Unfortunately, I did not have the luxury of a teacher. I was grateful that my family even found the money to buy me a modest organ when I was a child. I learned how to read later on to see what I might have been missing.. And I was missing quite a few things. Having said that however, I guess all along I was picking up things and "reading" to a point because I knew what a dim chord or and augmented chord consisted of long before I considered myself able to read music. I started by carefully reconstructing the 8 chord variations on those Silvertone organ chord buttons and then picked up a book of chords and went from there. Later I delved into practice of emulating and reproducing pieces and solos done by players like Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson before trying to develop my own style of play.

I know how to read now but more often than not I play TOTALLY by ear, unless I'm called upon to play a specific piece that has to imitate the original and I'm not very familiar with the piece. Then I use a similar approach to what Scott decribes. I happen to think I do a pretty good job and will gladly sit in and feel comfortable with my skills along side the players who do both and / or don't play by ear and can't play a note if the sheet music isn't in front of them. There is nothing wrong with the latter btw, but I think that it's too much of a blanket statement to say that people who play by ear don't play the right chords or imply that ear players can't play out of the spectrum of 3 chord rock and roll. On the contrary, I play a lot of jazz and jazz fusion and I can improvise, and I think I was doing a pretty fair job of it before i felt that I was really able to read music. Judging by some of the other players I've been priveleged to play with, I know I'm not an exception to the rule.

I agree with the consensus though that it is best to know and be able to do both. Although I rarely read, when I write my own music, even using midi notation, I always in some way am applying some fundamentals. I may do it consciously at times, but more often I think it's subconscious too. I don't picture 16th notes per se, but I know when I'm using them.


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 07-30-2002).]