pianocourts

As a self taught pianist of around 8 years who now studies music and takes personal lessons, I have had a bit of both worlds. Having years of experience in learning songs by ear, yet little experience with reading notation until just a few years ago, I am primarily an aural musician.

Although reading music is certainly essential is some cases, I think so many people neglect the ear and creativity which self taught musicians predominantly have. Maybe the key is to achieve a delicate balance of the two.

There are numerous points to be made on the subject and this is just something to start off with. What are your stories and opinions of self taught musicians in contrast with non-self taught?

Discuss!

Plankton

Having been self taught, and playing stringed instruments for over 30 years, I rely solely on aural memory. It's all about conditioning, and that's how I've conditioned myself. My M.O. is based on the theory being that there will not always be a way to learn a song through some sort of visual medium.

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EPOCH6

I took weekly guitar lessons for about 6 or 7 years but my teacher always avoided typical training styles and instead designed his lessons around the importance of training your ear. Throughout the week he would have me write down a list of songs, from any artists, of any styles I wanted to learn, and for the first year or two we would spend the lessons learning the songs by ear and then transcribing our own tablature for it. Every once in a while he'd give me a song I'd never heard before to see if I could learn it on the spot. Once he was satisfied with my ability to learn by ear we moved on to learning theoretical and improvisational skills. He would spend a while running me through the minor, major, and harmonic scales and then once I knew them by memory he would teach me dozens of solo licks in each box before asking me to come up with my own. Eventually we moved on to using loop pedals and drum machines to build backing tracks in particular keys at the beginning of each lesson and then we'd spend the rest of the lesson trading off improvised solos over our track.

I found that sort of teaching style immensely helpful. It was really geared towards developing your own style, developing a quick and accurate ear, and left a huge amount of headroom for improvisation and creativity while still learning the theory necessary to write competent and cohesive music. I think it is essential to develop aural skills before theoretical knowledge if you plan on ever using that theoretical knowledge in a productive and creative way.

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Chula Vista

Self taught by ear and later by tab. Wished I'd learn to read though.

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on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Moss

I took lessons for a little while when I was 16. Definitely helped speed up the process. Learned enough theory (i.e. Pentatonic scales) to play most of the stuff I was interested in back then. Would love to take more lessons and really get dialed in on modes and more exotic scales but I can do alright improving on most rock songs. Could not fake my way through Jazz though.

pianocourts

Very interesting to hear these replies.

In my eyes, notation provides us with a written musical language, which is surely a positive to anybody with a true musical passion. However I would certainly agree with you 'EPOCH6'. Before seriously thinking about learning music theory I feel that it is important to develop your ear to a certain degree, just listening to the sounds of the instrument and 'messing about' on it. When I started to learn songs by ear, I would listen to songs from video games and films for example, having to deconstruct the song in my mind, focusing on the bass, melody, harmony, percussion and sfx individually, before creating my own improvised arrangement of the song. This can definitely teach you much about different aspects of music - analysis, musical expression and to develop the confidence of knowing that there are no 'rules' in music. People who neglect this in the early stages and jump straight in to personal lessons run the risk of never developing a self reliance; they will always need somebody else to teach them and will never find their own path as they fear being 'wrong'. In addition, I have met countless people who tell me that they 'used' to have lessons but grew tired or become demotivated to carry on. This is far less common in self-taught musicians, in my experience.

Very good to hear of a guitar teacher who structures their lessons in such a way, placing the focal point on aural training as a foundation.

Also, 'Plankton' - Thats an interesting M.O and i agree that conditioning is the key.

It would be interesting to get some contrasting views and opinions from some non self-musicians which rely more on sheet music as opposed to improvisation etc.

CoNtrivedNiHilism

I can't really speak much on this. So I will speak from the perspective of musicians I've talked to, both self taught and learning by ear, apposed to non-self taught...

I feel that self taught musicians tend to be more creative, better able to improvise on the spot. Non-self taught musicians can do most everything self taught musicians can, but I really feel that non-self taught maybe have a bit of an advantage in creative areas, improvisational ability.

I am on lunch break from work so I will elaborate once I am home.

Pet_Sounds

TBH, there's not much difference in creativity. Whether you're self-taught or teacher-taught, you'll still experiment on your own if you're interested in creating your own music.

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Chula Vista

Yeah, you're either a creative person or you're not for the most part.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

pianocourts

I suppose im touching on the fact that in my experience, musicians whom jump in to personal lessons too quickly end up giving up because of a lack of motivation or passion. This, i believe, is down to the teacher, prematurely introducing theory and notation. If the student does however continue, they are heavily influenced towards reading music notation with very little emphasis placed on creative improvisation and ear training which can later lead to a musician with an important element missing from their musical knowledge.

That is an interesting point 'Chula Vista', are we born with creativity? and to what extent can it be developed?