Can anyone read and write music?

easyrider said:
I was wondering if anyone could read and write music?

I just watched Eat that question a new Frank Zappa Documentary and Its inspired me to maybe have a bash at learning how to do it...
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I remember a very old story about Zappa from the 70s.
He hired The New York Symphony Orchestra (or similar) and they all came dressed in jeans/t-shirts etc and he heard a few remarks coming from them.
He handed the music to them and they stood there in awe looking at each other.
He told them to come back tomorrow dressed properly and he'd show them how to play it :D

I'm always amazed that Steve Vai basically got the job with Zappa because he transcribed Zappa's guitar work.

No, I can't read or write music but I really wish I could.
 
I taught myself to read (badly) towards the end of my 40 year career as a musician when I found I needed to be able to provide backing for visiting cabaret artistes and to run some talent comps.
My late brother was a child prodigy on the sax amongst many other instruments and an accomplished sight reader. He sessioned on loads of chart music from the 60's and 70's before moving to the states.
 
Yes, reading and writing for drumkit. Used to do theatre shows. I find it a very handy skill for transcribing grooves and fills. Just don't ask me to write out the Black Page!
 
I learnt to read from the ages of 8-12 via music lessons that i hated at the time. I then quit music for a couple of years until i took up guitar and i've played ever since (26 years now).

I'm a pretty terrible sight reader these days, but i can write and transcribe pretty well. I did a masters in orchestral composition about 20 years ago and still write stuff for my own amusement.

Oh and a huge Zappa fan. I have the lead sheet to The Black Page that I ordered specially from Barking Pumpkin framed in my home studio above the desk. Nested tuplets. Mmmmm.
 
I play piano but even after several years, my sight-reading isn't amazing. Unless you're putting in effort every day it's not something that improves quickly, and I'm better at memorising in all honesty. :)
 
Thanks for the input...I wasn't expecting that many people to read and write music!

I play a few instruments...Piano, Guitar, Drums etc..in my home studio but fear I may be to stuck in my ways...

I'm finding it tricky to know where to start tbh..
 
Read it (12 years of piano), and I suppose I COULD write it. If it would be any good is a different issue though.
 
easyrider said:
I'm finding it tricky to know where to start tbh..
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Buy a scale book and grade 1 ABRSM book for the piano. Set aside 10 minutes every day, without fail*. Do a scale or 2 for grade 1, reading the music as you go, might also help if you do it really slowly and saying the note at the same time.

For the piece pick a piece and learn just a bit of it. A few bars or a phrase or two. As you start getting the hang of it, add a bit more. Your piano playing will get better and you will be learning to read treble and bass cleff at the same time.



*This is the important bit, regular practice is far more important at this stage then length of of time playing.


Edit: Just thought, you will need some theory too, like a crotchet is 1 beat, quaver is half, semi quaver is quater. etc. I have no idea how I learnt this. I expect my Dad taught me when I was very young!
 
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easyrider said:
I play a few instruments...Piano, Guitar, Drums etc..in my home studio but fear I may be to stuck in my ways...
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The thing is that may be all you need, works for me.
Last week I played drums for somebody, the week before I played bass, Earlier this year I got together with some lads to do Deep Purple/Whitesnake covers and got on the keyboards. You already know I go out gigging weekly playing guitar & singing and to be honest in 48 years I've never needed to read music notation however that doesn't mean I've never wanted to.
Around the late 70s I went for keyboard lessons, he had me play and said I'd got so many bad habits he wouldn't be able to change me. He asked why I wanted to read music and what I hoped to get out of it and he said I was already doing what I needed to do by playing keyboards/guitar in a cabaret band.
The thing is I look at my 16 year old nephew who reads music like his first language. At 8 he was grade 8 drums, at 9 he was reading guitar notation and at 10 keyboard notation - I'm so jealous.
At 14 he could pick what music college he wanted to go to but he's got his eyes set on the Navy.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
The thing is that may be all you need, works for me.
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I sort of subscribe to this idea, too.

In my opinion, the best musicians are those who really know how to listen and communicate. Sheet music is just one way to communicate.

I know some great musicians who need sheet music to be able to play anything; drop them in an improvised rock group and they'll have no idea what to do. However, I also know some other great musicians who cannot read at all; drop them in a tightly-arranged big band and they'd be stuck.

If you want to be a well-rounded musician, reading sheet music is pretty useful. For example, there have been some great bands I've been lucky to play with in the past for whom I'd never have been considered if I couldn't read, just because it's such a convenient and (more or less) universal language in music.

In summary, reading music can really open up opportunities, but I think that learning to listen is probably more important.
 
arty said:
In summary, reading music can really open up opportunities, but I think that learning to listen is probably more important.
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And it also depends if you're the type to look for those opportunities but in my case it's been a life of club & pubs in rock n roll, rockabilly, 60s, funk, punk and rock & metal bands which requires me to listen. Last week I needed to learn Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd, I got so far with the tabs/chords but then found people who could show me on You Tube.
I do get jealous sometimes, every now & then I look over at the wife watching Strictly to listen to the band and I could never be a part of that but you could. Yeah I could sing the vocal parts, probably even the womens but I'd get nowhere because I'd need to read sheet music.
I was looking at Join My Band a few weeks ago and somebody was advertising for a singer for a Motown/Soul band which I'd love to do but it then said 'Must be able to read music'.
 
I thought I'd jump in here to get some advice from some of you musically minded men and women.

I've been tasked with speccing out or ordering a pre built music production PC setup for a friend.

It will be pretty much be a dedicated Sibelius machine for composing an opera on, with full orchestra.

Does anyone know if Sibelius will utilise 32 or 64GB of RAM or more?

I've been having a look at some pre-built systems meant for Audio Professionals and some are Xeon Systems capable of up to 128GB ram. Would someone using Sibelius quite demandingly utilise that much?

Up until now he's been coping with quite an old machine that's nothing special, but this will be quite a big job. I'm not sure what kind of difference there may be between a £1k high end standard system vs say a £2k+ Xeon system with boatloads of ram vs a £3k+ systems with all these special audio card and co-processors.

What about audio interfaces, UAD audio interfaces and co-processor cards?

Currently he's not using any of these, just a Keyboard connected to the PC (I'm not sure how off the top of my head, I'll need to check) and standard audio out to some decent speakers. But if any of this stuff can improve his workflow and enable faster composition on very complex pieces we'd like to look into it.

Any general music production pc advice is welcome as I'm not a musician myself.


In terms of a monitor we're thinking an ultra wide curved, perhaps 34 or 36" to see as much sheet music as possible on the screen at once? What do you think?

Many thanks

Edit: I made a dedicated thread there.

BusError said:
Worked for Sibelius for a few years, software for music composition (in classic musical notation, or quite a few variants).

The key (ahah!) is that there is a myriad of way to read/write music, not all of them very clear and subject to interpretation (ahaha * 2!)

Twas fun tho...
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Not anymore. I learnt in primary school when I played the piano and cornet. That was umm over 30 years ago. I stopped playing when I attended Secondary. My poor addled brain is just about coping learning guitar tab's!
 
Spots topic: "Can anyone read and write music?"
Answers: Yes, anyone can read and write music, as long as they learn music notation.

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