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do you believe reading notes is necessary?

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RexAeterna:
don't know if right place, but i always been thinking of this. i always felt out of place cause i do not know how to read actual notes, but i have taught myself tabs and so forth when i first started playing guitar when i was younger, but to be honest never really bothered with them much and always tried things by ear. first song i ever learn by ear was the moonlight sonata that picked up on the guitar while able to play it on piano as well. i don't know how, but i heard it one night and next day when i was playing around i was able to pretty much play the whole thing. just reading tabs or notes just felt unnatural for me. things is i think people look down on others, especially lot of professionals and hobbyist alike when it comes to people that is into music but don't know first thing about reading it. i don't know why though. i personally will continue doing it though and enjoying, even though i have no type of music background or never done a single class in my life. what do you think? do you feel one has to be able to read music in order to be actually considered a musician or to properly enjoy the music?

LFF:
Do you need to know English to be a great poet?

I don't think you need to be able to read music to be a great musician but it does make understanding music and playing it much easier.

This guy is an amazing musician and he can't read a single note...

Questhate:
Yeah, what Luis said.

Wes Montgomery couldn't read music, and wasn't versed in music theory. Supposedly, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck (early in his career, at least), Errol Gardner, Django Reinhardt are guys that were not very proficient with reading music.

To answer your question, I don't think it's necessary. It certainly helps, but music theory and music writing is primarily trying to academize a more fundamental human intuition. Most people don't know anything about notes, chords, keys, modes, etc. but can point out a resolving tone in a chord progression, knows when the music sounds "sad" (without knowing minor scales), or are jolted with odd time signatures.

rhythmdevils:

--- Quote from: LFF on December 27, 2011, 05:01:01 PM ---Do you need to know English to be a great poet?

--- End quote ---

Do you mean English, or do you mean written language in general?  I agree with you, but I'm not sure that's the best analogy because you have to know written language to write poetry.  That would be akin to asking if you need to hear or think musically to be a musician, which you do in the more general sense. 

Maybe a better analogy would be if you need to know some sort of conventional brush theory to be a painter, or know how to read to be a great orator or something. 

Marvey:
Musical memory is nice to have. So an understanding of the classical forms. But this mainly pertains to Baroque and Classical. You can still appreciate Mozart and Bach without any of it, but better understanding gives you even a better appreciate of it.

It's like of like amps and DACs. You don't need to know the engineering behind them to appreciate them, but it's nice to know.

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