Re:How My Children (N=2) Acquired Absolute Pitch
by thr_msc on Wednesday June 21, 2023 @08:05PM
(#36426493)
Replace reading music with writing in assembly and you have the software equivalent. People can write software without a higher level language, but their software will be better if they did. The same is true for musicians and reading sheet music.
Re:How My Children (N=2) Acquired Absolute Pitch
by pclmulqdq on Thursday June 22, 2023 @03:07AM
(#36428912)
If you're trying to find the key details in an incredibly complex/long piece (eg the Hammerklavier Sonata) to create your own interpretation, reading is just the best way to pick them up because the information transfer medium is a lot denser. When the musical "kernel" is simpler (eg a jazz standard that you improvise the complexity on top of), notation basically isn't necessary. Neither of the examples I gave is necessarily harder than the other - it's just about how much information transfer you need.
I will also point out that the best baroque violinist I know is blind, and there's a braille system of music notation that blind musicians work with.
I am not a professional musician but this feels a bit reductionist to me, in that it assumes the goal of any musical endeavor is to faithfully reproduce the music that was written down hundreds of years ago.
Some of the most celebrated musicians could not read music -- indeed some were blind -- but I would challenge you to find any musician who created anything worthwhile without having a trained ear.
It seems backwards to me to focus on the skill of reading over listening for what is fundamentally an auditory art form.