Postby Quaco » 26 Nov 2017, 19:22
I can't read music, though I understand it well enough to work bits out if necessary. It takes me a while though. I have no idea why reading music should inhibit one in terms of creativity. I suspect the problem would be more to do with other things, such as not being exposed to a wide enough variety of music in a traditional musical education, or anything other than reading and playing being discouraged. The traditional classical music education is like teaching someone to read only to recite great works, without giving them having the ability to think and speak on their feet. But the tool of reading itself isn't the problem, surely. No one claims there to be any creative benefit in not being able to read the written word.
Joe Jackson said in an interview that reading music is easy. It's like a language with a few simple rules that never change, and only about 20 different words (paraphrasing). Certainly, one can look at Joe Jackson's music and say it's over-studied-sounding; he's certainly a classicist. Then again, I'd rather have Joe Jackson's skill set than Syd Barrett's.
I think most musicians' lack of reading skill is mostly laziness and being able to get by without it, not that not having it makes them any more creative.
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