Poll regarding reading standard notation

[Ignar Hillström]

As some (or many!) might have noticed there has been a discussion regarding the importance of being able to read standard notation. Might clear some things up by having a simple poll, I thought, so here it is.

There are only a few options to chose from, so it's more then likely that your exact views are not an option here. This poll is just for getting a rough idea anyway. The options are just the basic views I thought were possible and don't represent a specific person from the discussion or such things. I let the poll run for a three days so those who currenlty follow the discussion can vote without keeping this poll going on and on. Will keep my vote for a while.

[Vic Lewis VL]

One of these days, I WILL get around to learning standard notation...I would LOVE to be able to pick up a sheet of music and just sight-read...

Sigh....any chance of anyone adding a couple of extra hours to the day?



Vic

[greybeard]

As my boss (regularly) used to tell me "There are 24 hours in a day and if they aren't enough, you can always work nights".

[Nils]

I could not pick up sheet music and play right from it but I can decipher it enough in time that I can get enough information out of it to help significantly.

Wish I could sight read. Actually wish I could play well enough to support sight reading.

[brothertupelo]

some paths have signs, some don't.

[Steve-0]

It actually isn't that tough or time consuming to read standard notation, for example i learned classical style while learning to sight read in the first position... so when you combine things like that, it becomes really easy because it doesn't seem all that time consuming. I haven't read much because i've given classical a bit of a break, but maybe i'll start reading in different positions and different keys.

[gunslinger]

Wish I could sight read. Actually wish I could play well enough to support sight reading.

I hear that man.

I think it's great to learn standard notation. However I have never gotten around to it. I cant even sight read tab. However, I can *fake* if I have some idea what the song sounds like to begin with.

[DemoEtc]

I voted for the second one. As far as tab goes, I sorta go with Jeff Berlin, but that's not part of the pole.

Being familiar with standard notation is a good thing because it's a communication tool with so many different sorts of instruments and musicians, so if a person's going to take the time to learn a language, it's most practical to learn one that most people speak, so to speak.

But by 'learning' it or being familiar with it doesn't mean one has to be able to rip through a Bach violin piece perfectly the first time through. There are guys that can do that, but in my opinion even the guys in orchestras can't do that. That's why it's written, so you can go back to it and refine it and work on certain part over and over again. I think most orchestral guys have to do that to a certain extent.

That said, I think it's FAR more important for a guitarists (in particular) to develop their ear, but have standard notation available in the background; like a small program running in the background on the computer; it's there running, available, loaded, but not always called on.

Tab, in my opinion works in direct contrast to relying and developing the ear because it's basically what some other guitarist heard and you're now relying on their ability to hear rather than your own to a certain extent imho.

But that's a whole 'nother story