Curious about the experience of RRF members.

[Lunawolf]

Hey, I've been curious as to the level of experience and knowledge that RRF members have regarding guitar-playing and music in general.
Can you read musical notation? Do you know music theory? Are you trained in a certain genre of music? Are you more the type that enjoys playing covers from tabs?

I can read musical notation and do some basic theory, and have been taking Jazz Guitar classes for a while now.

What kind of experience do you guys have?

[jwr2]

I know some theory, I can read, but I try not to read. I find I play better without sheet music.

[longhouse]

You ask a very good question. As a completely self-taught guitarist / musician, I cannot read a note of music. Sure, I wish I had taken lessons from my early childhood. We moved almost annually, so I never had certain luxuries. Still I don't feel I've done too poorly for a (musical) luddite. I've been in bands with accomplished players who knew all the theory, every scale, and could sight-read... but we usually ended up playing my songs. You can teach technique and theory, but you cannot teach TONE.

What's strange is that I'm hesitant to take lessons now for fear of undoing what I've accomplished on my own.

[johneek]

Robert,

I'll be curious to read what others post, but I suspect you'll find that it runs almost the entire gamut. There will be those who mostly enjoy the guitars and play a little to folks who've studied music much of their lives and for whom it is a profession. I would be willing to bet that the average forum member has been playing for a good portion of their adult life, can easily read tabs, and many can read music. I would guess that the majority also play out somewhere with some regularity.

Now to your question; my guitar playing days came a good while after most of my early music....piano lessons for 7 years, school band from 6th-12th grade etc. So I can read music, but don't have much opportunity to do it with a guitar. The band I play in now introduces most new songs with just a chord map and an mp3. The first time I played a guitar in public was with my Dad's trio (piano, sax, drums) in a Supper Club 2 years out of college. I'd only played for about 6 months, right after that I got busy flying airplanes, gave the guitar to my brother and didn't start again until a little over 5 years ago. I actually think I've been addicted for most of my life, I just admit it now.....

[johneek]

... but we usually ended up playing my songs. You can teach technique and theory, but you cannot teach TONE. What's strange is that I'm hesitant to take lessons now for fear of undoing what I've accomplished on my own.

NCR, after listening to some of your stuff, it's easy to understand why the bands played your songs. It's just my humble opinion, but I bet it would be hard for anyone to take what's obviously there, deep inside, and somehow "Teach" it out of you. If you find there's an area in which you want to grow, go for it, but find someone who can adapt their instruction to whatever specific needs you might have. I recall hearing Warren Haynes say that he used to listen to the way John Coltrane phrased things, then try to adapt it to the guitar. Not many guitar players list "A Love Supreme" as one of their major influences.

[jimk]

Can you read musical notation?

Yes.

Do you know music theory?

Yes.

Are you trained in a certain genre of music?

Yes, voice and choral music.

Are you more the type that enjoys playing covers from tabs?

No, not really. I'd rather be given a lead sheet with the melody line, chord changes, and maybe a demo recording to go by. I can puzzle out a tabbed arrangement if I must, but most tabs that I've seen, especially those on the internet are poorly laid out, and a waste of time.

JimK

[blueflamerick]

I started out on flute in the 3rd grade but had to give it up due to bad asthma. I switched to piano, then bass when I turned 16. I've been playing bass for 16 years now, and just started guitar lessons a few months ago.

I can read music like nobody's business, I know theory pretty well, but it's been a while since I've seriously thought about it. I was mostly trained in jazz theory, but there's plenty of traditional harmony & composition pounded into my skull.

I like playing & writing original music the best, but learning covers is fun too. I'd rather learn them by ear than by ******, incorrect internet tab. Oh yeah, I have a bachelor's degree in music from Berklee.

[gray]

I play by ear, and have been for a long time. I can also read easy, normal types of tab. For me, that's all I need. I know what sounds go where.

[longhouse]

Thanks so much< John. (hey, I was born in Norfolk, VA)

I've been looking at music differently over the last few years because my daughter (age 11) is playing guitar (baby Taylor) and is a bit of a trumpet prodigy (she's already marching with the high school band, taking private lessons, and loving the instrument).

Now my son (age 9) is showing an interest in drums. I've found drawings of drum kits! So I got him some Remo bongos for Christmas. We'll see where it goes.

[admin]

Robert: Thanks for the wonderful question and welcome to the RickResource Forum. I began my musical introduction in school singing in choirs which really set the stage for my love of music. I owe this to a music teacher in elementary school who certainly changed my life.

I moved on to the saxophone (tenor) and then to guitar. I recall my first guitar was an acoustic with industrial strength action and the painting of a "hulla girl." This was eventually replaced by a Fender Duosonic and an Ampeg amplifier.

Being left handed I forced myself to learn to play right-handed as I did not fancy playing my guitar upside down. I learned to sight read as a saxophonist and then learned notation and began my journey learning new song from songbooks. It didn't take me long to learn that what I heard on the radio and what was in the songbooks often did not jive and so my ear became my guide with reference to music theory that I continued to read. It has taken me many years to get to know the fretboard reasonably well but I enjoy each moment I pickup my guitar.

I marvel at people who can please songs note for note without a knowledge of the key in which they play or the names of the chords as they play them. At the end of the day, there are many roads to the same destination and often times our arrival is the most important event. I am, however, intrigued by the journey itself and have the greatest fun in discovering each note.

[bassduke49]

Everything I have done is wrong. So don't listen to me. I just can't "get" written music. It seems to me it was all done wrong. I mean, there are 12 different notes on my fretboard from E to E, so why do they call it an "octave" (eight)? Yeah, I know, you're going to tell me the old "Do Re Me" thing, but there are other notes in there. So when it came to writting music, they come up with five lines and four spaces -- so that's NINE, right? Then there's the sharp notation, that mysterious half step that is between tones (but not all of them) and we put this little # symbol in there if you play that note coming up, but that same tone gets a b symbol when it's a flat going down and . . . AAAAAAAARRGH! Why didn't they just put 12 lines down and position the notes on one of the lines and be done with it? Too late now. . . .

So I play by ear. I am aware of the note positions on the fretboard of my bass for the first five frets, anyway, and have to think about them a bit higher up. I've told this tale before, so bear with me. Back in the mid-'70s, I was director of audio-visual services at a community college in Massachusetts. The music instructor there had put together a little after-class ensemble and needed a bass player. I stored my gear at the office, so I offered to sit in on bass one day. He started to hand out sheet music for the Beatles' "Something" and I said I wouldn't need it. He looked at me like I had feet coming out of my ears. "How can you play it without the 'music'?" "I know this one," I replied. "Oh kaaaay" he said incredulously. We started it up in the key of C (just like the record), and I played all the way through on that song that I had labored long to learn by ear and position. Note for note, just like Paulie did it. The instructor looked aghast. I explained how I learned it, also explaining that I tried to keep from using open strings so that I wouldn't depend on them; if it were played in a different key, I would have to fret certain notes instead of using an open string, so I seldom (if ever) used them. He said, "play it in D." So I just started the song again, moving up two frets. It was all the same to me as I played by the position of my fingers from one note to the next. "Incredible!"

I have the gift of hearing something, remembering it, and translating it quickly to the fretboard on the bass, but have to repeat it many times over to get it completely in my head. After that, like Prego, "it's in there." However, I envy those who can read music and who have good chops. They can pick up a totally unfamiliar piece and execute it near perfect the first time while sight reading. But for many of them, take away the sheet music and they're crippled. I'm the opposite; I can't read, wouldn't know how to start on an unfamiliar piece, but after listening to it several times and practicing repeatedly, I've got it.

And I pluck notes mostly with my thumb. So don't listen to me.

[johneek]

...And I pluck notes mostly with my thumb. So don't listen to me.

Paul, we do listen to you, and we look at your basses....you'll have to get over it.

[melibreits]

Cool thread topic....

I've loved listening to and making music for most of my life, and started taking piano lessons when I was in third grade.... Then I started playing the violin in 6th grade, and played it for six years in junior high and high school orchestras.... I also sang in a high school music group and in church youth musicals and later in church choirs.

I laid most of my musical pursuits aside when I attended college, which I worked hard to pay for out of my own pocket.... and to this day my biggest regret is that I did not follow my heart and major in music. While I was working a summer job at a north shore resort I met my husband-to-be, and we got married the summer between my third and fourth year of college.... After that it was simply a matter of survival, and living from paycheck to paycheck with both of us having to work jobs that were less than ideal, and just barely getting by.... As far as music went, I still sang in church, but that was about the extent of it for me, although I felt that I was really missing out on my calling....

Fast-forward a few years to 1996, when my husband experienced a major breakthrough in a career change that led us back to the town where we met.... He took a job as a PTF postal worker and I continued to work at a local restaurant part-time, and the following year had the first of our two sons.... It was during this time that my husband revived his lifelong hobby of ancient coin collecting, and then started up his own online business in that venue--and for the first time ever we had more than enough money to pay the bills and some extra to spend each month.... It was during this time that I remember mentioning to my husband that I had always wished I had learned to play guitar.... And just a few weeks later, for our anniversary he gave me a used Takamine acoustic guitar which he had found in a local ad. I started taking guitar lessons and loved it, although at the time I was pregnant with our second child and found playing the guitar to be very awkward by the third trimester, LOL! I gave up the guitar lessons when I got too big to play, and then didn't play for a couple of years, as the demands of having a toddler and a new baby in the house pretty much consumed all of my time...

And then all of a sudden everything changed.... Two or three years later my husband got me the anniversary present that completely rocked my world! I can remember him coming into the house with a black case that was rather big and thin and quite heavy, and when I popped the latches and opened it up, it took my breath away: A Rickenbacker! It was a 330 in fireglo, quite yellowed with age, with lots of fine cracks in the finish....but even so, I was astounded by the beauty of the thing....the graceful elegant lines and the quality of craftsmanship that went into building it left me amazed, and when I picked it up and strummed a few chords (even unplugged!) I felt that I was completely unworthy of such a fine guitar.... It was love at first sight, and first touch, and I couldn't get enough of playing it. I went back to taking guitar lessons immediately and a couple of months later a jetglo 330/12 showed up at the front door, and then after that, more and more Rics started to appear.... My husband loved buying them for me as much as I loved playing them.... And as I was playing my first Ric I discovered an ability I didn't know I had--songwriting. I had written lots and lots of poetry, especially in my high school and college years, and had always thought that some of them might be good songs if I knew how to put them to music....and the thought occurred to me again as I was playing my Ric, and I was delighted to find that songwriting was easy and fun, when I was playing the right instrument!

Since then I've had a few opportunities to play some of my own tunes at some local events, and have had a great time doing it....and I also sing and play my guitars on my church's worship team.

So I guess all of that was a round-about way of saying that I have had a lot of amateur musical experience--I can read music for piano, vocals, and violin, but not really for guitar--I'm much more comfortable just playing from a chord sheet when I play guitar, although music for the vocals is very helpful to me if the song is unfamiliar. I wish I could read music for guitar, though, and my attempts at playing lead are absolutely awful.... I still think I would be a much better musician if I had majored in music.... But in the meantime I love doing what I do with my Rics, and have a whole lot of fun playing them. I am currently working on the finishing touches for a demo CD of some of my songs.

[rickenbrother]

I started on guitar, but not seriously when I was about 9 years old. It was my older brother's first guitar, which was an acoustic guitar that I can't remember the brand name of. He had no use for it anymore once he got his brand new '66 Gibson Firebird. It wast too hard for me to press the strings down on that guitar.

When I was 13, my parents bought a two keyboard Baldwin console organ. It was a big piece of furniture that they thought looked good and they figured. I would enjoy playing that as well, which I did. My father did also. I think he played it as much as I did. This is when I started to learn to read music and learn music theory.

When I was 14, my brother got married. He's one of those guys that barely ever touched their guitar anyone after the get married. So just before I was 15, I asked him if he'd mind if I took hid guitar to learn on seriously. He knew I would take good care of it, so he didn't mind and just gave it to me for as long as I wanted to hold on to it. His '66 Gibson Firebird is a good looking, sweet sounding and playing guitar. Then I started playing guitar in a band with a few musician friends, but I always really liked the sound of the bass guitar and I heard of so many bands looking for a bass player, so when I was 16, I decided I would get a bass guitar. Although my deep passion for Rickenbacker basses had already started, at 16 my first one was a Univox Hi-Flyer. When I was 18, I wanted a name brand bass that rock stars were using. I really wanted a Rick, but didn't have enough cash and got a '76 Fender Precision. I should have just waited a little longer.

Finally, just as I turned 22 and had my first real full time job, I got a brand new Jetglo 4001

When I was 28, I started teaching bass guitar. I taught for several years, back in the Bronx, NY. It really reinforced my reading of music and theory knowledge. I also had to really control my playing technique, so not to pass on any bad habits to students.

I've always played bass fingerstyle until a few years ago when I got my 4003S/5, I forced myself to play with one. I should have played with a pick as well as fingerstyle right from the start.

One of these days, I should get back into teaching bass again, but first I'll have to brush up on my music reading! It's a rewarding experience to see someone progress into a great bassist (or what ever instrument they play) under your guidance.

[scott_s]

I can barely play!