symbolipoint said:
What does the choice and expertness with a musical instrument mean, OUTSIDE OF ANY MUSICAL NOTATION, in relation to studying/using/practicing any of Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering,Physics,Computer Science?
I think that these things are rather unrelated, at least regarding the essence of the question. The first is pure art and the second is science. A person can study - or work in, a field of science and in his / her spare time or maybe more, can potentially learn some specific instrument(s) according to his / her own mentality and maybe due to particular emotional or other reasons.
Going to a more general comment regarding learning of music, talent is a somewhat oversold term in my opinion. Behind every good instrument player / musician there is a vast number of hours of listening, practicing, transcribing, composing and working on music -
for music, in general, as is the case mutatis mutandis for a good scientist: a vast number of hours of studying, practicing through problems and projects and experimenting - for the sciences which have it. Particularly for music, behind "great talents" in most cases there is a family or relatives who are musicians, so, for a child who is in touch every day with music and have the right guidance, it is more than obvious that some day will become a great musician
as long as he / she will devote the time and efforts to learn music. So, in my opinion and according to my experience as a bass - in past, and electric guitar player for over thirty years, the most essential is the will to learn and finding good guidance of any available form - be it good teachers, videos, books, musical staff, any combination(s) or any other related thing. Personally, I don't come from a musicians family nor do I have relatives that are musicians. What led me to learn music and the musical instruments I did, was personal interest for the music as an art i.e. as an expressive means.
Now, about musical notation, it can really be something interesting for a scientist as it is a global language that conveys components of music like timing, measures, notes etc. but this is not music: it's a very useful - I would say indispensable, means of conveying musical ideas which coordinates the communication among different instrument players but up to there. It is by no means a critical factor in order to learn playing an instrument and be really good at it or learning music - in classical music it is absolutely necessary but again communication is the reason. In contemporary genres, it is good for anyone to learn reading and writing musical staff but it is not necessary unless he / she will play in a big orchestra. Personally, I learned musical staff initially at my eight for piano - which I finally abandoned, and later I continued at my sixteen with classical guitar. I didn't like the idea of learning this way; I felt it like something habitual or even obsessive. So, I picked the way of self learning through musical books with tabs combined with audio tapes to learn electric guitar and bass. Later on, I almost abandoned tabs and relied exclusively to my ears using recordings.
Music is all about ears. Anyone willing can learn chords, scales, arpeggios, phrases, cool licks by ear. Through a lot of practicing comes the mapping onto a specific instrument. For me it is utterly wrong to force a beginner to learn where is each note on the fretboard for instance. After one hour or one day he / she will forget it. Repeating good exercises
every day for warm-up
, fingers flexibility and for muscle memory reasons, trying honestly to learn playing what you can't play - this is very important:
not what you can, and exercising ears especially through transcribing - a real pain for a beginner but it definitely pays off in the long run, comes the good learning and the good performance. From there, experience takes the lead.
RPinPA said:
... and I've always admired rock / folk musicians who seem to have an entirely different skillset. They think nothing of picking up an entire different instrument (switching effortlessly from guitar to flute to piano for instance), or changing the tuning of a guitar and still knowing where to find all the notes. They can listen to a recording and mimic it. They can improvise. They can make a piece sound like a particular style. They can transpose on the fly. I have none of those skills.
In my opinion, if you
really want to learn something you
can as long as you're absolutely willing to devote the time and efforts to learn it. It takes a lot of years but if you persist , you'll finally approach your goal - "disappointment due to no progress" as is commonly spoken or perceived and in many cases is just a wrong feeling, is something that every good musician has experienced /experiences from time to time during learning. As a great greek electric guitar player and teacher says "you'll going to make it whichever way you pick
as long as you walk this way exerting honest efforts".
I've started playing guitar when I'm on 4th grader. My brother was also a musician. But, I've stopped for a long time just to focus on my studies. Also, as a young kid, I wanted to play rather than to practice.
