My thoughts on this topic - and I would stress that these are purely personal opinions.
My Irish father was a self-taught pianist, who (like many traditional Irish musicians) couldn't read a note of music, but he played very expressively, and with a real feeling for every piece he played.
When I started on baritone horn, I very much doubt that I could have made any significant progress at the start, without having the sheet music - but would the same be true for everyone else? I very much doubt it! People's characters vary tremendously, and we all have our own ways of learning - there ain't no such thing as 'one-size-fits-all'.
I suspect that the confidence that reading gives can easily become a crutch that hampers.
I'm sure that's true, and I'm sure there are
some musicians who progress to the point of being able to translate
'that black splodge on the sheet' into
'set my embouchure this way and press these valves' - and never go any further.
But if that makes them happy, why should I look down on them? I've been riding and working with horses for over 50 years, and the highest fence I've ever jumped was about 2 feet high - and I really had to psych myself up to do that! But I'm good enough that the yard boss of the stables I ride at has chosen me to help her train up a young horse who will (in about 5 years) probably be the best teaching horse on the yard. Am I happy with that implicit praise of my ability? Damn
right, I am! And if other riders see me as a wimp because I won't jump, that's their problem.
To continue with Blowhard's analogy; you might need crutches to get about if you break your ankle - but that doesn't mean you have to keep using crutches once the bones have healed. What happened for me was this. There was a certain piece I was playing with the band, and the last two bars gave me endless problems. No matter how many times I practised them, I always got in a muddle. One evening, we were playing that piece, got to the last two bars, and when my (hyper-active) conscious mind froze, my sub-conscious mind said "Hold my beer, will ya" - and
nailed it! (and spooked the Hell out of me!) How did it happen? What I worked out was that I stopped looking at the sheet music, listened to the
sound of the tune playing in my head - and short-circuited the process by jumping direct from that virtual sound to the played sound, without reference to the black dots at all.
Even though I still play almost entirely from sheet music, I find that short-circuiting process happening more and more frequently (on clarinet, too). Which brings me onto a bit of a side issue - what's usually termed 'muscle memory'. According to a number of videos posted by a banjo player who is a medical professional specialising in neuro-science, there's no such thing; he is adamant that muscles have zero memory. So how is it that, after a while, when I'm in my car and want to go backwards, I don't have to consciously think "move the gear lever to the extreme right and pull backwards"? Why does it happen without any conscious thought? Because, neuro-science man says, our brains can and do re-programme themselves.
He describes it like this; suppose you have a very minor country road, with many sharp corners, and awkward junctions - but then traffic starts to increase significantly. The highways people are pushed into road improvements; widening out the narrow bits, straightening out the sharp bends changing awkward into roundabouts, and so on - so that a journey which used to take half an hour now takes 20 minutes. But the traffic carries on increasing - so the road is changed to a dual carriageway, with roundabouts moved off to the side and connected by sliproads - and the journed time is down to about 10 minutes.
According to what he says, that's exactly what our brain (a very powerful computer) does when it finds that we're making a certain, fairly complex movement on a frequent basis (like putting our cars into reverse). So instead of having a string of computer commands slowing up the whole process, it creates a small sub-routine, with a nifty name like 'G=R", which can be executed so quickly that the overall operation of the conscious thinking is barely slowed at all. This self re-programming of the brain is also done by people born with cerebral palsy, and by people who suffer severe brain trauma, so that they alter some other part of their brain to do at least some tasks which the damaged part cannot do.
And I note that the same re-configuring for faster operation is done by people who use Morse code in radio work - to a point where (astonishingly!) they can listen to
two Morse signals coming in simultaneously, and follow both as easily as we can listen to two people talking at the same time! One one occasion, when I was in the RAF, the radio station I worked out suffered a near total loss of traffic, due to a solar storm, and the only way we could send and receive was for a wireless operator using the full power of a 3.5kW transmitter - and his Morse key!
Most radio amateurs are content if they can operate at 15 - 20 words per minute, and consider faster than 20 WPM hot stuff. I sneaked up behind the wireless op with another mechanic to watch Derek sending, and (not wanting to put him off) whispered to the other mechanic "I didn't know it was even possible to send Morse that fast" - at which Derek turned round and, whilst
still sending, said:
"Fast? It's only about 45 - 50WPM! At the end of my wireless op's course, I could send and read at 55WPM!"
I've learnt Morse (though nowhere near at that speed!), and the process is exactly the same as learning a tune - it's just all played on a single note, and you only have to learn dotted crotchets and quavers . . . but the BPM are something else
(try looking on Youtube for high speed morse on a straight key, and you'll see what I mean).
With best regards,
Jack
MTA - it also strikes me to wonder; I can see a typical early jazz band working okay, with the players able to improvise, make up their own solos as they went along, and so on - but those bands (like modern jazz combos) only have one instrument of each type; i.e., one drummer, one sax, one trumpet, and so on. But what about a brass band which might have three trombones, eight or ten cornets, four basses, three baritones, a kit drummer, tuned percussion, tymps player? If they were all winging it, how could they possibly keep it from descending into a complete muddle - unless they had the sheet music to tie it all together?
