Ship of Fools: Can you read music?

Thread: Can you read music? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

This came up in discussion today, and I was surprised by the number of my interlocutors who could not read music.

I was under the impression that most people learned music at school (even if it was just playing the recorder) and so therefore would have at least a rudimentary knowledge of musical notation.

So can you read music? Are my expectations ridiculous?

(If it makes a difference, all the people present for the discussion had college degrees.)

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Interesting question. During my brief teaching stint (with high school graduates, 18-25) I found several active musicians in my classes. They played instruments, joined semi-pro bands, developed their own songs, etc. etc. Not one of them could read music, and I had the impression (when this came up in discussion) that they regarded this skill as not quite legitimate, as though "real" musicians had no truck with this fancy-schmancy sort of thing. Apparently they all thought reading music was strictly for poseurs.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

I can read mus-ic. Look, Jan-et, here is some mus-ic. I can read it (a bit). Look, John, this note is high, but that note is low.

Like that.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I think your expectations are ridiculous. I had a class in music theory in university, but it was an elective, and very few of my fellow students take the course. If one didn't play an instrument or sing in a choir in high school, one is very unlikely to know how to read music, at least in my experience in the US.

I sing in the choir at church, and my ability to read music is very rudimentary. I have the timing bit down perfectly, but figuring out notes is a chore. I can figure out an interval, given enough time (thirds and fifths are obvious but everything else throws me), but as to whether it's minor, major, diminished, or augmented, I'm completely lost. Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me. I can recite the cycle of fifths. But for actually figuring all this out in real time, I am essentially singing from memory. The notes going up or down serve as a reminder.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
...Not one of them could read music, and I had the impression...that they regarded this skill as not quite legitimate, as though "real" musicians had no truck with this fancy-schmancy sort of thing. Apparently they all thought reading music was strictly for poseurs.

Yup I ran into that attitude in the "worship leader." He is absolutely convinced the only legitimate way to learn music is by ear and reading holds you back.

In a way he's right if the music has irregular rhythms that cannot be expressed in music notation - jazz, some Contemporary Christian "worship" music.

As to when do people learn to read it - I learned in church, from the hymnal, didn't take too long to see if the notes go up the voice pitch goes up. These days Churches are ditching the hymnals. CCLI has the music line available for download, but "worship leader" is opposed to allowing people to see it.

Schools where I live have music one hour a week.

Most kids learn folk songs and camp songs and pop songs from the radio - didn't you and I? I think a lot of chorus members don't read, choruses hand put rehearsal CDs these days for you to listen to your part and learn that way.

Posted by Jante (# 9163) on :

I learnt at school as we all learned the recorder then. I then sang in a church choir so used the knowledge and didn't lose it. Very few children learn music in school today.

Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :

I learned to read music at the same time as I learned to read words. Its my second language, learned at my dad's knee. He taught three generations of kids in our small town, so from my point of view a lot of people did learn to read music at school where I come from.

However, I am useless at improvising or learning things by ear. This is a sadness and I think it comes from having learned to read so early. I would love to be able to pick things up by ear.

Musicians are often a bit unbending about their particular tradition (reading or by ear). My boss (a rock guitarist and singer in his free time) and I have this discussion frequently - I've been to a number of his gigs, but he has yet to come to one of mine.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Yes, I can read music. I also learnt to write it at school. A bit of a waste really as I hardly ever listen to any these days, but I have been surprised by some avid Prommers who can’t read a note yet make it a priority to get to as many concerts as they can.

But I suppose unless you are actively involved in music i.e. play an instrument/sing, or are going to take a score to a performance with you there isn’t really much point for most people. Having said that, I found it quite interesting looking through scores as a teenager (I was doing music O level) because with an orchestral work you don’t always realize that certain instruments may even be playing, or what their role is, and it helps you to follow them in a piece you’re quite familiar with and get something new out of it and attune your ear to listening for the less obvious.

Posted by cross eyed bear (# 13977) on :

I know what all the notes are called, how to read key signature and recognise the rhythm/s.

This is through lots of choir singing at school, and some self-taught piano at home.

I don't have the musicality to sing straight from the notes, and would need a lot of practice to play properly from the notes, but I can work out what direction the tune is going in...

Strangely enough, I'm quite good if I have played notes to orientate myself by. If the Alto part is relative to the main tune, I can use those notes to sing a harmony near straight off.

I am also very good at thirds...

Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :

No, I cannot. This is not for some trying, but the only way I can manage is to look at each note individually and work out using the mnemonics FACE and Every Good Boy Deserves Food. This way, I can manage about 1 note every 5 seconds or so. I suppose that puts my ability to read music at the same level as a 4 year old reading words.

In terms of education, I have a masters degree in maths (1st class), so am not generally classed as a dunce.

This doesn't stop me from playing music, though. I can play guitar where reading tabs is much more intuitive, as it actually relates to the instrument, rather than the more abstract notation of sheet music.

So to me, I know A as 0-0-2-2-2-0 and A minor as 0-0-2-2-1-0. This style actually tells you what to do and to me just seems more sensible than learning what is effectively another language.

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
However, I am useless at improvising or learning things by ear. This is a sadness and I think it comes from having learned to read so early. I would love to be able to pick things up by ear.

Snap. But then again, I too have read music from a young age. What my ear does serve to do is to convince me that I'm singing all the wrong notes when what I'm hearing doesn't match the pitch on the page (i.e. when someone's transposed it without telling me).

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

I can neither read music nor play any instrument. I was brought up in a very poor neighbourhood and few of my peers learnt any instrument. Reading music did not seem to be taught at our school, we did the odd strumming of notes on the guitar but without regular lessons in small groups it is hard to learn such a skill. Very few children at my school took private lessons, presumably due to financial reasons but there are also social reasons, it wasn't a cultural norm for us (in the same way that we didn't hope to go to university).
Both my children can read music but the have private guitar lessons and my husband also teaches them. Most of my friends here are middle class graduates and they almost all play instruments, I assume most can read music too. I have often felt, this might be my personal inferiority complex, who knows, that the reading of music is one of those skills which denotes class here in the UK. It certainly highlights my working class roots but perhaps Cambridge is extreme in this sense.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Vaguely - I know when it goes up or down so I used to sing treble, then alto, then bass as a kid in a church choir - usually following the lead of someone more confident.

Now that I take services, i have to intone things and try not to get aught out by any unusual preces and responses.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

At prmary school in the 1930s we were taught tonic sol-fa and how to breathe from the diaphragm.

Learned piano from age 8. Sang duets with Mum, or accompanied her on the piano. Sat Music 101 extramurally and passed on the set works but failed the (self-taught from text book) harmony.

So I'm lost when I have to 'pick up' a new song by joining in, but give me the music and I'll lead the rest.

Intervals – for ear tests in music exams we learned to associate each interval with the beginning of a song, eg Auld Lang Syne begins with a major fourth.

That's quite true that an alto is a soprano who can read music _ that's me.

GG

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Intervals – for ear tests in music exams we learned to associate each interval with the beginning of a song, eg Auld Lang Syne begins with a major fourth.

For me that was Away in a Manger.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

As an orchestral musician, I have to read music. I can read bass, tenor or treble clefs, but if I try to follow treble on the cello, it completely throws me (my brain automatically turns it into tenor).

I think reading a score or learning by ear definitely do give you different approaches to music. My boyfriend's Dad is a concert pianist, he is also 100% blind. Consequently the world of the printed score is completely unknown to him and he has always learned everything by ear (and not small pieces, either - at his retirement concert he played the Schumann concerto in A, for example). The most impressive aspect of this is the absolutely colossal memory it requires. He also thinks of the music straight away in phrases, rather than as individual notes on a page. The downside to learning this way is that rather than discovering the music on your own by figuring out the score, you always hear it played by someone else first and it's quite difficult not to be influenced by their interpretation.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
No, I cannot. This is not for some trying, but the only way I can manage is to look at each note individually and work out using the mnemonics FACE and Every Good Boy Deserves Food. This way, I can manage about 1 note every 5 seconds or so. I suppose that puts my ability to read music at the same level as a 4 year old reading words.

In terms of education, I have a masters degree in maths (1st class), so am not generally classed as a dunce.

This doesn't stop me from playing music, though. I can play guitar where reading tabs is much more intuitive, as it actually relates to the instrument, rather than the more abstract notation of sheet music.

So to me, I know A as 0-0-2-2-2-0 and A minor as 0-0-2-2-1-0. This style actually tells you what to do and to me just seems more sensible than learning what is effectively another language.

I'm exactly the same, though I'm not proficient enough with tabs to play lead parts "straight off the page".

My initial comment on seeing the thread title was going to be "of course I can't - I'm a guitarist" [Big Grin]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Yes, learned to read music from ? I think 4 years old.

Was also blessed with a Welsh granny so learned tonic solfa at the same time so can read that as well.

At my state primary we ALL learned to play the recorder and were taught to read music - but that was the early 1960s.

I know the local state schools in my area have more or less stopped having recorder groups. This is partly because music is now valued so little that head teachers can get away with "we have a new teacher with Grade 4 piano so don't need the music specialist coming in any more".

Doubt that? A specialist music teacher friend "did" the music for 5 local schools for years but gradually they've all stopped having her - the quote in the para above is what she was told by the head at the last of her schools.

She is a dedicated and gifted teacher - she taught my own children piano and was brilliant. An intuitive and sensitive musician, she's a graduate of the Royal College of Music plus has a PGCE and she's now working as a care assistant. As she says, the only way back into teaching at primary level is to find a job in a private school.

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

Yes I learnt piano briefly as a child but then subsequently took up the flute. The result of this is I can read treble clef pretty automatically but have to work out bass clef more note by note! Sadly I haven't played flute for years but I sing alto in a small choir so I get plenty of practice reading music still.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

I was never taught to read music in primary school (this was in the 90s, at a UK state primary). We were taught at secondary school (UK state secondary, 2000-2005) but I never got the hang of it. I have dyscalculia and I wonder if that's had an impact?

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

I can read music ish. Certainly, I can sight-play a melody on a piano, unless the rhythm's devillish, in which case I'll get it after a little bit of slowing down and counting. Score to voice is so-so (mainly due to not being a particular good singer). I can often hear what I'm reading even when I mess up getting it out of my mouth. If you can sing up and down a scale, sing fifths and octaves, and make a good guess (guided by which notes are in your scale) about thirds and fourths, you can sight sing pretty much any hymn out there. Of course, you also need to be able to recognize these things on the piece of paper.

To be honest, I don't think I was ever really taught sight-singing, but I was taught enough music theory in secondary school to be able to know what to look for in a score (not just naming the notes, but knowing that going from C to E sounds just like going from G to B, etc.). Piano lessons never covered sight-singing, but just gave me a bunch of experience of hearing what these patterns sounded like. Every choir I've been in has basically assumed that we'd use the score as an aide-memoire after listening to it being played, which suited me well.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

I should add that my ability to pick up sight-reading reasonably naturally seems to go along with an almost complete inability to remember music without a score. I play the O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo about once a week for Benediction (both very simple pieces) and would be completely lost without a score.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

I can read music, having been taught classical piano as a child and been tortured through various grades.

However, amongst my contemporaries only those who actually learnt an instrument could do so. School music lessons didn't feature that much actual music reading.

Over the years I've hung around with a lot of musical types, and there's been a fairly even split between "dots" and "ear" (some worship guitarists skewing the stats by not being able to do dots or ear, but being fine with a chord sheet!).

IME most people are better at one or the other, and tend to be jealous of their opposites, which comes out in disparaging comments. Certainly the "only playing by ear is real, man" attitude smacks of teenage rock-god-wannabes. I can't remember who it was, but it was A Serious Rock Legend who once opined "People who say you shouldn't learn to read music and shouldn't learn theory because it's not pure ... those people are arseholes, and are limiting themselves" (sic).

My ear playing is pretty ropey for getting something spot on, but as a (now) guitarist I can blag my way through a jam/something that fits approach.

However, getting back to the OP, I tend to assume most people can't read music, and I don't absolutely assume they can even if they're a musician.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

My father and sister were untrained singers; my sister learned note-reading in school. My brothers had no interest in music, but attended school with Sis, and may have had the skill. We had loads of sheet music in the house.

I sang harmonies with my sis & dad by ear once I had surgery that provided me with enough hearing to manage, but was only introduced to note-reading in the primary grades.

To me, writing rather than reading notes was more important. It became a way to "record" the tunes I invented picking at the piano or my dad's guitar.

In middle school, a teacher encouraged us to try composing; in high school, I was selected for a small singing group (The Double Quartet) and would have been utterly lost without the ability to read, as we tried some fairly challenging stuff and performed for money.

This was over three different school systems (though all in Massachusetts), so teaching the reading of music must have been the norm, not the exception.

These days, though, with no practice, no singing group, and no instrument to play, I'd probably be lost.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I can read music. I can sight-sing unless it's something very complex. When I read a partiture, I can usually hear the piece in my head.

Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
I should add that my ability to pick up sight-reading reasonably naturally seems to go along with an almost complete inability to remember music without a score. ...

... and after singing in various choirs for (cough) years, I find that the music director of one of them now wants us to sing without using scores (something to do with seeing what the conductor is doing, apparently). I am now finding that memorising the music is difficult (and memorising the words is worse, especially if not in English) ... all of us seem to be finding this, whether we can read music or not.

Incidentally, why do I still find that reading music is so difficult, despite music notation being so much easier, simpler and more logical than the written word? And I only have to fathom out one vocal line at a time; I am in awe of pianists and organists who can play on sight, I have no idea how they do it.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Yes. We had may little mnemonics for remembering various things. Like "every good boy does fine" for treble clef lines, FACE for the spaces. I remember a particularly rude one for guitar strings names, which I suppose reflects adolescence when I learned them.

Music was part of life for us growing up, and also for our kids. Everyone took piano, played in a school band, and in optional extras like jazz band. I take recorders on canoe trips actually. Good rainy day activity is recorder-harmonica duets, not they are actually very good mind you.

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

No. I grew up in a very musical family and music was something that had to be Done Very Well. I knew I'd never be as good at it as my dad and eldest brother (and for them it was classical stuff or nothing so we never had family singing round the piano or anything) so it was a complete turn off for my younger brother and me. [Roll Eyes]

I do have a reasonable singing voice and a fairly good musical memory, so I enjoy singing in a choir where, like mousethief, the way the notes go up and down on the stave serve as a reminder.

Nen - currently part of a gospel choir where no music or words are ever supplied in written form. [Yipee]

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

I can read music, thanks to private piano lessons while I was a kid. It serves me well in my church choir, as we do fairly sophisticated music at a fairly quick pace, and you would be left behind without some sight reading skills. Mind you, I can't look at a scale and tell you what mode it is, but I can usually work my way through a piece of music from the score. Once a year, I sing in a chorus where all music is learned by ear, and the repetition would absolutely drive me up the wall if there wasn't a keg backstage. Don't get me started on the overhead projector with the words method of singing.

We did recorders in the fourth grade, but by that time I was so familiar with music that I blew through the book in one day. I turned into the problem with large class size- the guy who was ahead, got board, and started screwing around. I don't know if anyone who was unfamiliar with music actually learned anything from a month of recorder instruction.

Re: Jazz musicians not needing / using notation, I am pretty sure that an article about the first draft score for "A Love Supreme" was floating around recently. At any rate, Sun Ra was known for having painfully long rehearsals, and swore that his Arkestra (which played / plays some of the freest Jazz you can find) was playing music that originated in scores and sheet music.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This came up in discussion today, and I was surprised by the number of my interlocutors who could not read music.

I was under the impression that most people learned music at school (even if it was just playing the recorder) and so therefore would have at least a rudimentary knowledge of musical notation.

Not at all, not here anyway.

The schools I went to in the 1960s and 1970s only taught you to read music if they taught you to play an instrument, and the majority did not have those lessons. It was an out-of-hours voluntary thing. "Music lessons" in grammar school were what was once called "music appreciation", not about performance. Musical instument lessons were one-to-one with a "peripatetic" music teacher who wasn't on the regular staff. A large proportion of the students did have musical instrument teaching but nowhere near all.

You only got taught to sing if you were in the choir, and that didn't involve reading music.

The schools my daugher went to in the 1990s and 2000s had even less music teaching. I think it was pretty much killed off ny the National Curriculum - nowadays if its not compulsory, there is no funding for it; and if its not examined, there is no time for it. And the instumental teaching at her school - again mostly voluntary, after-hours - was mostly pop rather than orchestral - lots of electronic keyboards, a few guitars - and much of it done by ear, not reading music. So I guess her generation are even less likely to read music than mine were.

quote:

So can you read music?

Yes, but I taught myself when I was about 8 or 9, nothing to do with either school or parents. And only to play instruments, not to sing. Later on I did do some instrumental lessons at school where I suppose I woudl have learned to read music if I hadn't already known how. But many people didn't.

And when I say "I can read music" I mean a single melody line in treble clef when I have an instrument in my hands. I can play simple tunes on recorders or whistles or flutes or similar instruments, and pick out notes on a keyboard or a guitar with one finger, slowly.

I'm trying to teach myself to read bass clef at the moment, and also to read chords or more than one line. I bought a cheap electronic keyboard about three weeks ago to help me do it... watch this space.

quote:

Are my expectations ridiculous?

Not ridiculous but utterly unrealistic.

quote:

(If it makes a difference, all the people present for the discussion had college degrees.)

Makes a small difference as they are more likely to have gone to the kind of schools that teach orchestral music and so more likley to have learned to play instruments from written music.

[ 03. October 2013, 17:09: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I learned in church, from the hymnal, didn't take too long to see if the notes go up the voice pitch goes up.

Hymnbooks in England don't have written music, just words. Everybody learns the tunes by ear. Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists (and sometimes not even them, especially for guitarists)

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
However, getting back to the OP, I tend to assume most people can't read music, and I don't absolutely assume they can even if they're a musician.

I reckon its something like this:

orchestral musicians always read music
jazz musicians nearly always read, apart from maybe drummers
piano players and church organists always
professional choral singers and opera singers always
church choirs and amateur choirs almost never read music, apart from a few choirs of near-professional standard you would have to audition to get in to (and I doubt if one church in twenty has such a choir)
professional pop and rock musicians mostly but not always, and 6-string guitar players very often not - but you almost always need to read music to be a session muscian so its a career opportunity if you can
amateur pop and rock musicians (including church worship bands) mostly not
country & folk musicians almost never, especially guitar players - though that's not as ignorant as it looks because 6-string guitar players almost always read tab and chord symbols, which is simply more appropriate for that instrument (and if tab was good enough for John Dowland its good enough for me)

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Hmmm... not sure when I learnt to actually read music. I think it may have been when I was quite young, and fascinated by the family piano, and wanting to play some of the things my mother used to play.

In fact I was desperate to play. I found it quite frustrating sitting on the piano stool looking at the piano keys, unable to unlock the secret of their harmonies. I've a feeling my mother may have shown me how to do it - there was also a beginner's piano book which taught you very clearly how to read music and I taught myself a bit out of that.

(At school a lot of us also learnt a second instrument thanks to a benevolent county council who made school instrument hire extremely reasonable - it was something like 50p for a violin, so unless you were really broke, expense wasn't a problem. I did the violin for a bit, and got a set of three different recorders - descant, sopranino and treble - and played in the school orchestras. I kept that up when I went to college. It all stopped when I left; you can't do this kind of stuff in rented accommodation.)

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by ken
Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists ...

Not sure where you're getting this from, Ken.

ALL the church choirs I've either sung in or directed use written music, and lots of it.

To take my current (village) choir as an example:

everyone uses a full-music (4 part) hymnal, plus chant book for psalmody
every choir member has a copy of 5 basic anthem books (New Church Anthem Book, Anthems for Choir 1 & 4, Oxford Tudor Anthems, Sixteenth Century Anthems
all use full music copies of the ordinary of the mass (communion setting) as set for that service
all will have a full music score for the setting for choral Matins

In addition, we have a library with individual motets and anthems, plus carol books, etc, etc.

To fund the cost of new music or replacing worn-out copies we hire out music to other choirs and choral ensembles.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
no prophet: I remember a particularly rude one for guitar strings names

Now I'm really thinking about what rude sentences you can make with EADGBE.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by ken
Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists ...
Not sure where you're getting this from, Ken.

From having visited or worshipped at dozens of churches

quote:

ALL the church choirs I've either sung in or directed use written music, and lots of it.

Yes, but you are a trained musican. the very fact that you were singing there or directing the choir is a clue that they aren't a random sample of normal churches. You are definitely at the highly skilled end of the range.

I doubt if anyone in our choir would know what a motet was. (Actually it seems a strange word to be using for current-day music to me - I associate it with the 16th & 17th centuries)

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

I've been in churches where the choir has hymnals with 4 part music notation, the congregation gets hymnals with just the melody line. A congregation member doesn't even know the fuller notation hymnal exists. I remember my startle at seeing one that got into the pews by mistake, and started learning how to read the alto line from it.

As to piano players reading music - gal in our "worship group" couldn't play a note when we practice "All creatures of our God and king" for pet blessing Sunday this week. She doesn't know the song, and the sheet music didn't help. I'm guessing she can read a single line but didn't know what to do with a printed sheet with four parts.

Which brings out - what do we mean by "read music"? I am often told I read well. Now I am working on learning how to read. Specifically, I do great when handed a choral piece, a simple church anthem I might be able to read on my own cold with no supporting instrument.

But now I'm trying to read for piano, whole different game to see chords instead of several separate notes, and to learn bass clef and notes above staff in treble, which chorus leader after leader all my life told me not to bother learning because "you don't need it," their framework for judging my need being "choral altos" don't use bass clef."

Lots of degrees of functional reading, for different purposes. Hand me an orchestral score - nope, don't functionally read more than one instrument at a time.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by ken
Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists ...
Not sure where you're getting this from, Ken.
From having visited or worshipped at dozens of churches

quote:

ALL the church choirs I've either sung in or directed use written music, and lots of it.
Yes, but you are a trained musican. the very fact that you were singing there or directing the choir is a clue that they aren't a random sample of normal churches. You are definitely at the highly skilled end of the range.

I doubt if anyone in our choir would know what a motet was. (Actually it seems a strange word to be using for current-day music to me - I associate it with the 16th & 17th centuries)

It must vary from place to place. There isn't a single choir in this deanery that doesn't read from music. One of them is v. small and only sings a single line, but still from music. The non-church choirs based in the nearest market town all read music bar one, which calls itself "The Community Choir" - they do learn by rote.

I agree with you about the hymnals though - it's pretty rare to find the congregational copies with the melody printed in them (though Winchester Cathedral do use them). The choirs always use 4-part harmony editions.

[Yes, I read music. I learnt at my local primary school playing recorder, but subsequently took piano lessons from my aunt who was a music teacher by day. As a boy I was fortunate enough to be able to sing both first and second treble lines, so when my voice broke it was straightforward to move to the lower parts. I have a baritone voice, but because I can hit the high notes I usually end up singing tenor.]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by ken
Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists ...
Not sure where you're getting this from, Ken.

Doesn't match my experience either, and I'm definitely not performing at the high end. I know plenty of churches where the congregation aren't given music, but I've not known a choir not be (even if not all the members can read it).

For people that do sing at sight, I'm curious: if you know how you do it? Let's say you were faced with the first three notes of Morning has broken and asked to sing them (without being told what the tune is). What goes through your head? I can think of a few options:

a) Nothing, it just comes out. [In which case, I'm jealous]
b) You see a major arpeggio starting with the tonic, and sing that. [I think this is what I do]
c) You see "do-mi-so" and sing that.
d) You see "ascending major third, ascending minor third" and sing that.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I learnt to read music at primary school as part of class lessons ('Time and Tune' anyone?) and then from playing the recorder and, later on, private piano lessons.

It's much easier to make the music you read turn into notes when you're playing an instrument but harder with the voice unless you have perfect pitch. I can work out the key and the notes of the scale, then convert printed music into sounds made by the throat, but I'm much slower at it than the fluent sight-singers. Fortunately, most anthems are played over a few times by the organist, so I can match notes on the stave to pitch more easily (if you sing a part for long enough you can hear your line even among several parts at once).

By the time we come to sing the anthem in a church service, either accompanied or a capella, we have sung it through two or three times already, so the notes on the page are already fairly confidently registered in the brain. I'm much more confident at sight-singing hymns and psalms where the range is much more limited.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
For people that do sing at sight, I'm curious: if you know how you do it? Let's say you were faced with the first three notes of Morning has broken and asked to sing them (without being told what the tune is). What goes through your head? I can think of a few options:

a) Nothing, it just comes out. [In which case, I'm jealous]
b) You see a major arpeggio starting with the tonic, and sing that. [I think this is what I do]
c) You see "do-mi-so" and sing that.
d) You see "ascending major third, ascending minor third" and sing that.

Singing at sight (sight-reading) is probably a bit like riding a bike. If you think too hard about it you fall off. Sometimes you do have to think really hard - at other times (such as in a Bach piece) it's often more a question of watching the line ahead for its twists and turns and unexpected intervals. "Morning has broken" would be mostly a) for me with a bit of b)

Keeping the key in mind is always there, but it often moves without a signature change. A flattened fifth is a nightmare usually. It's called "The Devil's Interval" for good reason.

[ 03. October 2013, 22:46: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:

For people that do sing at sight, I'm curious: if you know how you do it? ...

a) Nothing, it just comes out. [In which case, I'm jealous]
b) You see a major arpeggio starting with the tonic, and sing that. [I think this is what I do]
c) You see "do-mi-so" and sing that.
d) You see "ascending major third, ascending minor third" and sing that.

e) pick a starting note (which will be near the right note - could accidentally be on it, or a half step or two off), go up or down about the amount of space the notes indicate to the next note. I don't think in minor or major or in chord arpeggios, just at each note how many steps to the next note, and does the amount I moved "sound right."

Simple music of mostly half and whole steps and sometimes two steps (i.e. a third), and occasionally a fifth, if it's basic Western music sound I'll get it right the first time. More "complex" intervals, like 4ths 6ths octaves, jazz intervals, I won't. So for me it's a familiarity thing.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by ken
Most ordinary church choirs don't use written music, only instrumentalists ...
Not sure where you're getting this from, Ken.

I was wondering the same thing. Every choir I've been part of uses written music. These choirs range from well-trained singers, to folks who read by seeing the notes go up or down the staff.

It's so sad to see more and more people who have never learned to read music. Thank goodness there are some magnet art schools that teach music reading, theory and solfege. I've watched a whole class of students sight sing four part solfege perfectly for the national music teachers' association.

I read music. My beginning experience was figuring out how to read bass and treble clef from the hymnal. (I don't know of any churches around here with hymnals without four part scores.) Piano lessons started when I was ten, and I just devoured everything my teacher could throw at me!

It's kind of interesting, though. I'm the only one in my immediate family who ever had any interest in playing music.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
no prophet: I remember a particularly rude one for guitar strings names
Now I'm really thinking about what rude sentences you can make with EADGBE.

Okay, I'll do it. You know the 12 year old in me wants to:
Every Adult Dog Gets Bum Entry
Even Anal Dorks Get Blown Eventually

Okay now one of us is sorry.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
I should add that my ability to pick up sight-reading reasonably naturally seems to go along with an almost complete inability to remember music without a score.

Me too!

I used to speculate about the connection, because back in the days of playing piano in eisteddfods and other competitions there seemed to be a correlation. It seemed to me that the best sight-readers couldn't memorise well, and the best memorisers couldn't sight-read well.

I kept entering the sight-reading competitions in the eisteddfod every year because I could virtually guarantee a win, which would get back some of the money spent entering other sections. But conversely, in those other sections I was easily the most likely person to need the printed music on stage.

Of course, I would point out to people that until Liszt came along, people didn't memorise. They used the score. The fascinating thing is, the only pieces I successfully memorised were all after Liszt's lifetime.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
I remember a particularly rude one for guitar strings names
Now I'm really thinking about what rude sentences you can make with EADGBE.
Okay, I'll do it. You know the 12 year old in me wants to:
Every Adult Dog Gets Bum Entry
Even Anal Dorks Get Blown Eventually

Okay now one of us is sorry. [/QB]

In the Coursera.com guitar course (coming up again mid-october, free) someone said his guitar teacher said Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually.

Not rude maybe, but fun.

Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
a) Nothing, it just comes out. [In which case, I'm jealous]
b) You see a major arpeggio starting with the tonic, and sing that. [I think this is what I do]
c) You see "do-mi-so" and sing that.
d) You see "ascending major third, ascending minor third" and sing that.

A mix of a and b, but I have always tended to sing with one eye on the other parts, so I would add e) anticipate the harmony. This comes from having played in recorder consorts from the age of 5, with a teacher who insisted we always know where the other parts were. I also spent 12 years conducting a choir, so I'm used to reading the whole score and can sing any part.

Over the last 10 years I've been training myself to memorise. Like many other good sight singers, I used to have terrible trouble memorising, but this year I sang the whole of the Verdi Requiem without needing to look at the score. I feel it really brings me into the music and the drama heaps more than singing from a score. I'm currently working on memorising the Messiah, but I suspect that might take another couple of goes, since we only have 5 rehearsals. Small pieces are no longer any trouble, unless they're in French (my French is painful for everyone, including me).

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :

I apologise for not reading whole thread, so may repeat, that the new national curriculum has music notation it, so all UK children will be able to read music by the end of key stage 3

Said with a straight. Ish face.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Another one who can read music ~ piano lessons from about 7, I suspect paid for by my grandparents who had a piano and watched me picking out stuff from very young. Self taught recorder, penny whistle and some classical guitar from there. I can also read guitar tabs and when have time try for tabulture.

Choir here user musical scores too. And the settings are available.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Look there is read and read with respect to music. I am pretty sure I would read at acceptable level to pass stage III, I certainly can read well enough to pick out a tune on the piano, and I recognise various chords and such on the page. Actually if I did some work on the piano I might even be a decent enough basic pianist given the level I got to on the piano at school.

However show me a piece of music and ask me to say what it sounds like or try and sing it and I have very little clue whatsoever. There is no connection between the notes on the page and sound that they reflect. Music theory to me is an arcane puzzle that I know quite a few of the rules too.

Jengie

Posted by Alicïa (# 7668) on :

I can read music well enough to get by, although it's quite a new experience for me as I only learned relatively recently, a long time after I learned to play the guitar and piano and write computer music.

I used to get by with feeling what sounded right and with the supplemental knowledge of chord charts and scales and arpeggios but I now very much enjoy the theory and learning new things about music all the time.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pererin:

quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
However, I am useless at improvising or learning things by ear. This is a sadness and I think it comes from having learned to read so early. I would love to be able to pick things up by ear.
Snap. But then again, I too have read music from a young age. What my ear does serve to do is to convince me that I'm singing all the wrong notes when what I'm hearing doesn't match the pitch on the page (i.e. when someone's transposed it without telling me).

On the other hand, I can read music, and still learn better by ear than any other way. Not that it makes any difference since I can't sing on pitch alone to save my life until I've known the song for a few years, literally.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

I can read music too, and even sight-sing if pushed. But I don't have absolute pitch (= perfect pitch) like pererin; what I do have is very good relative pitch. I find it fairly easy to pick things up by ear.

The only keys I find easy to remember are the ones I learned to play on the piano, though. Which is a bit inconvenient because so much choral music is in E flat...

[ 04. October 2013, 15:01: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

That's another thing I've never understood about music. For whatever reason, I love playing in Eb. It feels elegant to me. Playing in G or D at a stretch is OK, but beyond that, playing in sharps feels pushy.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
That's another thing I've never understood about music. For whatever reason, I love playing in Eb. It feels elegant to me. Playing in G or D at a stretch is OK, but beyond that, playing in sharps feels pushy.

Maybe it depends on the instruments you learned on. Recorders and tin whistles are happier in C, G, D (D whistle is by far the most common). Guitars can play anything but easier pieces tend to be on the sharp side G, D, A, E. But brass instruments are often happiest in flat keys (no idea why - wouldn't life have been easier for the last few centuries if all those Bb horns had been made a teeny-tinier bit smaller so they were at home in C and could use the same scores as everybody else?)

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

Oh, it's definitely instrument-dependent. I was referring to piano.

Posted by Miss Madrigal (# 15528) on :

I was fortunate to be able to join the church choir when I but a small wee thing. We were never explicitly taught to read music, but after a year or so of singing by ear with the music in front of me I picked it up by osmosis.

Later in life I joined a local musical society, of which I still a member. Over the years this group has has many members join as children and stay and grow as performers, aided by some excellent musical teachers in the group. Whether by pure luck or providence all the children either arrived knowing how to read music or picked up the skill in much the same way as I did all those years ago. Two years ago we the first group of children arrived who were bamboozled by the marks on the page. While they could sing and dance, they couldn't make any sense of the printed music. It took a while for us to work out that this was why they were singing the words in the wrong order - they read the lines across both pages rather than down one page then on to the next - and that they might need some coaching. We'd never even thought to ask until then if they had seen printed music before.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
ken: (no idea why - wouldn't life have been easier for the last few centuries if all those Bb horns had been made a teeny-tinier bit smaller so they were at home in C and could use the same scores as everybody else?)

Before trumpets had valves, you would have a trumpet for each key that was commonly played. When valves were introduced, people found that the B♭ trumpet had the best sound as a compromise between brightness and 'fullness'.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Re keys things are scored and played in.

Yes, it makes a difference. I learned this when listening to Beethoven who starts with a note string that iterates on a basic line and then progressively converts itself to another key in an astonishing way, at least to my ears. Enough of beauty to being me to some sort of - wish I had the words - soul-enlightening happiness and intellectual pleasure all at once. He magnificently chose some keys to compose in that just speak beauty even when the melody has just begun, before the musical conversation has turned to transcendence. The simplicity and wonder of Emperor (piano concerto 5) come immediately to mind This, I have learned is the phenomena of pure tone. I get it, though not all the time, and when I do, it is like hearing the face of God, which mixes the metaphors but music gets me in more primitive ways that combines perceptions from different senses. Some jazz also does this, and when heard a few times can become more meaningful as my imagination and anticipation leads me in a thought-feelings conversation with it.

[ 04. October 2013, 22:26: Message edited by: no prophet ]

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
ken: (no idea why - wouldn't life have been easier for the last few centuries if all those Bb horns had been made a teeny-tinier bit smaller so they were at home in C and could use the same scores as everybody else?)
Before trumpets had valves, you would have a trumpet for each key that was commonly played. When valves were introduced, people found that the B♭ trumpet had the best sound as a compromise between brightness and 'fullness'.

There is really no good reason why B flat trumpets (or any other transposing instruments) can't be scored in C. Most pro players can read a C score anyway. It's just...custom, really.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Fr Weber: There is really no good reason why B flat trumpets (or any other transposing instruments) can't be scored in C. Most pro players can read a C score anyway. It's just...custom, really.

True. I think that before trumpets had valves and people had trumpets in different keys, it was easier to switch between trumpets if the natural tone was notated as C, regardless of the trumpet.

I am a (B♭) trumpet player, and I can read in C easily.

Posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus (# 2515) on :

Depends what you mean by "music".

Tonic sol-fa - no

Lute tablature - no

German organ tablature - no

Those funny symbols for guitar - no

Figured bass - not really

Plainsong - maybe

The stuff with 5 line staves and dots - yes.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I also have, and as far as I can tell completely separate from any music reading abilitty, the ability to remember hundreds of hymn and worship song tunes.Not names but actual tunes. If you play me the opening bar I will 'know' the rest of the melody well enough to sing along. Some is clearly because there are rules but some is just because I recall the tune. Until you have seen me do it you do not know how phenomenal this is. I would not even realise it if others had not commented on it.

Jengie

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I also have, and as far as I can tell completely separate from any music reading abilitty, the ability to remember hundreds of hymn and worship song tunes.Not names but actual tunes. If you play me the opening bar I will 'know' the rest of the melody well enough to sing along. Some is clearly because there are rules but some is just because I recall the tune.

I believe you about some people just have a musical memory.

I believe you about the some of it is knowing the rules. I enjoy singing along to pop tunes I've never heard before - not the words of course but the notes - often anticipating the next note by a fraction of a beat for fun because I "know" how Western music goes. Occasionally I'm wrong but usually right.

Put the two together, you may know more than merely hundreds of tunes.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
I should add that my ability to pick up sight-reading reasonably naturally seems to go along with an almost complete inability to remember music without a score. I play the O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo about once a week for Benediction (both very simple pieces) and would be completely lost without a score.

My musician cousin pointed out many years ago that some can memorise and some can sight read and few can do both.

Part of the choir skill comes when you learn to sing by hearing the other parts, rather than doggedly sticking to your own line and ignoring the others (if this persists you shouldn't be singing in a choir). I had the rather malicious habit at boarding school when I stood behind a nervous little soprano of singing my alto part in her ear.

And I remember when, at age 14 or thereabouts, I accompanied my parents on a boring visit where the grown-ups conversed and there was no younger company; I picked up some music books from the piano stool and realised I could hear the music by reading them if it was something I'd heard played, starting with a Chopin piece one of the seniors at school had played.

GG

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I'm in The Salvation Army where most children learn to sing and/or play brass instruments.

I play the cornet and sing tenor.

The fact that we are (mostly) so musical means that if ever you stop the musicians playing you'll often find that the congregation will sing in excellent 4 part harmony!

[ 05. October 2013, 07:20: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Fr Weber: There is really no good reason why B flat trumpets (or any other transposing instruments) can't be scored in C. Most pro players can read a C score anyway. It's just...custom, really.
True. I think that before trumpets had valves and people had trumpets in different keys, it was easier to switch between trumpets if the natural tone was notated as C, regardless of the trumpet.

I am a (B♭) trumpet player, and I can read in C easily.

Sax.

The fingering is the same whether it is an E♭ and B♭ instrument.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I think music reading ability is at least partly linked to general reading - it is possible for people to have musical dyslexia.

I'm very lucky to have learned so young and then to have picked up score reading by page turning for an organist from the age of 5. And like all trained organists I'm expected to be able to play using all the clefs: treble for one hand, alto or tenor for the chorale and bass for the pedal. I can also cope with a figured bass, drum notation (guess who got to do percussion in the school orchestra?).

I never liked the violin but can get a tune out of one and play the 'cello and french horn...

On the other hand, I can't draw to save my life.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Not so sure about the links to reading music and dyslexia. My extremely dyslexic cousin had no problem reading music.

(However, my extremely dyslexic daughter struggled with both reading music and words - and we never got beyond the difficulties with the music, but that's possibly to do with the lack of being taught in school and trying to pick it up with learning an instrument)

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

So far, I've not seen anyone mentioning my method of sight singing. (Not that I have a great voice, mind you!)

I 'play' my part so I can feel the intervals. Apparently that had been something I was doing automatically, and a fellow singer asked what I was doing. It wasn't something I was really aware of. Now I just run with it! [Big Grin]

My dyslexia seems to be switched off by thinking musically. Occasionally, when I'm tired, parts of large chords will white out, but normally, notes on a score make much more sense than written words. Also, I've never been able to do left and right directions without really concentrating. But bass and treble are so natural that if a musical friend is riding with me while I'm driving in a new place, they know to give me directions using those terms.

[ETA that I drove all over Orlando using that method.]

[ 05. October 2013, 13:49: Message edited by: jedijudy ]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

Yes, my fingers often do the same thing when I'm reading something new! Definitely helps. Especially bizarre is that if my palms are facing up, I'll play as if I'm playing the keys from below. So, my right hand fingers would go from little finger to thumb to play a sequence of five ascending notes. I guess I tightly associate the sounds with the space they'd take up on a keyboard, rather than with strictly what my fingers would do.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
I guess I tightly associate the sounds with the space they'd take up on a keyboard, rather than with strictly what my fingers would do.

Exactly! I know what those intervals sound like on the piano or organ, so I know where to go with my voice! My fingers often play the notes on my leg, so my hand is sideways and pointing downward. I like the upside down hand idea, though. Might have to try that next time I'm singing.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I also have, and as far as I can tell completely separate from any music reading abilitty, the ability to remember hundreds of hymn and worship song tunes.Not names but actual tunes. If you play me the opening bar I will 'know' the rest of the melody well enough to sing along. Some is clearly because there are rules but some is just because I recall the tune. Until you have seen me do it you do not know how phenomenal this is. I would not even realise it if others had not commented on it.

Jengie

Yes. This. Exactly.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
....my ability to read music is very rudimentary. I have the timing bit down perfectly, but figuring out notes is a chore...

I sing in a Celtic choir and I remember the notes from piano lessons when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I sometimes sing the melody instead of the bass part. I record large parts of rehearsals and occasionally listen to them before the next rehearsal!

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

In 7th grade, back in the Jurassic, General Music was a required course. Mrs. Cook taught us the basics of reading the treble clef (the bass clef was mentioned in passing). Those who didn't go on to play an instrument (and some who did) probably forgot it immediately.

I remembered, and learned more. I'm basically a folk/blues/rock musician who plays by memory and ear, but I can read (sight reading is not my forte, but I can kind of fake my way through most single-voice things). I've taken music theory and classical piano and voice (I am the world's worst sight singer, though).

I don't have much patience with musicians who think there's no point in being able to read music. I have equally little patience with the ones who can't play anything unless they have a score in front of them. A complete musician can read, can memorize, and can improvise.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Timothy the Obscure
...A complete musician can read, can memorize, and can improvise...

I'd add "and can transpose". I agree with you.

We're called organists. [Snigger]

[There's nothing like arriving for a concert to be greeted with "we forgot to order the organ part but have a copy for viola da gamba - can you do something with that". Better still, deputising to be told "we always sing this down a third, is that OK" [Mad]

]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

Jengie Jon's posts resonate most strongly with me. I guess singing in a church choir was where it started for me as a child. Singing stuff I knew with the dots in front of me.

When I learnt trombone it was all music written in treble clef with the instrument's 'home' key written as C. For a time when playing in a music group I learnt to do a kind of mental transposition from what I saw in the bass clef on the page to what it would have been in treble clef as I was used to seeing for my instrument. Returning to it later, I taught myself to play from bass clef. The more sharps, the more miserable I am!

Where I am ATM, I am singing hymns where the melody line is supplied to the congregation in numbered notation which is a kind of music I've not encountered before. Presented with a sheet that looks like this* I find I am at least able to hum or la along (or occasionally sing the English if it's one I know.)
* This is not actually from a hymnal, it's the Tsinghua University Song

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I learned the cello at school (8 years all told), so used be able to sight read music with no problem. I can still read it, but have to put my mind to it.

We use the New English Hymnal, which has the main melody in it. All the choir can sight read, which makes an enormous difference to their ability to sing a wide repertoire.

Posted by chive (# 208) on :

I can't remember learning to read music, I must have been quite young - I think I was 4 when I started learning to play the violin. I can still sight read and sight sing relatively well (the sight singing is not brilliant as, although I can follow a tune, my actual voice is shockingly bad.)

At church as a kid we used the Scottish Psalmody so I learned how to sing using sol-fa. We had lessons in it and an annual exam. I used to sing the alto part at church just to be different but the church I went to at the time had excellent singers and the congregation used to sing every psalm SATB which was impressive. When I moved to a smaller church I ended up precenting which I could do because I could sight sing a tune in sol-fa but it can't have been that pleasant for anyone listening.

When I became an Anglo-Catholic I was introduced to the wonderful world of plainsong and I got fascinated by the dots. I took the book home for a couple of weeks (Briggs and Frere I believe) and read it and found it great. As a result I can sight sing up to a reasonably complex song.

I'm not particularly musical, I haven't played a musical instrument since I was about ten and as I've said before I've got a terrible voice, but for some reason I find it relatively easy to sight sing in all the methods of musical notation I've come across.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
L'organist: Better still, deputising to be told "we always sing this down a third, is that OK"

In the Netherlands we call this interval below so that the congregation can reach the notes the Reformed Third™ [Biased]

I guess there is an Anglican Third as well?

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I learnt to read music at the same time as I learnt ordinary reading and it is second nature now. I certainly couldn't participate in complex musical works without reading music well. I think if you are seious about music it is essential to read music as a major part of your participation, but if you aren't a musician, then I guess reading music isn't essential.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I went to school in the 50s and early 60s and I'm not naturally very musical. In those days you were very unlikely to learn any music notation at all unless you learnt an instrument. I did a year or two's piano lessons. I never got as far as any grades, but it means I can sort of read music. I t helps singing.

I now play, badly, an instrument which means it is useful to be able to read a melody line.

I've never been able to see the point of sol-fa or the more recent innovation (here) of shapes. Why put people to all the trouble of learning another system which doesn't look any easier, and is less versatile, rather than have them learn the proper system straight off? I can see, though, that if you play a guitar (I don't) the chord symbols must be a lot more useful than trying to work it out from music written for keyboard and other instruments.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

I learned to read music from the age of 7 when I started piano lessons. Now that we have a parish priest who likes to introduce new hymns on a regular basis, I was finding it very irritating not to have the music in the hymnbooks handed out to the congregation. The remedy was to buy my own copy of the full-music edition, which does make learning new tunes easier, even for somebody like me who can't sing!!

Incidentally our choir always sing from the full music edition. I can't imagine how anybody could sign in a choir without having the music in front of them.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
I can't imagine how anybody could sign in a choir without having the music in front of them.

Because blind people have never made good singers or musicians? (Sorry couldn't resist the typo.)

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
Oh, it's definitely instrument-dependent. I was referring to piano.

I learnt guitar first. I prefer piano in D. sharpsRus

Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
My musician cousin pointed out many years ago that some can memorise and some can sight read and few can do both.

I must be one of the 'few' then! If I know a piece of music from memory, never having seen the music (which is the case for many hymn tunes for example), when I eventually see the music, I find it hard to read it accurately ie to notice if it is different from the version in my head. I would just tend to sing along to what I had remembered regardless of what was on the page in front of me.

If on the other hand I have encountered it from sight reading the music, after a while I can sing it equally well from memory, often just needeing to refer to the printed page for words and dynamics. The music itself is stored in my brain once learned - I am a bit like Jengie for hymn tunes in that respect.

I guess what this proves is that although I can do both, I am predominantly a learner by ear. Having the notes in front of me just speeds up the learning process.

This is all in the context of singing. When playing an instrument, I still do better with notes in front of me, even if I know the tune well. This is because there is the extra problem of finding where the right note is on the instrument, even when I can hear in my head how it should sound!!

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
I was finding it very irritating not to have the music in the hymnbooks handed out to the congregation.

One of the hymnbooks we use is the URC's "Rejoice and Sing". This incorporates a melody line in one of its congregational editions. However we do use other music which doesn't have that luxury; there is also the issue of confusion when we decide not to use the set tune but swap it with another!

Posted by WearyPilgrim (# 14593) on :

Question to all you liturgical types out there, from a "so low it crawls" Baptist/Congregationalist:
How important is it, in liturgical churches, that the presiding clergyperson be able to carry a tune? I know that some parishes have cantors, but when a priest is celebrating the Eucharist and has to lead in the antiphons and what-not, it would seem to me that he or she would have to be able to sing well enough at least sustain pitch. I gather, from what little I know of Episcopal seminary life, that this is something that is taught in seminaries.

An observation on my part that you might not be aware of: It is a [somewhat unfortunate] truism in "free church" Protestant circles that the quality of congregational singing, particularly in small churches, is dependent upon the singing ability of the pastor. If he or she can't carry a tune, the chances are that the singing from the pews isn't going to have much gusto behind it, unless there is a really good organist who knows how to encourage it.

In both cases, the "making of a joyful noise" seems to require a kickstart from whoever is up front, and if the talent isn't there, you're kinda stuck.

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I think music reading ability is at least partly linked to general reading - it is possible for people to have musical dyslexia.

Not sure - I'm excellent at reading (started to learn aged 2 or 3), but reading music is a mystery.

I know the sound that D-O-G makes, but the sound that a note makes? No idea. I could pick out a tune on a piano because I know which note is which, and I can see if a tune goes up or down, but the black dots have no relation to sounds as far as I can tell.

I have sung in choirs off and on since I was a child. I've always learned by listening to people around me. If the accompanist doesn't play the SATB line before we start singing, I've no hope.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

One of the great regrets of my life is not having learned to read music.

My father, who ran things at our house, was taught that music was effeminate and a waste of time, so something like piano lessons was never on my horizon as a young child.

When I was in 5th grade all the students in my school took a music aptitude test to see which ones would be most suited for 6th-grade band class. I was one of a few other children who had perfect pitch, so the band director came to our house to congratulate me and invite me to be in band the next year. My dad, who was home, basically threw him out of the house -- instruments were expensive, and he was a working man who came home tired every day and wasn't going to be driving me back and forth, wasting gasoline, to athletic games (which is where US school bands do a lot of performing) and concerts.

I was both humiliated and crushed. And even though I later had opportunities at my university to take beginners' music classes, I think I was just too disheartened to even try. I have a rudimentary understanding of things like beats per note and such, but that's about it.

Sorry; it still rankles many decades (and therapist notes) later. I don't understand how parents can be loving and jolly one minute, mindlessly cruel and vindictive the next. My mother (who supported my musical education but who really had no say in our household) told me that my father was acting out his own childhood disappointments, as a highly intelligent young person whose own educational aspirations were quashed by an anti-intellectual, resentful father who didn't want any of his children to be anything more than he was.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by WearyPilgrim
How important is it, in liturgical churches, that the presiding clergyperson be able to carry a tune?

It depends on the type of liturgy that the church has.

If, for example, the church has traditional non-eucharistic services (Matins & Evensong) then it is useful if the Parish Priest can intone the responses and collects, but this can be done by one of the choirmen if the PP is tone deaf.

In many churches there are no parts of the communion service that require the Priest to sing. And it is always possible for what are often thought of as being sung (the Sursum corda for example) to be said.

It used to be part of CofE theological training for some music to be included. At the more Anglo-Catholic colleges (St Stephens House in Oxford and Mirfield) a fairly wide musical training was given, including being able to lead a congregation through the plainsong Missa de Angelis plus intoning the Gospel and prayer of consecration, plus the Exsultet on Easter Eve.

And in Cathedrals it is vital that at least 2 priests - usually the Precentor and Succentor (or Sacrist) - are able to keep in tune for responses and prayers at Evensong.

As for the problem of a non-singing pastor: where does the choir sit? In smaller churches it can make sense to have the choir at the back of the building, rather than singing at the congregation from the front.

Posted by Deckie (# 17829) on :

I read music, studied clarinet for several years.

A worship leader friend once was struggling to sing/play a song on guitar, as the melody was too high for him, and he didn't have a capo. I suggested, "just transpose it a tone or so" and he remarked that he didn't know how to. So I pulled out some paper, showed him the circle of fifths and how it works, and suddenly he could transpose into any key with ease.

A little bit of music theory goes a long way.

Yes, there are certain jazz elements which aren't easily written down with conventional scoring, but then also, knowing how chords/etc work means you have *so* much more flexibility as a musician to make technical decisions.

And, like any real art/craft, there are a lot of technical decisions. Written sheetmusic/scoring is a very useful tool.

I recommend everyone with any kind of interest in music to learn, if nothing else, if you get a random idea for a melody while in the shower, how else are you going to write it down? (OK, I guess you can hum it onto a sound-recorder, or something...)

Dan

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
in Cathedrals it is vital that at least 2 priests - usually the Precentor and Succentor (or Sacrist) - are able to keep in tune for responses and prayers at Evensong.

Sadly, in our cathedral, a choirman always intones the preces, versicles and collects despite many of the clergy being able to sing.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

quote:
Ken:
Guitars can play anything but ...

... will throw a huge hissy fit if it's in Eb and they don't have a capo handy [Biased]

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:

quote:
Ken:
Guitars can play anything but ...
... will throw a huge hissy fit if it's in Eb and they don't have a capo handy

I disagree, there are some really nice voicings of E♭ with the left hand up the neck but with the G string open.

Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on :

It takes a couple of years of playing an instrument to learn to read music and you don't learn unless you practice. It is not something you can do by just an hour a week of "music" lessons at school.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Fr Weber: There is really no good reason why B flat trumpets (or any other transposing instruments) can't be scored in C. Most pro players can read a C score anyway. It's just...custom, really.
True. I think that before trumpets had valves and people had trumpets in different keys, it was easier to switch between trumpets if the natural tone was notated as C, regardless of the trumpet.

I am a (B♭) trumpet player, and I can read in C easily.

Orchestral music is written in whatever key the composer thought best and a pre-valve trumpeter would have several instruments (or several bits to fit together to make various instruments). In my orchestra, I've had music in C, D, E♭ E (ugh!), F, A, and occasionally B♭ (hooray). You can understand why the older composers wrote this way. What annoys me is 20th century composers who know that the trumpets are in B♭ but who insist on writing in some other key.

I own a B♭ trumpet. I can (now) transpose from C easily, but it took about three years to get proficient at it. The organist at church can transpose by sight up or down a semi-tone or a tone. When we play together, sometimes he transposes and ometimes I transpose. Once we both transposed: he said "it's written in A♭, you play it as if it were written in A, I'll transpose down to G."

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :

I learnt music from the age of 7 when I started learning the recorder - a couple of years later I started on the clarinet and within a year was playing in our tinpot school orchestra in school assembly. As the only books we had had the melody to the hymns we were accompanying, the teacher just said "clarinets just have to play a tone higher and add 2 sharps", and we just got on with it - we were just told to do it, and that's what we did. I think sometimes we make things so much more complicated than they really are. As a result of this I've never had any problems transposing at sight when playing the Bb clarinet, although I've struggled when playing the A clarinet as I didn't get one of those until several years later (and it's harder to think of a minor third above rather than just a tone above).

Maybe because of this, when I did my music degree, although I struggled with a lot of the keyboard skills (I am by no means a natural pianist) the one thing I was good at was sightreading a 4 piece score with all 4 lines in different clefs. Mind you I'm not sure I could do that so well now!

I'd love to be better at playing by ear - I'm not too bad at harmonising (although not brilliant), but actual improvising is something I find really difficult.

The discussion about subconsciously using keyboard fingering when working out a melody is interesting. I do that too, but with clarinet fingering. I still do it, even though I haven't actually picked up the clarinet for years.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

OK, I'm quite a latecomer to this thread, but in response to the OP:

I think people mean different things by "read music" sometimes, which complicates matters.

I say I can't read music. But I actually can, just not in real time. Really what I can't do is sight-read. I can, however, figure it out if I have the time, and I can use the score as a guide as I sing.

Some people would very boldly say they could read music if their skills were identical to mine; others, like me, would feel shy about saying that. It depends on whether you tend, as I do, to focus on what you can't do, I guess.

Interestingly, I had a chat with one of the parent chaperones from...I think...the Hereford Cathedral choir (which was touring and sang at the church where I work maybe 3 years ago), and we got on the subject of girl and boy choristers. He said that studies have shown that boys are more confident in their abilities. Apparently the study involved reading Latin or something like that. The boys were more likely to claim they could read a sentence if they only knew one or two words, whereas the girls were more likely to claim they couldn't read it if they were uncertain about only one word. That rings true to my experience. So gender might be a part of it, too. In some cases. Obviously, not everybody fits into gender stereotypes and generalities (thank God).

Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pererin:

quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
However, I am useless at improvising or learning things by ear. This is a sadness and I think it comes from having learned to read so early. I would love to be able to pick things up by ear.
Snap. But then again, I too have read music from a young age. What my ear does serve to do is to convince me that I'm singing all the wrong notes when what I'm hearing doesn't match the pitch on the page (i.e. when someone's transposed it without telling me).

Yes, me too. Learnt to read music at the age of 5 and can't improvise for toffee. I have never used written scores for singing though, so I can learn songs by ear. Can't learn instrumental music by ear.

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

I learned piano and clarinet to Grade 3 when I was a child, but gave up. I then joined a choir in my 30s and have developed my sight reading to help with learning new pieces. I am now having singing lessons and have bought (at a charity auction) some music theory lessons, which are fascinating.

I am now able to sight sing from the choir hymn books in church and can just about sight sing a tune unaccompanied if I feel the need. I don't have perfect pitch, but have been told that I'm close and can probably develop it if I keep practicing.

My brother used to be tone deaf, but never gave up and now has a good, strong baritone voice and has sung in a choir a few times.

Cattyish, hoping more people will join choirs because it's fun.

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
Yes, me too. Learnt to read music at the age of 5 and can't improvise for toffee. I have never used written scores for singing though, so I can learn songs by ear. Can't learn instrumental music by ear.

^This. I learnt to read music quite early, firstly with my classmates (no one so far has mentioned the ubiquitous primary school chime bar), then playing the different kinds of recorders, finally guitar, chords first then classical. I'm terrible without music on an instrument, but don't know enough theory to be very adaptable quickly. During hymn playing I've found coping mechanisms; playing the tune and harmony on my guitar instead of chords in some cases sidesteps problems but is really laziness.

Singing, however, I've never learnt formally, can just about sing to music, but can pick things up easily by ear and can change tunes as necessary.

I really don't know why it should be so different, but am glad to hear I'm not alone.

Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This came up in discussion today, and I was surprised by the number of my interlocutors who could not read music.

I was under the impression that most people learned music at school (even if it was just playing the recorder) and so therefore would have at least a rudimentary knowledge of musical notation.

So can you read music? Are my expectations ridiculous?

(If it makes a difference, all the people present for the discussion had college degrees.)

Sadly, there are multiple members of my church's choir who have no informal or formal musical training and never learned basics like the relative length of notes as they are written.

Which leads to my next question, which is why would anyone think it's OK to jump into a worship activity where one has no training or natural talent?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Mockingale
...why would anyone think it's OK to jump into a worship activity where one has no training or natural talent?

I can think of 2 reasons (if that word can be applied accurately) for this in relation to church choirs/worship music groups.

1. They are an individual who has the belief that if "The Lord" is calling them to something, then a little matter of complete lack of talent or ability should be no bar. IME These people should be kept out of worship groups at all costs - their desire to run the group or set the agenda is inevitably in inverse proportion to their aptitude for it in the first place.

2. The cleric/pastor at the church holds the same view and is quite happy not only to allow such individuals to put themselves forward but positively encourages them: they then expect the poor sap charged with running the music side to be able to cope with the consequences of their, the pastor's, folly.

Allowing people with no talent for it into a music group can be not only time consuming and demoralising for those already in it, in time it can (and does) cause people of talent to leave and go elsewhere.

Now I'm not saying that people who present without the ability to read music should be turned away - I've taught people to read music into their 70s and, I hope, given them a source of fulfilment and pleasure in the process.

But someone who cannot reproduce a note played on a piano, who cannot make at least a reasonable attempt to clap out a rhythm - these people are, IME, beyond being able to be absorbed into a small (under 40 members) music group and will only damage the morale of members if they are allowed in.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Dal Segno: Once we both transposed: he said "it's written in A♭, you play it as if it were written in A, I'll transpose down to G."

I once heard: "it's written in A♭, but you play it as if it were written in A, because this organ is so old that it can only be tuned a semitone flat" [Biased]

Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

But someone who cannot reproduce a note played on a piano, who cannot make at least a reasonable attempt to clap out a rhythm - these people are, IME, beyond being able to be absorbed into a small (under 40 members) music group and will only damage the morale of members if they are allowed in.

*sigh* Yeah, we've got a couple of them, too. I'm torn between feeling that they're nice people that want to offer praise to God in this way, and feeling that I have to sing twice as loud to keep the tone-deaf guy from dragging down the people who sing by ear.

Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on :

Of course, it's a nice congregation, far too nice to say to the talentless ones "You know what, I bet you'd do a great job in Altar Guild or setting up coffee hour."

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Which leads to my next question, which is why would anyone think it's OK to jump into a worship activity where one has no training or natural talent?

I think one crucial reason is that people don't see any difference between participating in worship by being a member of the congregation and facilitating that worship by being part of the music group.

(I might add that even some people WITH at least a bit of musical skill don't seem to understand that they need to develop skills in facilitating, not merely stand up and play because they like playing and treat the congregation as a passive audience.)

[ 10. October 2013, 03:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

I was lucky enough to grow up in Orkney in the 1970s when my father was the director of education, and being very keen on music (he sang in various choirs and played the trombone), his policy was that every child should have access to at least one class-music lesson per week (and most of us had two). Also, instrumental tuition was freely available to any child who wanted it (and many instruments were available on loan).

I was sent to piano lessons from the age of about 7 (and later recorder, fiddle and flute lessons), which I suppose is where I learned to read music, and I can't imagine not being able to read it. For a long time I didn't reckon much to my sight-reading abilities, but now with over 30 years of singing in cathedral choirs I reckon I'm not too bad (having played instruments helps, even though I wasn't all that good at them).

Posted by David (# 3) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me.

That would be a very funny comment if it was meant as such.

Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :

quote:
Originally posted by David:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me.
That would be a very funny comment if it was meant as such.

I think he meant key signatues.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

I'm a pretty good sightsinger and have done a lot of choral singing. I also played various instruments as a kid - most successfully the flute. Wrt how music transfers from the page into my brain, I generally look at the music, mentally transfer the notes into my fingers as if playing them on the flute, and sing what comes into my head as I do that - which is usually the right notes. Anyone who watches carefully will see that my fingers are moving around on the back of the score as though playing an imaginary and very weirdly-shaped flute.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:

quote:
Ken:
Guitars can play anything but ...
... will throw a huge hissy fit if it's in Eb and they don't have a capo handy
I disagree, there are some really nice voicings of E♭ with the left hand up the neck but with the G string open.

But that requires learning different voicings. Have you no sympathy?! [Biased]

Actually, I must admit I don't mind Eb, but would prefer not when on the guitar, and especially when on the bass, because it makes me think too much.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
balaam: I disagree, there are some really nice voicings of E♭ with the left hand up the neck but with the G string open.

In Brazilian guitar playing, you usually avoid open strings, regardless of the key. So, E♭ playing is as easy as playing in E; you just move your hand one fret down.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:

quote:
Ken:
Guitars can play anything but ...
... will throw a huge hissy fit if it's in Eb and they don't have a capo handy
I disagree, there are some really nice voicings of E♭ with the left hand up the neck but with the G string open.
But that requires learning different voicings. Have you no sympathy?!

Actually, I must admit I don't mind Eb, but would prefer not when on the guitar, and especially when on the bass, because it makes me think too much.

Is it time then for the Barre Frettings From Hell?

Posted by David (# 3) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:
Originally posted by David:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me.
That would be a very funny comment if it was meant as such.
I think he meant key signatues.

You're kidding.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:
Originally posted by David:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me.
That would be a very funny comment if it was meant as such.
I think he meant key signatues.

Actually I meant key signatures. Not sure what key signatues are. [Razz]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Alex Cockell: Is it time then for the Barre Frettings From Hell?

Not necesssarily. Balaam mentioned voicings with an open G string and the other fingers high up the neck, so I'm guessing he means something like this:

11
11
0
13
x
x

In Brazilian guitar playing, open strings are usually avoided, so I would normally start playing an E♭ like this:

x
8
7
8
6
x

(This makes it an E♭M⁷.) There's nothing difficult in putting your fingers like this.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by mousethief
... Not sure what key signatues are.

I heard an amateur orchestra like that once. About half seemed to be playing in the right key, the rest were split between the minor key, C major and no key at all. I'm sure it was no accident that their conductor wore two hearing aids. [Ultra confused]

Anyway, the result would have made Baby Jesus weep. Long-suffering relatives of players in-the-know wore discreet ear-plugs at concerts.

On the other hand, they made a fortune selling alcohol during the interval

Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:
Originally posted by David:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Aside from C, F, and G, time signatures are a mystery to me.
That would be a very funny comment if it was meant as such.
I think he meant key signatues.
Actually I meant key signatures. Not sure what key signatues are.

Doh!

Note to self: when trying to be helpful, and in danger of being seen to be patronising, just make sure you get the spelling right! [Biased]

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

I can read and sight-sing well, and play a decent enough "accompanist's piano" in order to get a choral ensemble through a rehearsal (I conducted a church choir before sidling into the clergy).

I'm fairly good at score-reading and knowing how it ought to sound, although at about the mid-nineteenth century I start to find it increasingly difficult to hear the details of the harmony, voice-leading, etc in my head. Rhythm is still easy, and tone-color, but once composers start pulling really hard at the seams of tonality I just start to "hear" it as gesture.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

Where and when I went to public elementary school, everyone was taught to read music. We had a music teacher come into our class twice a week in grade 1 and 2, teach us the basics: how to read treble clef "Every Good Boy Does Fine" and F-A-C-E, the time signatures and major keys. We even had those special chalk tools that made a staff. Those who showed interest and aptitude went on to learn recorder and then a band instrument. Some others went on to glee club. It was simply part of the curriculum.

Sadly, all of that, as well as the other art classes we had, has been cut. There are no more music teachers, no recorders, no band instruments until Grade 7 (ages 12-13).

It's been a topic of discussion at church because more and more younger newcomers can't read the music in our hymnals. We're trying to figure out ways to teach hymns to people who can't read music in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of the mass.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:

It's been a topic of discussion at church because more and more younger newcomers can't read the music in our hymnals. We're trying to figure out ways to teach hymns to people who can't read music in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of the mass.

Why can't they pick the tunes up by singing along like everyone does here?

I find it hard to believe that American congregations are any less musical than British ones. The evidence here would suggest it might be the other way round. So if our musical illiterates can learn tunes by ear I'd imagine yours can as well!

Look at how children and teenagers pick up the tunes of pop music - and they are usually more complex than the hymns and choruses we sing in church.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Alternatively, you could try what we do from time to time: the choir has an "open Saturday" when we get together to look at new repertoire.

The event is in two parts - usually divided by coffee and cake: the first, we look at new hymns and we issue an open invitation to anyone who wishes to come and join us; the second is for choir members only.

Not only does this stop the choir becoming an exclusive club but it has also in the recent past unearthed several valuable singers.

Try it - good fun, another social event for people to mingle, is all-age (well, say 6 years old upwards) and can have huge benefits.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Tourjour Dan

I suggest that you try and persuade the director of worship on this page over to lead a workshop (probably with other local churches). The morning an open session for all, the afternoon a session on teaching and leading congregations new music.

Not only is he Roman Catholic but he also knows how to teach people new songs the Iona way which does not involve needing to read music.

Jengie

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

ToujoursDan, one of the ways we teach new hymns to the congregation is to have the choir sing it as a part of the service for a couple of weeks. If I have a good arrangement of the tune, I'll also play it as a prelude to the service. After hearing it a few times, the congregation sings it, sometimes two or three weeks in a row.

We are lucky at my church. Most of the older ones read pretty well. They sing a robust four part harmony during the hymns. I'm just amazed that none of them admit to playing the piano, or any other instrument.

I would just like my tenors in the choir to read the words!!! They have the notes, but the text they're singing has nothing to do with the song. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

JJ
Ah, fond memories of a bass in a choir of my youth who, when reminded gently that a new work (which he didn't like because "modern" music) had words, faced the choir director with the choice "Which do you want, words or music - you can't have both?" [Snigger]

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

L'organist, it's all I can do to not remind the tenors that the altos and sopranos seem to be able to read both words and music! [Big Grin]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I remember someone in my choir who used to sing 'la, la, la, la' when they came across words they didn't know. Fair enough in rehearsal, but he used to do it in the service as well - most disconcerting!

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I can't read music. I learnt music at school and also had two years of piano lessons. I know what letters the notes are given, where I would locate them on a piano, and whether they are to be held for one beat or two beats or half a beat, etc., but I can't look at a line of music and hum the tune. I can't translate it into what it should sound like. And surely that is what reading music is - just like reading a book is finding meaning from it, rather than identifying what the letters and punctuation marks are.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

It's interesting that a few of you associate being able to read music with being able to sing it.

Because I would have thought being able to play it on an instrument demonstrated just as well that you could read music. You still have to understand what the notes mean in order to press the right key or put your finger in the right place.

Not all music is even really designed to be singable.

[ 19. October 2013, 10:47: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's interesting that a few of you associate being able to read music with being able to sing it.

Because I would have thought being able to play it on an instrument demonstrated just as well that you could read music.

Surely if it's something simple, with just one note at a time, sight reading would involve hearing the tune in your head and being able to hum it? At least, most people I know who play an instrument can do this.

But then I can't play music fluently either from reading. I have to work out each note as I go along, and it's very slow and faltering with frequent mistakes and stops. I failed grade 1 piano at age 12, after two years of lessons. I had memorised the pieces I had to play in the exam, because I couldn't play by reading. When I lost my nerve and forgot what came next, and therefore had to look to the sheet music to see what to play, I was totally lost. I don't know if this is common, or just me - it has occurred to me that maybe I have some kind of equivalent to dyslexia with reading music.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
So can you read music? Are my expectations ridiculous?

Yes. I can read music. I learnt to play the piano when I was young; my parents thought it was part of a sensible education and although it must have been difficult for them to afford this during the War,all four of us learnt. When I had children, I was sure it would be a good thing to learn, because then they could choose whether or not to play in their future lives and, more importantly, I think it increases one's appreciation of music knowing how it is written.;, but of course, that's impossible to prove!

When I became a Primary School teacher later on, I found it a most useful skill.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
However, I am useless at improvising or learning things by ear. This is a sadness and I think it comes from having learned to read so early. I would love to be able to pick things up by ear.

I mentioned on a discussion on the r3ok forum a while ago that I was incapable of playing by ear, but a reply from a professional pianist and teacher was that that was because of the way - old-fashioned! - I had been taught.

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

As Joad probably said "It all depends on what you mean by 'read'". IMHO learning to put your fingers (and feet perhaps) in the right place for the right length of time is a valuable - in several senses [Biased]

- skill which I don't have, but is it reading? Being able sing at sight is often called reading music (I can only do that for simple music), but is it really? Being able to follow a line or several lines of music as they are performed is also a skill but if applied to printed words wouldn't be called reading.
Reading music IMHO means being able hear in one's head a piece of written music, perhaps when sitting in the corner of a railway carriage or sitting up in bed. With no instrument(s) in sight and making no sounds oneself. IME different people can do this sort of reading for different sorts of music. Having sung in and directed church choirs for 50 years I can read printed church choir music, provided it's not too polyphonic, too chromatic or arhythmic. Orchestral conductors can read orchestra scores with transposing instruments and many lines. [Overused]

So, it all depends on what you mean by read.

Just my .02€.

[Somebody said Byrd's "Ave verum" should never be performed, but read in private, because any performance is bound to dissappoint]

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
We're called organists.

[There's nothing like arriving for a concert to be greeted with "we forgot to order the organ part but have a copy for viola da gamba - can you do something with that". Better still, deputising to be told "we always sing this down a third, is that OK" ]

I smile, but seriously, I have the greatest admiration for organists. Did you always want to play the organ? Did it involve a very extended training? Do yu have to have an ability to play instinctively,, or is it all drawing on learned skills?

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
As Joad probably said "It all depends on what you mean by 'read'". IMHO learning to put your fingers (and feet perhaps) in the right place for the right length of time is a valuable - in several senses - skill which I don't have, but is it reading? Being able sing at sight is often called reading music (I can only do that for simple music), but is it really? Being able to follow a line or several lines of music as they are performed is also a skill but if applied to printed words wouldn't be called reading.

Would you not see it in terms of levels of ability, as with reading books? Children generally learn to read books first by reading out loud and then by reading in their head. And then, from there, the complexity of books they can read will increase over time. To me, with reading books, if you are getting meaning out of them, you are reading, even if it's just a Janet and John book and you are reading out loud - but of course, someone who is reading Dostoevsky in their head will be reading at a more advanced level. So I'd say being able to hum a basic tune from seeing the notes is a simple form of reading music. Hearing a whole orchestra in one's head would be a far more advanced form.

But I agree that putting one's fingers on the right place on the piano doesn't seem like reading - it doesn't correspond to reading books in the same way. It's not finding meaning in one's head, but simply using a code to translate from one external symbol to another. However, singing, or hearing the music in one's head, means that one has an internalised understanding of what the notes mean.

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
... sight reading would involve hearing the tune in your head and being able to hum it? At least, most people I know who play an instrument can do this ...

That's an interesting point, Fineline. I know someone who has a degree in music (singing performance) but who isn't an instrumentalist. She, another friend (also with a degree in music but a good pianist and organist) and I got together a few years ago to play recorder music for fun (we'd all played the recorder when young, but not for at least 20 years), and I couldn't understand why I was making a better job of sight-reading the music than the singer was (I have grade 5 Ass. Board flute, but nothing beyond school level, and had never considered myself a good sight-reader).

The pianist/organist said it was because I'd been an instrumentalist and my sight-reading skills would have been honed almost without my realising it. I think she was right: these days I can sight-read most of what's thrown at me in the choir - and we have a large repertoire.

edited for tpynig

[ 20. October 2013, 00:35: Message edited by: piglet ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

SusanDoris

I don't know about always wanting to play the organ, but certainly from the age of about 4, yes.

Being a child of the parsonage was a great help because it meant I had access to an instrument, and long before I could play either pedals or manuals I made a nuisance of myself with a kind and long-suffering young organist who let me turn pages - which taught me to read three staves, so useful for us both.

As for the other comments up-thread about "reading" music: I agree, there are two kinds of reading - reading as in being able to reproduce on an instrument or vocally and reading as in being able to hear what's on the page without playing or singing it aloud.

I'm not sure how other people develop this skill - I think I learned how to do it by following scores of fairly simple things (say a Brandenburg concerto) while listening to a recording and graduated to (a) larger scores, and (b) being able to hear what was on the page without a recording in the background. And score-reading early does enable you to sit down and play things for choruses and choirs from a proper score, as opposed to something set out like a hymn.

I do think early score-reading is the way into being able to hear an orchestra as its component instruments, as opposed to a body, when you come to conduct - but I must confess I haven't really thought about it much until now.

Anyway, thanks for your kind words about organists, but remember the old joke:

QWhat's the difference between an organist and a terrorist?
AYou can negotiate with a terrorist.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
thanks for your kind words about organists, but remember the old joke:

QWhat's the difference between an organist and a terrorist?
AYou can negotiate with a terrorist.

Thank you for your reply; and no, I hadn't heard the joke before! [Smile]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Producing on an instrument is usually easier, as you learn where each note is placed on your particular instrument eg. pressing a certain key or putting your finger on a certain string in a certain place. But with the voice, you have to learn how to pitch a certain note within your own throat. Not many people can do this (it requires perfect pitch), although many can produce a rough approximation. The closest I can get is to be given the starting note and then working out the intervals (which I can do, but I'm slow). What I can do, however, to time, is sing my part along to organ accompaniment which keeps me roughly in the right place while I'm learning the piece. Once I already know it, unaccompanied is fine.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Producing on an instrument is usually easier, as you learn where each note is placed on your particular instrument eg. <snip> or putting your finger on a certain string in a certain place.

You don't play guitar, do you?

On a 24 fret electric guitar I can produce the E above middle C* in 6 different positions, 2 more positions for natural harmonics and another 4 for artificial harmonics. It's no wonder that guitarists prefer TAB. Me, I have difficulty with TAB and prefer music.

*This would be written an octave higher, as is nearly all guitar music.

Posted by David (# 3) on :

My grandmother played piano for rehearsals of the WA Ballet company in the early 1950s. My father, who couldn't read music, used to turn the pages for her, and he said he did it by the shape of the notes on the page. I found that interesting but it makes sense - I can read music very well and if I think about it that's part of the way it works. I certainly don't read every note, it's more like picking out the highlights.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
balaam: You don't play guitar, do you?

On a 24 fret electric guitar I can produce the E above middle C* in 6 different positions, 2 more positions for natural harmonics and another 4 for artificial harmonics.

It is true that for many instruments the playing of some sequences (or harmonies) of notes can be difficult. But you can't deny that playing a single note on a guitar is easier than singing it without aid. In the case of the guitar, you just have to choose which of the 6 positions to pick.

Posted by Beethoven (# 114) on :

I read music happily - indeed have (very) occasionally sat and read a score like a book. OK, so I'm not accurate enough to 'hear' all the fine detail, but I'll generally know how a straightforward tonal piece will sound by having looked through it.

Singing, my sight-reading is almost as good as reading English aloud; on flute I can sometimes sight-read something with my brain saying 'I'll never be able to play this at sight' and my fingers just getting on and doing it. On piano, however, I get in a tangle with anything bar the simplest of hymn tunes and end up missing out more notes than I play!

Both Opuses have basic music-reading skills. Op 1 (age 11) plays a bit of piano and sings in the church choir; Op 2 (9) learns cello through school and is in the choir. What fascinated me a few years ago was that I noticed that Op 1 would actually sight-sing a new piece of music (in the very early stages of learning piano) so that she'd know how it should sound when she played it! [Big Grin]

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

Hi Beets!! [Big Grin]

I find it interesting that a member of my church choir can't sing the vocal warm ups if she doesn't have the music in front of her. She definitely does not learn music by hearing it, but does very well reading!

Just for her, and to benefit any new people we get, I've written out all our vocal exercises. Thank goodness for free music writing programs, much better than my manuscribble.

Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :

Yes, I can read a line of music in treble or bass clef – mostly for choral singing, which I have done for years, and can make a fair go of sight-reading it; and for bashing the notes on a piano when the sight-reading fails. (I wouldn’t credit myself now with the description ‘pianist’ though I have been known after lots of practice to stumble through a four-part hymn tune.)

I first learned at primary school (back in the days when primary school was all about learning your tables, learning how to spell, etc) and had some piano lessons at secondary school.

In my somewhat limited experience, worship band leaders don’t read music, which led in the distant past to considerable frustration for me and conflict with the music group leader as I wanted to play the music as written, and the he vaguely invented his own version based on a half-remembered occasion when he’d heard it in the past. The idea that anyone should actually learn to read music in order to teach the correct version for the church congregation to sing was thought incomprehensible, and pretty much scorned. Heartfelt expression was all that counted. So the congregation learned non-standard variants on many songs.

The most memorable consequence of this was at an event when Graham Kendrick visited the church, as we acted as his backing group. He, of course played the songs as he’d written them, the band leader played the approximate adaptation that we sang in the church. I was embarrassed –I’m not sure the band leader was at all bothered. Not long after that I gave up any involvement in worship groups.

Angus

Posted by Rev per Minute (# 69) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin:
I apologise for not reading whole thread, so may repeat, that the new national curriculum has music notation it, so all UK children will be able to read music by the end of key stage 3

Said with a straight. Ish face.

Very late response, I know, but just a minor note (sorry): there are four National Curricula in the UK, so this may only apply to one of the countries. And the specification will be vital - how much will pupils be expected to know to reach the appropriate level? It's probably unlikely that they will be expected to read, say, four-part music in treble and bass clefs. I think if they can recognise treble and bass clefs, that will be halfway to the expected outcome.

I learned to read treble clef from learning the violin in primary and secondary school, and continue for singing. No perfect pitch so no sight-reading without a starting note, and then it's more luck than judgement if I get the right notes!

Yes, I bring shame upon the Land of Song, and hang my head accordingly [Disappointed]

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... I don't know about always wanting to play the organ, but certainly from the age of about 4, yes ...

To quote Gordon Reynolds:

quote:
You don't begin by wanting to be an organist; you begin by wanting to be a cathedral organist.

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