Why Learn Standard Notation?
Why should a modern player, or musician , learn standard notation when there are ways around it in today's music world? After all, you can use tablature or just play everything by ear or along with videos to learn songs, right? You can even write your own music without standard notation! But, isn't learning theory something only advanced players can do that are more advanced than anyone should be? Well, no actually! That was a ridiculous statement! In fact, learning standard notation will make learning the rest of theory, or explaining it to others, or visualizing it to truly understand it MUCH easier! It will allow you to grow astronomically as a musician! After learning theory, you will laugh at the pre-theory version of yourself that came before!
But why is all of this so great? What if you can learn theory without notation? Well you may be able to learn some precious little, but to REALLY get it, you will need standard notation. First off, it will enable you to actually visualize in comprehensive picture form all of the things you learn dealing with theory. You will have real pictures in your mind of notes and lines representing tones and chords instead of formless, shapeless confusing concepts. This will change your theory work into working with easy to understand mental pictures of everything! You will know what a chord looks like, or what a scale looks like, or where things are in relation to other things. The pictures of all those complex theory ideas in music will have an appearance, and thus appear more elaborate, more full and complete. Yu will not have to think as hard about all the smaller concepts when you are figuring out a larger idea!
Next, notation gives you a much larger arsenal of ideas and symbols to use and play. It has much more to offer you than the limitedness of tablature, which merely gives you a map of what frets to push down to play one song. Yes, notation just gives you the notes to play to play a song, but WORKING with notation will enable you to comprehend theory and many other musical concepts, whereas tablature and video cannot even touch those areas. It is true that you can make a tablature picture of scales or modes too, but you will never truly learn how they work with just that. What will you do when you are figuring out how to build a chord, or many kinds of chords, or if you are trying to make a major scale into a minor scale, or if you are trying to figure out how to build a mode offparticular root, or if you are trying to work out an odd time signature? Tabs won't give you the information you need to work out these problems, notation provides all you need!
Even if you are having trouble applying standard notation reading to your instrument, you can still learn it aside from that instrumentless, with a good theory book! I recommend William Duckworth's "A Creative Approach to Music Fundamentals" (I own a copy in my personal archives!) It contains very thorough explanations of everything in it as well as exercises to help you learn! Remember, learning notation, and learning to sightread are two entirely different skills! It is possible to be able to read music but not be able to apply reading to your playing! You will still have the skills to comprehend notation for theory, writing, and thinking about musical concepts. Sightreading can come second to that for sure!
So, if you want to be a complete, all-understanding musician who fully understands everything, you will eventually need knowledge of standard notation. Being able to picture everything and anything you will ever use eliminates the need to really have to reconstruct and think about every little detail. It is definitely worth the work!
Keep bassing the night away,
Mark McAnaney, Solo bassist
Why should a modern player, or musician , learn standard notation when there are ways around it in today's music world? After all, you can use tablature or just play everything by ear or along with videos to learn songs, right? You can even write your own music without standard notation! But, isn't learning theory something only advanced players can do that are more advanced than anyone should be? Well, no actually! That was a ridiculous statement! In fact, learning standard notation will make learning the rest of theory, or explaining it to others, or visualizing it to truly understand it MUCH easier! It will allow you to grow astronomically as a musician! After learning theory, you will laugh at the pre-theory version of yourself that came before!
But why is all of this so great? What if you can learn theory without notation? Well you may be able to learn some precious little, but to REALLY get it, you will need standard notation. First off, it will enable you to actually visualize in comprehensive picture form all of the things you learn dealing with theory. You will have real pictures in your mind of notes and lines representing tones and chords instead of formless, shapeless confusing concepts. This will change your theory work into working with easy to understand mental pictures of everything! You will know what a chord looks like, or what a scale looks like, or where things are in relation to other things. The pictures of all those complex theory ideas in music will have an appearance, and thus appear more elaborate, more full and complete. Yu will not have to think as hard about all the smaller concepts when you are figuring out a larger idea!
Next, notation gives you a much larger arsenal of ideas and symbols to use and play. It has much more to offer you than the limitedness of tablature, which merely gives you a map of what frets to push down to play one song. Yes, notation just gives you the notes to play to play a song, but WORKING with notation will enable you to comprehend theory and many other musical concepts, whereas tablature and video cannot even touch those areas. It is true that you can make a tablature picture of scales or modes too, but you will never truly learn how they work with just that. What will you do when you are figuring out how to build a chord, or many kinds of chords, or if you are trying to make a major scale into a minor scale, or if you are trying to figure out how to build a mode offparticular root, or if you are trying to work out an odd time signature? Tabs won't give you the information you need to work out these problems, notation provides all you need!
Even if you are having trouble applying standard notation reading to your instrument, you can still learn it aside from that instrumentless, with a good theory book! I recommend William Duckworth's "A Creative Approach to Music Fundamentals" (I own a copy in my personal archives!) It contains very thorough explanations of everything in it as well as exercises to help you learn! Remember, learning notation, and learning to sightread are two entirely different skills! It is possible to be able to read music but not be able to apply reading to your playing! You will still have the skills to comprehend notation for theory, writing, and thinking about musical concepts. Sightreading can come second to that for sure!
So, if you want to be a complete, all-understanding musician who fully understands everything, you will eventually need knowledge of standard notation. Being able to picture everything and anything you will ever use eliminates the need to really have to reconstruct and think about every little detail. It is definitely worth the work!
Keep bassing the night away,
Mark McAnaney, Solo bassist
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