Re: Harmonica & Reading Music/REPLY

[G.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

FOR STEVE JENNINGS (in the main).

First I must apologise to the Harp-L, my post to Steve as intended to
be a private E-MAIL shot.
It was only when my letter came back to me as a Harp-L reader that I
realised what I had done!

Sorry about that, it DID spark off a bit of a thread though, and I 
think things have been a little quite on the group since Christmas.
Maybe it's taking a long time to recover, some of us must have had a 
killer of a time out there! 

****text deleted****

>There is categorically *nothing* wrong with  not being able to read
>music, (I'm not sure there's much right with  it, either)

I know what you mean on both counts. :-)


> 
> You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by learning to read,
> and not only learning to read, but also learning how chords and scales
> work together - this will enhance your improvisational abilities no end
> and enable you to communicate far more readily with other musicians for
> one thing, and also enable you to know what will work and what will not
> in a given situation.

Well, due to the constant pressure from John "Howlin Dog" Brown here at work
over the last year or so (a bit like water torture, a constant force :-) )
I HAVE made quite a few leaps into the realm of music theory. Some bits of
it I have posted to the NET to try and help other non dots readers come to 
terms with what I at least, considered to be of instant use to people.

I am at the same stage as Brendan Power with my music reading I suppose.
I CAN if I need to, work a melody out from the dots, but it's a time 
consuming thing to do. It would get better the more I did it I know, but
I have attempted to learn several times over the last 30 years (my Dad
was a wonderful Church Organist, but I couldn't learn from him).

I have a bit of a negative black spot when It comes to the music reading
side. I get a bit panicky over it, and then I think " balls, I could be
playing music now instead of this junk", and so It goes.
There seems SOOOO much of it, although as an educationalist in a University
I know you only learn a bit at once as you need it.
Trouble here is it's a case of being able to get other folk to do the
right thing, and not being able to sort out your own psychological
problems!

Actually, I play around twenty instruments on stage, and as a guitarist
I suppose I'm a pretty good jazzer when I have to be. For an ex Pro.
folk singer that is. I only gave it up full time due to not being able
to cope with the stress involved. I gig when *I* want now , so I'm 
perhaps in a lucky (or not) situation.
 
> What the ability to read gives you is access to a far wider repertoire
> than you would otherwise have. 
 
I keep looking at all my books of music and thinking, "all that new material
for your act, come on Jackson, get a grip on it" then I panic again. Sigh!


>I entirely agree that the gent in question should have been more
>self-critical, but he was *very* convinced that what he was doing was
>good (whatever that may mean) and very unwilling to stand back from it
>and take it apart in the way you suggest, and basically he was not
>approaching his tuition from a point of view that acknowledged that he
>had something to learn. One of the great benefits I have found in
>teaching other people to play is the amount that they teach me - that
>makes it very exciting.
 
Yes, I know the type, I teach people to sing from time to time, and one
chap, (a good friend which made it quite hard for me) wanted to improve
his singing, but when it came to it, he would not be told that he needed
to get good lungs full of air and to sing from the diaphram up. Or that
he needed to stand upright rather than sloutching, because his vocal
projection to the back of a room was zero.
After a few weeks he just gave up the lessons. well... O.K. Sad really.



> On the other hand, if you choose not to learn to read, that's cool too
> - you have your own rainbow to follow, and it's not up to me or anyone
> else to tell you how to follow it. 

Well, as I said it Used  to be a case if "I don't need it" now it's more
a case of "Oh wow! all this and I cann't cope with it) but I try, slowly.


****text deleted***
> non-reading musicians you can name, were/are great musicians *in
> spite* of their inability to read, not because of it. Similarly, there
> are plenty of bad musicians who can read music, but it's not their
> ability to read that makes them bad musicians.
> 
A valid point, well taken.

> The bottom line is that you're doing it for yourself, and you're
> perfectly entitled to do it your way, but as George pointed out he
> simply could not have done those gigs if he had not been able to read
> (and transpose at sight by the sound of it).
> 
> Steve Jennings
> Editor, Harmonica World
> 

Final word Steve, your letter was a *very* sensitive reply to mine, and
really more than I deserved, thanks.

Gordon.