Re: question about teaching and learning guitar

Lumpy wrote:

Stephen Calder wrote:


...it's possible to become a master musician
without ever reading a note...



It's "possible" to run a marathon if you have
one leg cut off.


Lump




The analogy is flawed, invalidating your point. There are no one-legged marathon runners that are household names.

At some point before anyone thought of writing music down, or before it became easier to do so, back in the depths of antiquity, no musician could read music. The sound is the primary form; the notation is representative, just as speech, not writing, is the primary form of ordinary language.

Counter-examples (musicians who do not/did not read music): Irving Berlin (!), Erroll Garner, Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, described as the most important jazz guitarist of his era.

Flamenco guitar is an aural tradition; most of the music is not written down but passed on by playing, listening and copying.

Some jazz and rock musicians see notation as putting people in straight jackets, like the orchestral drummer who couldn't feel a beat but could play anything perfectly if it was written down, in an anecdote by Elvis Costello.

--
Stephen
Byron Bay, Australia
.

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