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Biggest musical mistake?
Never learning to sight read. A complete loss.
My dad told me, it was perfectly good advice, but I was a fucking young smug dolt, thinking I'd never need to do anything beyond
wheedlywheedlywheedlywooooooooo.
Then jazz comes back around. Tatum, Miles, Jazz Messengers, Red Garland, I could go on for eons.
Completely and totally fucked, can't play with pros.
Turns out wheedlywheedlywheedlywooooooooo isn't enough.
Fuck.
Top that.
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Yeah, and then I have to deal with folks like Malice who will explain to me how "Giant Steps" is not such a complex chart if you just focus a bit.
Yeah, well, Fuck you, Malice.
"Sure, let's go on tour — I've still got some hearing left I'd like to obliterate"
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My Mama was a music teacher.
“Stoooopid black blobs!”
?
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Nowadays my sight reading skills have deteriorated quite a bit. The last time I used them extensively was in a production of a high school musical where my daughter tagged me as a last minute sub for the guitar player. THAT was fun! I kept wondering, "Why is this dillweed switching from 2/4 to 3/4 and back every measure!? Fuuuuck!"
That same production presented me with an example of raw courage that I strive to live up to every day.
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When I started playing acoustic guitar, I learned it by notes and my sight reading abilities were developing. Then I switched to electric guitar, did nothing note related anymore and everything went downhill. Then again, I don't play Jazz.
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It’s a catch 22. If you learned how to read then no one else can write charts. ? If you can’t read then everyone is reading charts
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The jazzers seem to me to be kind of cliquish. You can't learn anything unless you're playing with people better than you, but then the people who play better than you don't allow you to sit in with them. Another Catch-22.
A big reason I work by myself is because I can't get anyone who would want to play with me to read a chart with actual dots on it (I just wanna make my own part, maaaaan), and the people who can read can't seem to make the time of day for me and my charts (progressive rock died in the early 80s, maaaaan).
Besides, if it was good enough for Stevie, Rundgren, and McCartney to work alone, it's good enough for me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
blows petulant raspberry and stomps back down to the Sanctum
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I don't know exactly when I learned to read, it was young. Learned from looking over my older sisters shoulder I guess. Picked up a trumpet at the start of high-school, so I was reading, without problems, bass clef was never as good. Skills went away as i used it less and more just chord chats in a band. I tend to mix things in charts, the chords are placed in in the right place between bars, and I use all the repeats, codas, first second endings notation.
I noticed it came back quickly when working with a choir for bit. Kind the same story repeats, when I need it it takes a few weeks but I get OK at it, and then sucks after not using it for while.
I do find if I have a specific line to play, the most compact and easy to understand way to get it to me is to write it out.
