be prepaired when opportunity comes knocking. you dont know when or if it will come, nor do we know if it will ever be back again.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

I started playing guitar at age 13 and I thought that theory, scales, and especially sight reading were completely unimportant. I thought that way right up until about a year ago when some professional musician friends of mine started telling me about what could happen if you knew that stuff. You could teach lessons, get hired by people for all kinds of gigs, and get studio work. Basically, you can make good money doing something you love. Ever since I've been trying to learn more about theory, learn to sight read, write charts, things like that. I was afraid it would take away from my ability to play the types of music I love (mainly blues), but it hasn't. If anything it's making me better.

I'm starting college soon (I want to study music) and I really can't tell you how much I wish I had started sight reading and learning theory sooner. Don't waste any more time, get started on it now and you'll be far better off down the road.

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+1, great testimonial Texas.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Is todays successful Guitarist, where he or she is because they read or because they are talented? I think maby a little of boath. And as for timeing, another word that describes the same thing is Rhythm. and that is something you have in your heart or you dont. Some studio musician with a stack of sheet music is nothing without his technical ability to operate a machine.(guitar). The true artist has the music in his heart and not on apiece of paper it is his very esence
----Danny,

exactly TGS. a very very good friend of mine is a sessions musician in Tenn. i asked him
what the main requirment to be able to do something like that this day in age.
"3 things" he said.
1, sight reading to the level of your own skills is very important,
2, learn how to read charts.
3, know the nashville number system and how to react quickly to it.

i wish you the best of luck in college TGS. its a tough world to be in today.
your gonna do good. the man that owned the studio i use to go to when i was your age also taught music at the university. i took a sem of his class and wow was that stuff hard.
you will do good as long as you stay focused. dont let anything come between you and the books.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Danny the point I make is that we are not in the same circumstances as those in the era that spawned the greats.

Also I'd offer that anyone can learn rhythm (which isn't the same as timing as in a music score sense. Where timing makes the rhythm of the song, not rhythm making the timing). Just ask a drum teacher.

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No no and no

Personally, I have more trouble sight reading tab than sight reading music score and I'm much newer at sight reading score. And by sight reading I mean looking at something I've never heard before in my life until I play it from the sheet. Tab doesn't give you very much of a clue as to the timing of the piece, whereas score gives you the timing and pitch at once. It's actually very clever, which is why it's been in constant use for ages. Tab works all right if you can hear the song first (your ears guide the timing) but not by itself.

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i have heard several say this very thing TGS. tab is ok for what it is but has several shortcomings in it. tab is a good thing to have as a stepping stone.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

The drum teacher teaches his students to read and lead, try that with BB KING and you will be looking for another job
I'd offer that not anyone can learn rythm, Its like marching in the militery some can and some try and learn.
You can spot the natural as well as the unnatural. just an opinion

We all know first hand the importance of a formal education. Music is no difirent.
all I'm saying is that reading music is not for everyone, just like a lot of other things.
Every coin has two sides, and both sides must be explored before you can have a clear
opinion about anything. Keep a good attitude and study hard and you will achieve your goal.
----Danny,

from when i took my first lesson in 1960, i was taught to read music. when i first started playing in a band, we learned a multitude of music styles. many songs we played were learned with music books-a lot of times we never heard the songs, but due to the fact that we played at weddings and parties there were certain "standard" songs.

if you are just playing for fun, or just want to learn songs, you probably don't need to read music. but watch a documentary like "the wrecking crew", and you see how sight reading can be a blessing. most of those musicians played a song the first time by reading a chart. great if you want to be a session musician

Danny, before you submit your post "spell check" the spell check button will make a world of difference.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

And exactly what dose that mean? could it be that I am being repromanded? It also implcates some kind of mistaken opinion or wrong doing.
Say what your thinking
----Danny,

its pretty easy to read really. some are saying you dont need to read music unless your in a studio, or if your a sessions player, or this or that.
nobody knows when, where, or what opportunity will come strolling along.
you gotta be prepared for when it comes, IF it comes danny. you cant let opportunity stroll up on you, then you go learn the requirements of the opportunity.

where you got "could it be that I am being repromanded? It also implcates some kind of mistaken opinion or wrong doing" i have no idea.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Very true. I didn't have the privilege of beginning guitar with a teacher, I was teaching myself for the first year. That's when I found that tabs helped me develop some technique and learn chords which made jumping into lessons easier. Of course, I learned much faster with a teacher than on my own, but tab got me started.

I should probably also mention that I have known how to read music since I was about 9, I took classical flute for several years. But there was always a big disconnect between that and guitar until recently. When I expressed interest in learning to sight read on guitar my guitar teacher just threw books at me (not literally lol) and I taught myself. There wasn't as much of a need of a teacher for that since I already knew it and picked back up on it very quickly.

And I also agree that music reading isn't for everyone, but in my opinion if the knowledge is readily available to you and you have a teacher there to learn from (like the OP said he does), then by all means go for it! Your head would probably explode if you tried to sight read a SRV song by music score or notate B.B. King, but it still has it's place and it's still valuable knowledge for use in many other applications.

Think about this, instead of flipping burgers in college you can be teaching guitar and making something like $30 an hour (I do substitute work now, which I couldn't have done with what I knew a year ago). And instead of playing your butt off at a gig and having a club owner refuse to pay you anything, you could be playing jazz standards at an upscale joint and raking in hundreds of dollars plus tips in one night. You could get a job playing guitar for something like a musical production and be paid $1000+ for a week of work. You could get your foot in the door of your local recording studio and start getting paid for session work. I'm still working towards all of those things, but knowing that they're there makes learning this stuff worthwhile.

Not to mention what a difference it's made in my own songs. I use to have to sort feel around in the dark to try to stumble across chord progressions but now which some knowledge of theory it's not as much like that anymore and my songs are sounding way better.

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