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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can you read music?
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
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.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
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.
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Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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?)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
Oh, it's definitely instrument-dependent. I was referring to piano.
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Miss Madrigal
Shipmate
# 15528
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Posted
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.
Posts: 79 | From: The Bit In The Middle | Registered: Mar 2010
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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'.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
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 ]
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
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.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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Pulsator Organorum Ineptus
Shipmate
# 2515
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Posted
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.
Posts: 695 | From: Bronteland | Registered: Mar 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
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
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
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.
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
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
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
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
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
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 ]
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
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.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
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)
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
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]](biggrin.gif)
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 ]
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
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.
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Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
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.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
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!
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
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.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
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]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
[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]](angryfire.gif) ]
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
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
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
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.
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
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.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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]](wink.gif) I guess there is an Anglican Third as well?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
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.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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.
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Gwalchmai
Shipmate
# 17802
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Posted
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.
Posts: 133 | From: England | Registered: Aug 2013
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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.)
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Gracious rebel
Rainbow warrior
# 3523
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Posted
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!!
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
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!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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WearyPilgrim
Shipmate
# 14593
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Posted
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.
Posts: 383 | From: Sedgwick, Maine USA | Registered: Feb 2009
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
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.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
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.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Deckie
Apprentice
# 17829
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Posted
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
Posts: 4 | From: Carlisle | Registered: Sep 2013
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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.
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Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
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."
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
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.
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
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Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
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).
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Keren-Happuch
Ship's Eyeshadow
# 9818
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Posted
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.
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Travesty, treachery, betrayal!
EXCESS - The Art of Treason
Nea Fox
Posts: 2407 | From: A Fine City | Registered: Jul 2005
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
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.
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...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
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