I am a fairly good ear player and a fairly good sight-reader, but, unfortunately, dreadful at turning sound into notation - I need to ask my fingers what they are doing. Only 2 sides of the triangle. The link from sound back to notation is missing in my case.
I found it weird that Mike's friend's friend had a different side of the triangle missing, from sound to playing - as I think he did. Most dot-dependent players can't notate or pay what they hear, only what they see. John -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Matthew Walton Sent: 01 December 2009 13:18 To: gibbonssoi...@aol.com Cc: anth...@robbpipes.com; cwh...@santa-fe.freeserve.co.uk; nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [NSP] Re: From notation to music It's got a lot to do with training, I think. I learned music in what might be termed a 'classical' style - in that there was an instrument, me, a teacher, and a sheet of paper with music notation on it. Over time I learned to read the notation and play what's written there, and then learned things about how to interpret that to give a good performance, as the notation never encompasses every aspect of how one should play it. You can put a sheet of music in front of me and, provided it's within the capabilities of my instrument, I can have a stab at playing it. Assuming it's not beyond my technical skill, I can, given enough time, turn it into a fluent performance, much as I might practise reading a speech aloud so that I can deliver it well. What I cannot do, however, is listen to music and write it down. It's difficult. It's slow. It requires me to play around with an instrument to make sure I've got the idea of which notes are involved correct. I'm also terrible at notating heard rhythms, even though I can play notated rhythms fairly easily. I don't know why it works this way, but it does - and this is common in classically trained musicians. I also find it very hard to listen to a piece of music and play it, either joining in or copying afterwards. I have never learned to play 'by ear'. I suspect if I could do that, notating heard music would be a great deal easier... It is, of course, possible to learn both ways. I should do that. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:25 AM, <gibbonssoi...@aol.com> wrote: > The trouble is some think 'reading music' and 'reading music notation' > are synonymous - > > the trick is to read the dots and put the music back into them. > > > > I guess the player who can only play from a notated copy she'd just > written down, on hearing,, > > would be a good ear-player if she believed in it. > > Notation has its uses, particularly in complex music, but the people > who can't play unless they are reading are limiting themselves. > > > > John > > > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
