Read Music or Self-taught?

[carvinC980t_kid]

panio is an instrument that is fairly easy to learn, but very very hard to master! i'd suggest lessons!! many top musicicans continue to either take lessons or routinely study so that they stay on top and keep their skills sharp. paino is a very difficult instrument to play to its full potential and it's very very hard to master it if you don't take lessons... unless you are a prodigy by chance.

[Lazy Life]

I have lessons in guitar & piano. However, I am self-taught at playing the harmonica & banjo.

edit: but my lessons are not formal. I just goto an a really nice folkie's house and he teaches me.

[cheese]

I'm self taught on the usual three (and it shows!), guitar, bass and drums, although I did need a little help from a little teaching manual for drums, I'm hoping to make them my first instrument instead of guitar.
I think formal lessons are a great way of getting things started, why not? I wish I had taken some on guitar before I picked up my bad habits, they totally give you a better understanding of music and an instrument as a whole which makes it much easier to use the instrument as tool for your own expression...look at Jeff Buckley, he went to college and was trained and he could do some very clever things with a guitar using alternate tunings etc, something I'd never think of doing by teaching myself.

Although, I'm really into the simple stuff, I like to get as many sounds as I can out of one basic chord and progression, Damien and E from Eels are big examples of how this can be done and a great song can come from it.

[dandylittledreamer]

I've been going to piano lessons for 10 years and am 'considered' quite good since I've completed a lot of exams, other people think I'm good, but I'd never call myself a musician, I think a musician has a way with music, it comes natural to them ... anyone can learn but some people just connect better with music
my older brother also plays, but he has not completed as many exams as me, but when he plays it sounds so much more musical for some reason ...
i love music more than anything, and wish i was a musician but completing exams and knowing all the theory doesnt always help
when i try make up my own work, i always think its too like something else or just not original enough, or im thinking of chord structure and other 'technical' stuff ... its almost as if the stuff i know gets in the way, it might be better if i didnt know so much, then i get frustrated, and anything i do write always sounds so strange/sad/angry
... this could just be me trying to have an excuse for not being able to write good songs tho!

[Yetzirah]

i couldn't say what's better. but i can tell you what i experienced... i took some classical guitar lessons when i was a child and i stopped after about three years and that time i never got to the stage where we would to a bit of improvising or whatever... and now i feel very insecure of trying things and i i'm very impatient if things don't work out as i'd love them to (more impatient than usual) and it's very hard for me just to sit down and play something by ear - because it's still in my mind that i would try to play it from the paper. i don't know right now i don't get over this stage and i'm craving for some company to play with because right now i think that would be the only thing that would get me going... i don't know.

the good thing about learning how to read music more or less is that it helps me a lot in singing. that means, when i have the sheet music in front of me and someone gives me the first chord i can more or less sing the simple stuff from the sheet. but i'd never say i'm really good at it because i'm too insecure there, just doing it myself... if someone would play some chords to it, though, i wouldn't be too bad... i don't know...

why did i write that now? that didn't do too much sense to the whole thing, did it?

[dandylittledreamer]

Originally Posted by Yetzirah

i couldn't say what's better. but i can tell you what i experienced... i took some classical guitar lessons when i was a child and i stopped after about three years and that time i never got to the stage where we would to a bit of improvising or whatever... and now i feel very insecure of trying things and i i'm very impatient if things don't work out as i'd love them to (more impatient than usual) and it's very hard for me just to sit down and play something by ear - because it's still in my mind that i would try to play it from the paper. i don't know right now i don't get over this stage and i'm craving for some company to play with because right now i think that would be the only thing that would get me going... i don't know.

the good thing about learning how to read music more or less is that it helps me a lot in singing. that means, when i have the sheet music in front of me and someone gives me the first chord i can more or less sing the simple stuff from the sheet. but i'd never say i'm really good at it because i'm too insecure there, just doing it myself... if someone would play some chords to it, though, i wouldn't be too bad... i don't know...

why did i write that now? that didn't do too much sense to the whole thing, did it?

i think it made sense ... i think!
i agree with you, it helps to have some company to play with, well for me anyways, it defo helps!

[Juzzza]

This is one of those pointless debates in my opinion.

Some of the greatest rock songs in the world, are played by musicians who can't read a sheet of music. I'd rather have a player with feel over a shredder any day of the week. There are some technically gifted players such as Steve Morse, George Lynch, Satriani and so on, who manage to utilise their ability with feel but most listeners are hearing the song as a whole anyway, and mainly the vocals and melody... they couldn't give two ****s about the technical mastery or the theory behind the music.

I've played in bands for twenty years and have had many conversations with extremely gifted musicians about keys, chords and changes but have never had a band-member turn-up with a sheet of music. I've jammed around an idea for hours and would rather do that than sit down with a sheet of paper. I've played with Drum Tech and Guitar Tech graduates and what made them incredible was their willingness to play what was right for the song, to enhance it and that often means refraining from unleashing a vomit of notes or chords.

Do you have to have a PHD in Grammar and Literature to be a great storyteller? Of course not. You can understand all the theory in the world and be able to play a gazillion notes a second and still not be able to put together a song people want to listen to.

Ben Harper is a beautiful songwriter and in actual fact is certainly not without technical ability... Lapsteel and slide can be tricky. The guy grew up with musicians for parents who owned a music shop and as he grew up, he would sit in the store and pick up and learn wind and string instruments.

Damien Rice's tunes are not technically difficult to play for guitarists with solid ability, if he recruited a player who came out and threw down Phrygian and Lydian modes over Cannonball, he'd likely get beaten-up by a thousand teenage girls. And deservedly so.

My idols... players who can make me cry with their choice of song construction, melody and timing, have crafted their ability by writing, playing, writing, playing and playing some more with like-minded musicians who bounce ideas around, evolve and create something magical.

I've been playing guitar for twenty years and written many tunes, never written one into sheet music or guitar tab for that matter... but guess I am no musician.

[Juzzza]

I should add that I studied theory for a number of years, keys and modes, the relation to notes in a chord and key etc and I had a teacher who is a virtuoso player, highest formal level in guitar and a master with effects... can't write a bloody song to save his life.

When I write a song now, it's all about the sound, I find the notes and chords because I have a feel for where they should be, it's the audio and not the cerebral context that shapes it.

If you want to study a technical player who can create beauty... check out John Butler. Play slide, picking, harmonics and percussion with two hands like that boy and come talk to me about ability.