The move to remove sheet music from Oxford

a reply to: freedomSlave

I think people are just confusing knowing Chords, Scales and how to play an instrument be it traditional or within your DAW and being able to read and write sheet music, it's not all the same thing!

Like you have stated, majority of modern musicians can't read and don't need to be able to read sheet Music. You can still learn and write/play Chords and Scales that anyone can follow without sheet music, and that is what the Majority of people do nowadays, suggest rhythm and tempo or see what you like, which isn't a bad thing because then you are free to express yourself rather than play a one/one version.

If someone wants to remix something I wrote, they don't ask for sheet Music, they just want my Chords and Midi data!

a reply to: CryHavoc

Here all this time I thought people that went to Oxford were smart.

They were. Past tense.

TheRedneck

a reply to: valiant

I don't have an issue with the technology, but as a musician, I am a firm believer that every note, whether on an acoustic instrument or a triggered sample, should be played by a human and not programmed. I'll tell Hans whatever I want to tell him. I'm not afraid of that guy.

a reply to: freedomSlave
It lacks rhythm and dynamics.

a reply to: freedomSlave
I agree that reading music is not a requirement to be a musician. I am self taught, as well, but I taught myself to read music because I thought it would be useful, and I'm glad I did. I am not a master at it, but I do alright.

Yes, a good musician can listen to a song and play it by ear. But what if you never heard the song? Sheet music would allow you to play the music without ever having heard it.

Sheet music is not always a "note for note" experience. Sheet music is commonly used by jazz musicians right alongside improvisation.

It's all well and good for a self taught musician to decide that sheet music would not be beneficial to them, but an academy of higher learning should require it's mastery as part of it's curriculum.

One thing that always irks me (and I'm not saying you are doing this, but while were on it) is that often I will hear musicians that don't read music make the argument that it isn't necessary, but then take a position as though they are somehow superior for not reading music. Absurd.

a reply to: notquiteright
Music is about having fun and doing what you love .. Some people are content only playing others people's music some people want to create . As long as it makes you smile and fell happy is what matters .

As I had said before if someone is going for a major in music at university or any prestigious music school . Yes they should learn to read sheet music.

Should these schools take out sheet music , absolutely not just because I don't care to learn doesn't mean everyone should not bother with it . It has it uses and for me personally I don't have a use for it . Still it does not apply for everyone and what they are trying to achieve
There are many people who have built amazing careers with out learning to read sheet music

At the same time there are a lot of snobs that think people who can't read sheet music are not real musicians.

a reply to: freedomSlave

I hear you, and I don't like snobs either. My music is all about creating, it's what I do and I have fun trying to write my compositions out after recording them. There's another aspect you might consider, that might make it seem like fun if you ever wanted to learn to read/write music. It is fun to try and compose straight from your head to paper. I've only attempted this a couple of times, but I'd like to do it some more. It gets you away from the trappings of your instrument and allows you to let your imagination run free. Just a thought.

I played trumpet from 4th grade through 7th. I played "at" guitar for a long while after that. I ain't got no talent. I resent those that do, deeply, even though some of my best friends are wonderful musicians.

Thing is, I learned to read music in grade school well enough to pluck out a tune without ever having heard the actual music. The opposite of playing by ear, I guess.

Slightly more useful than cursive writing, perhaps. But I do enjoy following a score while listening to the music from time to time. Adds a bit more satisfaction when that 12 bar progression ends up where you knew it was going the whole time.

a reply to: Phage

That made me chuckle, there are talented musicians and there are disciplined musicians, I am neither and never had the patience, other members of the family though are more than capable and we have a number of famous musicians in our family tree.

I would not resent someone that has that ability, it is just a form of communication but from there emotions when they are in a jamming session but one that you can feel even if you can not do it yourself - or can you maybe you just never found the instrument that suited you.

As I take it you are good at numbers among many other things and there are those that say mathematicians often see numbers as a kind of music as do many cosmologists the universe itself.

Here is the proof, you have known song's and tunes you loved, played them in your head or even sat there on occasion and let your mind create your own tune or whistle out loud while you were gardening or building something.

I never found my instrument but that is because I was lazy, oh and you can not force someone to learn to play if it is not what they want to do, perhaps they have a different kind of musician within themselves and so music they are told to learn is somehow wrong to them.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Did I mention my penmanship is also dreadful?

a reply to: Phage

You mean handwriting, same here and as for drawing well let's say I am no Leonardo that guy could draw a near perfect circle freehand and I can not even draw a straight line.

Maybe I should have been a cartographer.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Cursive, specifically. My block letters are ok, most people can make them out.

Perhaps reading music is like reading cursive, a thing of the past. Something for scholars in dimly lit rooms to pour over.

Why not get rid of rap it's racist too. a reply to: Irishhaf

a reply to: valiant

Aye personally I write in MIDI, MCC and SYSEX as they're far more detailed and instructive than sheet music for what I create (electronic synth based stuff) uding hardware instead of DAWs/VSTs but focus heavily on the maths of music production. I can read sheet, it's just not paticularly useful for the genre I create and lacks lacks the ability to set gates, velocity, effects, reprogram, select frequencies and/or send info to and from the instrument.

Everyone I know who studied music at college or above already had a Grade 8 music theory and practice before hitting their teens though and Oxford requires at least a grade 7 in theory and composition so students would know reading and composing music inside out and specialises in classical while DAW/MIDI and Production are more the specialism of Manchester MIDI School.

I’m reading this whole thing as I blast my basement lair with Symfonie Nummer 3 by Ludwig Van.

It’s called “Eroica, or ‘The Young Napoleon’ “.

See, Ludwig V.B. had watched the French Revolution outlaw Religion and replace it with rationality. Notre Dam was re labeled the national “Temple of Reason.” And then they started cutting the heads off of religionists as “enemies of reason.” When they ran out of God-botherers, they cut the heads off of reason-moderates. Then the extremists. Then everybody who claimed to be natural leaders. Then all the military leaders, just as all the other nations were preparing to invade France.

Then a young Corsican stepped up, named Napoleon. He presented himself as the Savior of France. (Just like an Austrian corporal would one day present himself as the savior of Germany...)

Republicans the world over were thrilled that Napoleon was proclaimed tribune. Just like the Roman republican gaius Julius stepped up to be made tribune of Rome... to save the republic.

Every time, the young republican is crowned the Leader, the Tribune, who will save us.

Within 5 years of Eroica, Ludwig V.B. renamed his symphony “the YOUNG Napoleon.” To say that he praised the tribune, and not what Napoleon had become, “The Ogre.”


To make a short story long, we are waiting for the dashing young military man who will save us from the cult of Reason, and its bloodbath.

He will unite the people. Resurrect the national will.
And make the past into mere prelude of the bloodbath he will unleash upon the world.

“The Second Coming”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

WB Yeats

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Un-freaking-believable. We've just entered another level of pure stupidity. What are they going to replace the greats with? snoop dog?

originally posted by: imdfreek
Why not get rid of rap it's racist too. a reply to: Irishhaf

Oh no, that's different. . They would simply claim it's part of their cultural heritage and your "racist" for even suggesting it.

originally posted by: LetTheColdCome
a reply to: Gothmog

A culture that doesn’t take the development of it’s youth seriously is a culture exhaling it’s last dying breaths. Sad.

Sad , but true .

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck

originally posted by: Rob808

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
I had a Philosophy of Art course in college and a discussion on Western music theory came up, actually a student mentioned micro tonal intervals and eastern scales, basically questioning the whole western culture the course covered. The subject digressed into cultural relativism and got way off topic.

Then the discussion got heated a little and one white male student, a guy who never spoke in class and kept to himself, suddenly and very loudly proclaimed that we use western theories because "they were right" and those are the best ones to study. His loud and aggravated tone shut down that BS down and we got back to the class studies of the course.

The mechanics of harmony, melody, and rhythm and their inner related complexities are visually expressed in written form, regardless of the ethnicity of the music made into notation that is then played by an orchestra. Race and ethnic cultures have nothing to do with a system of musical notation that has been evolving for centuries. It was the only way to preserve music of every kind for centuries.

Other than primitive recordings, how would we have preserved the music of black jazz musicians from the jazz era if those black musicians didn't know musical notation and write up the sheet music for use while playing? How would that music be interpreted without a black director who knows his sheet music and score sheets?

They used to say that music is the universal language, but I guess that universal language is actually hate speech now.

The entire thought process here is flawed. There is no right. It’s history, culture, art. The “rules” of music are only formed to work around the structure they created, they all are broken by other forms of music/art. Eastern microtonal music has plenty of value to be learned, if that’s the subject of the class cool study it. If the subject is classical western music, cool study it. If it’s Tin Pan Alley, cool... enjoy and learn from what things are and stop overlaying faux morality over things.

A bunch of dumb pretentious kids in college for music debating about racism in their art... yeah you guys really are accomplishing a lot for the world and your future...

Just curious, why do you feel it’s important to mention the gender and race along with the viewpoint of a particular student from your class? It seems to only serve to display your own prejudice and bigoted ideas.

That was 30 years ago, I have no clue what they are studying in the Liberal Arts colleges these days. I guess I was prejudiced and bigoted to point out that a white guy was defending Western European culture in a class on that subject. It was a white woman who brought up the subject of micro-tones actually, because her husband was a "micro-tonal composer". I don't remember that any black students were in that class. If adding such details makes me a bigot, then I guess that must be true then.

It just so happens that the western scales are related to the physics of acoustic overtones, where as micro tones are are not within a specific harmonic arena (atonal). But the rule to break all rules in music is, if it sounds good it is good, if you want to use that as a value judgement on ethnic music quality.

Pythagorus was a pretty cool dude like that. It is note worthy that it needs to be mentioned what someone’s race and gender are when presenting their ideas.

originally posted by: notquiteright
a reply to: freedomSlave
I agree that reading music is not a requirement to be a musician. I am self taught, as well, but I taught myself to read music because I thought it would be useful, and I'm glad I did. I am not a master at it, but I do alright.

Yes, a good musician can listen to a song and play it by ear. But what if you never heard the song? Sheet music would allow you to play the music without ever having heard it.

Sheet music is not always a "note for note" experience. Sheet music is commonly used by jazz musicians right alongside improvisation.

It's all well and good for a self taught musician to decide that sheet music would not be beneficial to them, but an academy of higher learning should require it's mastery as part of it's curriculum.

One thing that always irks me (and I'm not saying you are doing this, but while were on it) is that often I will hear musicians that don't read music make the argument that it isn't necessary, but then take a position as though they are somehow superior for not reading music. Absurd.

I’m way more impressed with play by ear musicians. Feel (which isn’t well articulated on the page, look at classical players try and do jazz/rock, no feel baby!) jam with ear players, they are better, full 100% attention on the music vs trying to read from a page.