Illiterate horn players past and present?

[justbari]

By illiterate I mean not able to read music. They may or may not understand music theory. Also, does anyone know of musicians past or present who could not read and play at the same time? I mean, they have to learn the chart bit by bit then commit to memory before being able to perform.

I'm just curious because I started playing the horn by ear and could easily play blues/rock changes or simple changes like 1-6-2-5, etc... I find it hard to sit and learn to read music because I sound way better when I just play by ear (I know I should though, so I practice reading sometimes)

thanks

[BlockAM]

A student of Jackie McLean's told me that Jackie told her that Bird knew only 3 scales and all his solos were by ear. In fact, he never wrote down any of his heads. He taught them to the people he played with by playing it for them. The melodies to Scrapple and Nows the Time and all his other tunes were written down only when people transcribed them from his records, something which I find quite interesting.

[Ivy]

Interesting about Bird! He might not have written music much but he was a master sight reader. From NPR's Fresh Air interview with Quincy Jones last week, I paraphrase Quincy: "Bird used to sit in on his break from a gig next door to play tenor parts because he loved to sight read"

I would think that the reason that Bird taught his heads to sidemen by ear was to get all the nuances in his melodies which really could not be written down. Try sight reading any of his tunes which you don't know and then listen to the recording. Those irregular accents he placed on unusual places are just brilliant. It's also a lot easier to remember melodies (heads) which are learned by ear.

I can't name any famous horn player who can't read music who have played the last 65 years.

[-j.]

Sidney Bechet. Grant Green was said to be unable to read music too -- that's what Sharony Green claims in her bio anyway -- but I'm not sure if I buy that one.

-j.

[Ivy]

If you include other players outside of hornplayers, there is Errol Garner, Wes Montgomery (audiographic memory-once he hears a tune, he knows it), Carlos Santana, all reported not to read music. Many,many players of Trad New Orleans music.

Hey Block am, I envy you for having been a student of Jackie McLean. Perhaps you can tell us some of the lessons learned from this GIANT of an alto player. He inspired me to take up the instrument.

[BlockAM]

Actually, IVY, I, myself was not a student of Jackie's. A friend of mine, who is now at the Hart School with Jackie and had taken lessons with him for several years before that, told me those stories. I with I was his student, and I am very jealous of my friend! Not only does she take lessons with jackie, but she took them 3 times a week. When I heard this my response to her was "wow that must cost a fortune." But guess what, she paid absoultely nothing!

[paulwl]

Ivy: I can't name any famous horn player who can't read music who have played the last 65 years.

I imagine if you changed "read" to "sightread," there would be quite a few.

Re Bird: There will probably always be differing tales of such a legendary figure. Sort of like Bix Beiderbecke - the myth was he never learned to read, but there he is handling Gershwin's Concerto in F quite respectably with the Whiteman orchestra.

Whether he learned to sightread is another question - it wasn't such an issue back when heavy rehearsal was expected of every group. Most of the Casa Loma band couldn't read anything at sight - they got around it by rehearsing their @$$es off.

[aanz]

From what I have read in a number of jazz biographies, many well known players couldn't read, some never learned, some learned later in life. Seems like alot of players played by ear and/or were taught the tunes by bandmates.

[Lowell]

Since you didn't specify famous or well known players......Me! I have terrible time sight reading a new piece. I plod through it on my own for days before I can play it. If I know the melody, I have a much easier time. If I am playing shots and fills, I don't get up to speed until I have rehearsed with the group. Written solos are useless to me as they are someone else's variation so I usually wing it on my own with good results.

[Ol' Mpc Doc]

Add to those well-known players who are authoritatively reported to not "sight read" music both Chet Baker (according to Quincy Jones) and Scott Hamilton (his own admission). I'm sure there are many more among the 'icons' of jazz music whose names would surprise many "scholars".

[Tim Price]

To read EVERY day is a must, someroad rats got in bands for years and reading level went WAY down.
So many, but...this is interesting.

[Media Lint]

I can read music and generally choose not to. It's a lot more fun to write music ... :)

[michaelbaird]

I read music but would rather hear it instead. Playing by ear is more fun!

[Agent27]

Not a horn player but Hendrix couldn't read music. He didn't even know the names of the chords ie 7#9. Miles Davis would talk to him and say 'you know when you played this chord' and Hendrix would look at him blankly. Then Miles would play it on piano and Hendrix would understand perfectly.

About Parker. Bird had an almost photographic memory. When he was still playing in Kansas City, he'd go to the music store, look at some music, memorize it right there, then go home and play it.

[gary]

Since the topic doesn't say "famous" musicians, I'll relate the experience.

A friend of mine had the big band at the school for the arts in Dallas. He asked me if I wanted to sit in for a missing tenor player. After a while, during a Thad Jones chart, I noticed that the tenor player next to me was not playing the written notes, all the time. But his rhythm was exactly the same as the section's and all his notes fit perfectly, harmonically. The band was playing some fairly sophisticated charts.

After rehearsal, we had a little chat and he begged me not to expose him, fessing up that he'd been playing in this school for two years unable to read music. And without getting caught. Now THAT's talent!

[Tharruff]

Gary,

I had a similar experience once. We had a sub Tenor player in our big band one night and he was sitting next to me. It was actually a guy whose sister I had gone to high school with so I knew him a little but not well. He was a little older than me and had a degree in music. Normally he was a very good player...much better than me.

I noticed that he wasn't really following the parts though he was getting each chart up and putting them on his stand. I finally asked him at break why he was making up his parts, and he told me that he had forgotten to bring his glasses and his vision had gotten so poor that he simply couldn't read the charts without them !!! He asked me not to tell the bandleader and I didn't.

He always showed up with his glasses after that.

[Lyle]

I always thought that illiterate musicians started jazz. They wanted to play but could not read music, so they said, just play notes and try to make our own music. Lets improvise.

Now, I may be wrong on this. I know I have been wrong on something else once. Or maybe I am wrong about that.

[gary]

It has nothing to do with musical literacy. They did not start jazz as a reaction to their musical weaknesses, but rather as a response to their genius.

The African musical experience is learned by rote; listening and repitition and that was a key ingredient in jazz "education". Contrast the American/European church choristers learning their parts from printed music vs a black musical leader singing each section's parts to them and having them sing it back, to learn.

But it is disingenuous to many early jazz players, and I think somewhat exagerrated about their "illiteracy". A key ingredient of early jazz was the European (and American derivitive) march. Somebody, somewhere, must've been reading something for so many to have learned so many marches.

Ragtime and jazz was filled with very learned musicians. Just an opinion, and I'm not the kind of guy that tries rewriting history to square-peg a round social agenda hole, but, while many early jazzers no doubt could not read music, I believe the widespread accounts that they were mostly illeterate is based on not only ignorance, but racism, overt or unconscious. It just was not inherent in the white attitude towards the Negro that he was equally educated and that has persisted up to the present, although not as pronounced as in the past.

[Lyle]

My post had nothing to do with race!! Nor has race been mentioned previously. It is in no way demeaning to say anyone who cannot read music invented their own. And a music enjoy by many. I admire that and wish I were as capable. We are talking music!! As for ignorance-I will admit I am ignorant in many areas. Who knows everything? Or think they do.

[Bootman]

To make a living playing music these days you need to be able to read and play by ear. Some gigs are reading and others aren't. Learn to do both well and become the consumate musician. Reading adds a different dimension to your playing, it took me a long time to realise this because I was always lazy and would learn the tune by ear ratehr than read it.

[gary]

I was initially blocked from editing this post, Now it's enabled (funny) but I explained it better below. Since I cannot delete this post...see below.

[gary]

Lyle - I just mean, that when we talk about the origins of jazz, it is automatically dealing with the black race and culture.

Most books on jazz were written by white authors, especially the early ones, and many reflect, no matter how well-intentioned, certain assumptions about African-Americans, and that includes the myth that they couldn't read music.

I interpreted your comments to mean that they couldn't read music so, as an alternative, they came up with something else. I don't believe jazz originated as a result of African-Americans seeking an alternative music because of a reading deficiency, but rather as a natural evolution and combination of the many things that they could do so well.

[Wailin']

Not to knock anyone or take away from anyone's gifts or talent... however many of the extraordinary feats that are "hearsay" are not really true. Many musicians we do agree are heriditary savants are blessed with "god given talents" of tape recorder memory...but never the less some of the stories such as musicians learning music by reading it in the store then going home and playing exactly note for note have been extremely exagerated. Believe half of what we hear. Some of these stories have been transfered by word of mouth and have been tailored to please the ear. Unless we were actually there to experience it face face its merely hear say. Take for instance the common cliche "a musician who can play anything" or "he's never had a single music lesson and listen to the way he plays" which in truth and in fact is far from being the truth. Many musicians because of their environmental exposure probably never had formal training but they did hang around someone who taught them to read music well without the necessary schooling and academic training. They sometimes outperform many musicians who've had the academic musicial training.

Having said that, there are in fact many musicians who cannot read a note and its probably better that they could not because their talents of creativity and playing by ear would be permanently stifled. Peace :)

[michaelbaird]

I tried to read improvisation off of the page by the changes for years only to give up in frustration; praying that I would somehow miraculously become great. I was too busy trying to follow the rules of the page and was unable to come up with ideas. I just practiced for years playing scales in every key not even reading music, just playing scales and blues scales. I was listening to Cannonball Adderly playing "Jeanine" Paris 1960 recording and was just blown away by his constant ideas. I thought where are his ideas coming from? Then I listened more and realized that he was playing arpegios scales inversions of scales as the changes came also knowing the melody of the tune. I started finding the key to tunes, playing arpegios, inversions of arpegios, blues scales, dorian minors in tempo in the key to the tune and I could play by ear and improvise. This is the cosmic key to improve I was looking for. The changes are what the tune is based on but there is an overal tonality and scale that fits just about very tune whether it be a major or minor pentatonic. I know of 2000 illiterate guitar players in Nashville who are unknown but are virtuosos on their instrument and have little to any skill at reading off of the page but totally understand scales, keys, chords and their relationship in the tune and tonality of the key and can play anything! I don't want the ability to read music being my only skill. Everytime I've seen Michael Brecker play, he didn't have a music stand in front of him. Do you think he is reading music when he he playing a mind blowing solo? I bet he knows the rules though, and how to tastefully break them! Jam to Disco! I can't read bass cleff, I can't play a chromatic scale on the bassoon, yet but I can play a cool ride on the bassoon to "play that funky music!"

[tenorman canada]

How could Chet Baker not have known how to read when he payed in a military band?

[Dig Gonsalves]

I'm pretty sure that Bay Area Tenor Genius Vince Wallace doesn't read.

[JimD]

Sorry, not a horn player but Irving Berlin not only couldn't read but he couldn't play the piano properly either. He always used the black keys and had them transposed. Later on he got a transposing piano.

[michaelbaird]

That is interesting. The black keys are a pentatonic Eb minor or F# major however you choose to view it. I find when I play in a major key, I can use the the major pentatonic for that key, or the relative minor pentatonic for that key, the relative minor blues scale, and the relative natural minor scale and am usually safe and have to remember the the 4th and the 5th of the scale. When I play in a minor key I can use the minor blues scale and dorian minor scale for that key. "Rollin on the River" uses the minor pentatonic and the modulation is the relative major pentatonic, which seems to be very popular in most music. These rules seem to work the best for me with most types of music. Those are the rules I use when I play by ear. :idea: It took me 20 years to figure that out. There is a way to use bepop scales that way also, I haven't figured that out yet. Any and all suggestions are welcome. I truly believe Jamey Abersold when he says anyone can learn to improvise!

[BayviewSax]

To the best of my knowledge, Zoot couldn't read a lick.

Also, Clifford Jordan states in the liners to a Cedar Walton record I have (~1975) that he was just starting to be able to read music with Cedar's help. :shock: