough to get by as the kids themselves are either beginners or novices. So for me in this scenario I need it. When I do private guitar lessons (much less these days than I used to) its pretty much tab/chord charts all the way unless I'm specifically asked to use notation. You simply don't need it and most 'guitarists' get by as 'illiterates' just fine. Now, if you wanna work in some theatre pit or doing some TV shows like X factor then they usually require you to be able to read pretty well...otherwise you aint getting that work. You cant say to the music director "err I are dumb I need teh tabz? "...you'll just get told don't set your gear up and go. Most ie 99.9% of guitarists can operate just fine in 99% of cases never learning to read a single crotchet/quaver/semiquaver etc. Occasionally if your in certain bands where there's a music director who hands out sheet music you might find yourself coming unstuck....but how many of us do that ? Talking to piano players is fun sometimes...at last we can say its this chord or that chord. Most guitarists don't even know what notes are in their chords or what notes they are playing "I are just use this box pattern" well that means zip to anyone else outside of guitar.

these days with all the technology around most of us can get by just fine without it...but if you wanna know it its not a bad thing to have - if you can put the time aside to learn to read. Basic stuff is really easy and as with all things - there are levels...the higher you go the harder it gets. Trying to read the score for a GnR album or similar would be less straightforward than reading a single line melody to twinkle little star etc. To read really well and on the fly takes a long time, and I for one don't have the patience, need or desire to get 'that good' at it....YMV.  

enjo

I'm learning fiddle and re-learning notation at the same time. Even though you can get tabs for violin it didn't seem right... It never bothered me for guitar.

stickyfiddle

What's the point in learning to read & write French?

It lets you communicate with other people who can read and write French, particularly when you're not necessarily in the same room. You can even communicate with large groups simultaneously. 

It's not required to be able to order a beer and a baguette on holiday, but it'll help you a huge amount if you decide to go and live there.

Ravenous

I occasionally like to pick up a score for a piece of non-guitar music and grab bits of the melody, bass line or chord structure for my own interest, to see how the piece "works".

This is useful for any instrument - I tend to have solo piano pieces around, but have dabbled in bits of string quartets & small/chamber orchestra pieces etc.

Note I'm NOT talking about "sight reading" here. I could never sight read any more than the most simple tune in an easy key.  But it should be possible for most people to learn to "read a bit" for their own amusement.

Also I'm not talking about limiting yourself to pieces which are within a particular range. You can pick up a score from a piece that's impossible for you to play, and pick out single useful parts if that's what you want.

One final comment (lecture?) on Youtube. How do you know those people can play it properly? And what if you want a piece they don't play?

Phil_aka_Pip

For me, it means you can play stuff that wasn't written by a guitarist for guitarists. EG when you get given a piano score for the songs in a panto you can read how the music goes. Or if there's any kind of tune you like ...

Secondly, instead of telling you where to put your fingers (and very little else), notation tells you the relationships between the notes and that often makes a lot more sense. There are a lot of scale or arpeggio fragments in commonly-used tunes, and if you know what they look like when written down you don't have to think too much about playing them if you've already built such technical exercises into your practice regime.

Reading pitch is the easy bit. Some people use tab, then have to put rhythmic information on it using ... symbols from notation! I don't get why if you've nailed the hard bit (the rhythm) why you don't go the whole hog and finish off with the easy bit!

merlin

Reading and writing is another shared language that has huge benefits. I write all the music for my band. 

I can give each of them a lead sheet and then we can just play tunes and arrange on the fly. If I want us to play a more complex arrangement, then I give them individual parts. Makes rehearsals, learning and pretty much everything we do faster, slicker and easier. 

The details come later but if you have lead sheets then you're way ahead of the game. 

It's a bit like saying, "What's the point in reading and writing? I do most of communication by listening and talking. I can watch television and films and order pizza without needing to read or write".... 

Winny_Pooh

siraxeman said:

I teach guitar in schools,

Not a science teacher? Missed your calling mate. 

TheBigDipper

enjo said:

I'm learning fiddle and re-learning notation at the same time. Even though you can get tabs for violin it didn't seem right... It never bothered me for guitar.

When this thread started, I didn't believe such a thing existed. Just found a website where they use "fret numbers" for violin tab and suggests players stick strips of tape onto their fingerboards where the "frets" should go. 

I told my neighbour (a very good cellist) and she just laughed... 

siraxeman

Winny_Pooh said:

siraxeman said:

I teach guitar in schools,

Not a science teacher? Missed your calling mate. 

I know, especially when you consider most science is actually no such thing...but hey ho!!  Always ways around it though...you can teach 'em "the earth is flat" song etc.

xpia98jf

stickyfiddle said:

What's the point in learning to read & write French?

It lets you communicate with other people who can read and write French, particularly when you're not necessarily in the same room. You can even communicate with large groups simultaneously. 

It's not required to be able to order a beer and a baguette on holiday, but it'll help you a huge amount if you decide to go and live there.

Agreed, although to continue your analogy in most situation you will still get by perfectly fine with English (tab).

Phil_aka_Pip

pia98jf said:

Agreed, although to continue your analogy in most situation you will still get by perfectly fine with English (tab).

Nah. I can't read tab.

Erskine

I learned to read music when learning classical guitar. For many years it was the only form of notation widely available. It was also before the days of the internet or software applications that used Tab.

When I started to use Tab more as I moved away from classical to blues and rock, I found that Tab provided a huge library of music available for the guitar. So I then started using Tab. I found it very difficult at first, but to be honest, the speed at which blues and rock is played makes standard notation a bugger to read. So, I simply grew more used to Tab but still use the standard line for tempo and a more accurate indication of the 'flow' of the music.

As has been said above. Learning music can give you a better understanding of the fretboard and enable you to pick out notes and scales in different positions. Scales in themselves are pretty essential for improvisation and certainly for jazz guitar.

However........... I have always felt that music for the guitar can restrict the guitarist if he sticks to it rigidly and precisely. So much of the quality of guitar music depends on a large degree of flexibility, dynamic, texture and tone. That is difficult to convey in any form of notation. So, it can explain, to some extent, why some of the best guitarists cannot read music. Session guys being the exception, of course.

siraxeman

One plus for TAB at least if its good accurate TAB is it gives you the fingering or the actual postion of the notes on the freboard to get the correct sound. For example...the open top E string or the same note on the 5th fret of the B string...or the 9th fret of the G string or the 14th fret of the D string or the 19th fret of the A string or the 24th fret of the bottom E string...are all the exact same pitch so on a stave will look identical. But do they all sound the same ? A short fat E or A string vs an open E or 5th fret on the B string? And whats the symbol in notation for a pic scrape? Or bouncing the pic on the G string over the pickup to get a mousey type sound ? Or a whammy bar divebomb ? Usually it needs some plain English instruction written underneath to make sense of such tricks.....