[Harp-L] How important is it to be able to read music?

[Michael Rubin]

Reading music is easy.  But unnecessary for most things except when you
want to read a piece of written music.

What I find is that reading music is a way to convey information.  As a
teacher,  I never suggest reading music until every other method of
conveying that information has been explored and failed OR if the student
asks for it OR has been coming forever and we might as well.
Michael Rubin
michaelrubinharmonica.com

On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 9:23 PM, philharpn--- via Harp-L <harp-l at xxxxx>
wrote:

> Reading music has always been an option. People who take up real
> instruments like the piano and trumpet take it for granted that you learn
> the instrument as you learn to read music. They don't know anything about
> music when they first start out. After a few weeks, music starts to make
> sense. Same with adults.
>
> Also, once you learn how to read the C scale, everything else just falls
> into place. That's because every major scale is the same: Play every other
> note except 3/4 and 7/8 in the 8 note scale.
>
> It takes about 5 minutes to learn to read music. 5 lines, 4 spaces
>
> I play several instruments. If I only knew tab, how would I find draw 4 on
> the trumpet? Or the piano?
>
> I've been playing at harp for about 25 years. But if I want to play a song
> I just pick up a fakebook (Hal Leonard) and find the tune.
>
> For any newbie, I'd say you'd be farther ahead learning to read music. If
> kids can do it, anybody can. And if you're just starting out, reading music
> is about as hard as third grade math and not much trickier than trying to
> figure out tab.
>
> Now, if you're been learning off records or tab for 30 years, there might
> be a huge learning curve. That's because you can play really complicated
> music. And if you saw what you can play written out in music notation,
> you'd just be confused.,..for awhile.
>
> I've said it before and I'll say it again.
>
> I've never heard anyone say they regretted learning to read music.
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Marsolais <bob at xxxxx>
> To: harp-l <harp-l at xxxxx>
> Sent: Wed, Dec 7, 2016 9:28 pm
> Subject: [Harp-L] How important is it to be able to read music?
>
> Here's another question from a newbie: How important is it to be able to
> read standard music notation?  Since all diatonics have the same hole blow,
> draw, and bend patterns no matter what the key, then the tab form of
> notation eliminates the need to transpose from one key to another.  So why
> go through the trouble to learn how to read music and force yourself to
> have
> to transpose when shifting keys?  What do more advanced harpist use?  I've
> found Harptabs.org.  Why not use that?
>
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> Thanks,
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> Bob
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