Bilbo

[quote name='Johnston' post='1206070' date='Apr 20 2011, 04:40 PM']I assumed that as a big proponent of notation and how it makes you a better musician you would have atleast looked into other forms of communication to improve your worth as a musician.[/quote] That post was not designed to contribute constructively to the debate but to attack the credentials of those with whom you disagree.

And a welcome 10c it is, fb. On reflection, I think my use of the term 'sophisticated' is probably erroneous. 'Complex' would probably do the job better.

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1205969' date='Apr 20 2011, 03:38 PM']he must've been at the wrong gig.[/quote]

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1205954' date='Apr 20 2011, 03:28 PM']it probably wouldn't help them to learn theory either,[/quote] I bet it would.

[quote name='Wil' post='1205942' date='Apr 20 2011, 03:20 PM']Hell, I can sight read for cello and piano, to an extent, but not for bass or guitar. I've just never seen the need to even learn the notes on the board besides the common chord roots.[/quote] Odd. If you can sight read for cello, shurely you can sight read for bass. Its the same clef. I guess you mean that, because the bass is tuned in fourths, you can't make the hands do what the eyes are telling you? Back to the OP. What I am sensing is that, whatever level of musical knowledge we have, we are occasionally frustrated by those who have less. In many situations, the required knowledge base is sufficiently limited for it to matter less (one band, one set of familiar songs etc). Personally, my pursuit of the knowledge is, in part, not because I don't want to be the bass player in the stated scenario, its because I don't want to be the guitarist. I did a gig once where the drummer was not up to par (too loud, too busy etc) and, after three or four tunes, the leader just turned to him and said 'can you not [i]sh*t[/i] all over my music, please'. I don't want to ever be that drummer.

I 'tabbed' Michael Schenker's 'Bijou Pleasurette' as a favour for my non-reading guitar playing brother once. I handed it to him and he looked at it and said: 'F*** me'! He never learned it.

[quote name='spinynorman' post='1205874' date='Apr 20 2011, 02:24 PM']Turns out the Queen for piano book missed out a whole section of guitar solo.[/quote] It happens a lot. Like proof reading an essay. Some of the suckers still get through.

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1205848' date='Apr 20 2011, 02:05 PM']..and can you dance whilst you're doing it ?[/quote] No, but you can

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1205848' date='Apr 20 2011, 02:05 PM']purely out of interest, are you listening and interracting with what's going on around you, or just reading and repeating verbatim (e.g. like reading aloud from a book you've never read before) ? [/quote] You can't deliver a performance of written music without listening and interacting with what is going on around you. Which notes to play and when is only the starting point. You still need to lock in with the other instruments and vice versa. You still need to guage your dynamics to the ensemble (in this case , keys, gtr, bass, dr, t. sax, trombone, trumpet, alto sax, flute, violin (x2), cello all under an MD/conductor. Everything is determined by the same listening and interacting skills as they would in any other musical setting. You are listening for cues, rubato passages, directed stops, vamps that are open ended. Learning to read the dots is only a part of putting in a musical performance of a chart. When it happens well, its such a buzz. One of the tracks on that show was Queen's 'Don't Stop ME Now'. It still had to rock, it still had that great guitar solo - everything was 'as per the reocrd' but we did it after one rehearsal and tucked in between 31 other tunes.

Because you get to the good bits quicker. I have rehearsed 32 tunes in one evening using charts. If I had to 'learn' them by rote, I would have probably managed a maximum of 4 that I would probably forget by the time I did a gig.

In fact, I think there was an element of 'hey, you could enjoy it even more'.

Same, five. Friday night, two on Saturday and two on Sunday.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205595' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:38 AM']Learning to do it just so you have access to music you have no interest in seems to be a bit of a dumb reason to learn.[/quote] 'Thunk' (Bilbo's head hitting the desk again)

Up yours, sunshine!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1205586' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:24 AM'].. but my ears are always open to what I'm listening to, and I get new ideas from that. I'll remember it, and work it out from my head whenever I'm having a plunk.[/quote] That'll work too

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1205505' date='Apr 20 2011, 08:55 AM']...but you want to play that kind of stuff. Dare I say most people don't...?[/quote] The material I use is irrelevant to the argument. It is the potential to access sophisticated music immediately and to spend time playing that music instead of just knobbing about with scales and riffs and stuff. 'Standing In The Shadows of Motown' would be just as good, a book of trombone solos, any transcribed lines or any conventional method book. It all opens up. When I hear people pick up their saxophones, guitars and basses, in my experiences, they generally all play the same few licks they always play. Written material is often great for pushing you into new territory which is where the learning is.

Can I stress one partifcular point that I have made in other threads but not here. Reading, for me, is not about gigs. I do no more reading gigs that anyone else (6 last year out of 50 odd). For me it is about efficiency and spending less time going over and over the same old same old (ziggydolphinboys story is a familiar one) and about getting the most out of practice time. I keep getting accused of being an elitist but I keep saying to people 'its not so hard to do'. Spend half an hour a day on it and, before you know it, it starts to come together. Then everything starts to open up. Its not actually that much harder than tab and, in the long run, a lot more useful. And its fun to play stuff. When I got my double bass last year, I was playing Bach Cello Suites and Paul Chambers transcriptions immediately, very badly and no arco but the learning I got from that was so much greater than learning a few riffs off Blue Note cds or just running scales (not that that is not useful). I could access various method books, Simandl, Sevcik etc and use them immediately without having to figure them out note by note. Much better use of time and a lot of fun.

[quote name='RhysP' post='1205198' date='Apr 19 2011, 08:57 PM']This is certainly true for me - I can't read music & know hardly any theory & it's purely because I'm a lazy c***. Never made any excuses to the contrary - it's something I really wish I could do but I simply just cannot be arsed putting the work in. For the amount of time I've been playing (over 30 years) I'm a sh*t bassist & it's all down to extreme laziness. If somebody told me tomorrow that in order to keep playing I'd have to study theory & reading for an hour a day I'd just give up. I'd very probably be a sh*t role model too.[/quote] But the world can always use another honest man

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1205195' date='Apr 19 2011, 08:54 PM']Like Pete, I'm late to our bi - monthly punch up on this topic. Are we at round 12 or 13 ? I can't remember [/quote] Do you mind? This is my second favourite argument The other one is why Jazz is better than everything else

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='1205184' date='Apr 19 2011, 08:48 PM']I'm well late on this thread. I thought it was about guitarists. I don't read music, but sometimes wish I could. I honestly think being able to keep time and being able to groove is more important if you're a bass player.[/quote] Its certanly as important.

[quote name='leonshelley01' post='1204971' date='Apr 19 2011, 05:22 PM']I think we also have to take into account most people on the forum probably have a non-music day job, and use bass playing as a social and leisure activity that sometimes maybe raises a little cash for a gig. I know I am. I am not a professional musician, I am someone who takes pride in playing to the best of my ability in the situations I choose. I am not a session player[/quote] That sums me up, Leon. My advocacy is borne of passion and the positives I have experienced from a solid grounding in theory anhd associated reading skills (and, to an extent, the negatives I have experienced from working with bands made up of musicians who can't read/don't know what's happening). What works for other people, doesn't work for me. In truth, I don't give a rat's what approach other have to their playing. I just talk a lot

[quote name='Johnston' post='1204939' date='Apr 19 2011, 04:59 PM']Stereotype much there Bilbo. No offence but that makes you sound like a condescending twat [/quote] Moi? Its more a case of using extreme language for dramatic effect. I rarely do full-on reading gigs either (percentage wise) but I do think that my ability to read is the most universally thing I ever learned to do. I can (could?) play Teen Town and Donna Lee, Joe Frazier, Water On The Brain, Bach, Five G, Motherlode, my fair share of Mark King and Stanley Clarke etc - all the basscentric tricks from the late 1980s etc. I have never played them other than, as Doddy says, to 'impress'. Reading has got me gigs and got me paid and I find, pretty much, that the quality of the music at reading gigs is a couple of notches higher than at the 'feel' gigs.

[quote name='oldslapper' post='1204913' date='Apr 19 2011, 04:33 PM']I don't buy this notion that those who do not read or learn theory, or do not wish to, are lazy and bad role models..??[/quote] Nor do I, as an absolute, but I do believe that those who do read and learn theory have a stronger work ethic and are good role models. So I advocate accordingly. Workshop situations are not the same as proper concerted study and fulfil a completely different set of needs. Most prisoners in the system aren't in long enough to learn to read the dots (although I did know a monster flute player in Cardiff who learned on a 15 year stretch). This thread is about what effect musical ignorance has on people's functioning as players. I find in inhibits most and have done so for decades, If that is my belief, then I have a duty to say so.

I have no problem with people criticising stuff they think stinks, bassace. Its not all good. Some of it IS crap.

My personal value base on this is simple. I am perfectly well aware of the fact that there are many aspects of being a musician that are not necessarily 'essential' and that players can get away without dealing with. But I am also aware, from my work with offenders, that there is a general tendency amongst young people to try to justify their behaviour particularly when it comes to avoiding working hard at study. Telling a developing player that he doesn't [i]have[/i] to do something is, in most cases, as good as telling him/her to [i]not bother[/i]. The anecdotes about player who can read but can't do something else are missing the point. All players have to be rounded and to be competent in all areas, not just half of them. A great reader that plays out of tune is no more use than an illiterate percussionist to an orchestra. Its about advocating the full basket of comeptences needed to become the best player you can be. In my experience, reading contributes greatly to my ongoing development. I could never do it again and still get better but I have no doubt in my mind that it is more use to me than double thumbing or two handed tapping. That is why I advocate for it. If anyone out there is a 'hobbyist' and has a more casual approach to this, then good for them, but please don't tell people that it is an acceptable way of moving forward. If people get that message early on, they will be coming to me in 10 years time like the raft of other older players I meet saying 'I wish I had.....'