[Harp-L] Reading Music -- Pros and Cons

[Elizabeth Hess <TrackHarpL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If you've ever written a grocery list, or kept a calendar, or asked or  
been asked, "Could I have that in writing?" you have a glimmer of how  
the ability to read and write can be useful.  If you've ever preferred  
to use a pencil and paper instead of doing a calculation in your head,  
you have a glimmer of how the ability to read and write "math" can be  
useful.

Wouldn't it be useful if there were a way to write down musical ideas  
"for later"?  And wouldn't it be useful to be able to read those  
written-down ideas, either your own or someone else's?

It isn't that the ability to read and write music is essential to  
intelligent listening and playing, just as people get by in the world  
-- some of them very well -- who cannot read and write spoken  
language.  But for many of us, the ability to read music takes us  
further, and faster, than if we tried to do what we're doing without it.

Different people learn differently.  For those who learn well when  
there is a strong visual element, the ability to read music is  
especially useful as a foundation for future growth.  To give just one  
example, there is a particular rhythm that I have heard many, many  
times in Cuban music, but I could never  *quite*  get my ears and mind  
around what I was hearing.  I chanced on the "Latin Jazz" section of a  
theory book I own, and there it was -- the "clave" rhythm -- written  
out.  Once I saw it, my brain went "Aha!" and now I "have" that rhythm  
as my own.

One of the terrible limitations of most harp tab systems is that there  
is no clear way to convey rhythm information.  One of the limitations  
of conventionally-written music is that there is no good way to convey  
subtle inflections, and The Iceman is right:  The music  *does*  come  
first.

I did have a long struggle to correlate my knowledge of written music  
with non-key-of-C diatonic harmonicas -- a question that has been  
raised here, but not as thoroughly answered (at least not in recent  
memory) as might be hoped.  It is a highly non-trivial problem, imho,  
and I have asked many sages how they do it.  Winslow was one of those  
sages.  If I understand his answer, he mentally shifts the clef of the  
staff (pardon the music-reading jargon, here), and then is able to  
read the music and transpose in real time.  I have not come close to  
that skill, and have embraced the method of other sages who  "think in  
the key of C" as it were.  For me, the trick is to play non-C harps as  
"virtual C harps".  So it is "as if" 1-blow were C, "as if" 5-draw  
were F, etc.  One link is position playing.  In 2nd position on a C  
harp, I'm playing in the key of G.  4-draw is D, just like always.  If  
I want the blue third, Bb, I play 3-draw-half-step-bend.  In 2nd  
position on any other key harp, I play "as if" I were playing in the  
key of G on a C harp, and when I want the blue third, I play 3-draw- 
half-step bend never mind in the heat of the moment what concert pitch  
it is.  When I play in 3rd position on any harp, and want the minor  
third of the scale, I play 5-draw "as if" I were playing in the key of  
D on a C harp.  And so on.

Scale degrees are the other link, here.  If I want to play a song on  
my C harp (or any harp) that is notated in some key other than C, I  
take the time to pencil in the scale degree of each note.  Then I can  
decide what position I want to play it in, and I play those degrees as  
if I were playing in whatever-position on the C harp.

In summary, if you are able to play what you hear and what you want  
without reading music, and think that you will always be able to do  
so, you are probably right to allocate your time elsewise.  (A pretty  
good theory book that  *doesn't*  require the ability to read music is  
"How Music Really Works," by Wayne Chase.  I have learned  a lot from  
it.)  If you are a visual learner and/or like to read books as one way  
of expanding your knowledge, learning to read (or at least decipher!)  
music might well be a worthwhile investment, particularly if your  
interests take you to styles of music with stronger written traditions  
than, say, blues.  Everyone's mileage will vary, but these are the  
pros and cons as I see them.

My long-winded three cents, for what they're worth.

Elizabeth (aka "Tin Lizzie")