Do you read music or use tablature?

Question

Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Pavoratti, and Billy Sheehan have all admitted that they do not/did not know how to read music. They are legends but should we call them musicians or performers?Were they just lazy and decided to memorize the music they heard? You mean to tell me that if I asked Billy Sheehan to play a B flat on his bass that he would be unable to play it or even show me which fret the note is found on?

Answer 1

Awesome question!!! It seems to me that yes, they are great at memorizing. Reading music and tablature are polar opposites.

Those guys may play guitar, which makes them guitarists, but reading music makes people musicians, so I guess they are not by your definition!!!

Anyone who says that they are the same thing needs to stop smoking rope!

Tablature sells guitars and other instruments. People don't want to work for anything, and that includes learning to play an instrument. If everyone really tried to learn to read music in order to play a guitar, how many people would quit: yeah about 99%. And how would that affect the bottom line of all the instrument manufacturers? It would destroy their bottom line. Thus, they capitalize on knowing that people don't want to wait 20 years to learn guitar properly, they want to play Stairway to Heaven in 30 minutes!

Answer 2

Considering the basic problem that standard musical notation is extremely difficult to master for the guitar and many other instruments, the use of tablature as a simplified system for the instrument is quite understandable. Standard notation is a very poor representation of the western musical form. A better system needs to be created that is easier to read, transpose and write. There are some ongoing efforts in that direction: musicnotation.org

Answer 3

depends on what "read music" is classified.they would probably know what notes they were playing but not know how to read stave music and note timing.i know some people that just can't read notes on a staff but are perfect at listening and playing the right note and even improvising.they are still musicians

Answer 4

Dude, you're babbling. Reading music doesn't have anything to do with being able to find the note on your instrument (and I also find it a little hard to believe that Pavarotti didn't know how to read a score).

Answer 5

I play the piano so i know how to read music. they are performers if they can't read music but it doean't matter we shouldn't classify them as they are great musicians/performers!

Answer 6

I do not do either as I have the musical ability of a dead horse.

Answer 7

hey dumb, dumb,reading music and tablature are the same thing..i know how to read tableture but i first taught myself thru hearing,then someone taught me how to read tablature..