Does a Musician Need to Know How to Read Music?

So the question is: does a musician need to know how to read music? The answer is no. A lot of very accomplished musicians throughout history didn’t know how to read music. However, there are a lot of advantages to knowing how to read music and how to write in music notation as well. We’ll explore them in this article.

When I first started to learn how to play guitar I had this belief that to be a real musician, you must know how to read music. I don’t necessarily believe that to be the case now but I do believe that I am a much better musician than I would have been had I not learned how to read music. So the best way to convey my point is to tell you about how it has benefited me and how it can benefit you.

1. Knowing how to read sheet music makes it easier to learn a song that was arranged for another instrument than the one you play.
   As an acoustic solo act, I have performed Elton John’s “Your Song” on an acoustic guitar. I basically transposed it from the sheet music I had for piano. I have also done the same with other piano songs from other artists.
2. Knowing how to read sheet music makes it easier to transpose to another instrument.
   There have been songs that I have originally composed on acoustic guitar and entered it into Cakewalk music Creator, in notation. I then assigned it the piano sound. One example of this can be found on my myspace music page. The address is myspace.com/bobcraypoe. The name of the song is “The killing of a Dream.” You can go there to hear the finished product.
3. Knowing how to write sheet music allows you to be able to write out the parts for other instruments.
   I write out all of the instrument parts like the bass, drums and keyboards in Cakewalk Music Creator and I could print them out if I wanted to. I could then hand them out to the people in the band so that they can learn the songs from the sheet music.
4. You can copyright your songs note for note, for the ultimate in copyright protection of your work.
   This is what I do when I copyright most of my work. Besides, it looks really cool when you see your own songs printed out in notation.
5. You can publish your own sheet music for your songs.
   In this day and age, a lot of musicians are starting their own labels or basically operating independently of any major record label. This means that they are basically doing their own publishing. If you are going to be your own publisher for your sound recordings, why not take it one step further? Publish your own sheet music too. Make a little extra money and, at the same time, give off the impression that you’ve made the big time. In the entertainment industry, impressions are everything.
6. Learning a song from sheet music is often much easier than learning a song by ear.
   To learn a song by ear, you have to play a passage from the song, rewind and play it over and keep doing it until you learn the whole song. With sheet music, there’s nothing to figure out. It’s all laid out before you in notation.
7. You can write a score around your song.
   I have composed some songs on guitar or keyboards and have written a score around them in Cakewalk’s Music Creator. It works out great for creating the impression that you are playing along with an orchestra. It allows you to create bigger and better productions than you’d be able to do otherwise.
8. Writing your own scores allows you to save money in the recording process.
   You won’t have to hire the musicians to play the instruments. A lot of sound cards and equipment use realistic sampled instrument sounds. Writing your music out in various music programs allows you to play realistic sounding midi instruments. Besides, you won’t have to deal with that pesky musician’s union.

So, as you can see, there are a number of benefits to knowing how to read and write sheet music. If you don’t know how to do so yet, you may want to consider learning it. I think doing so will increase any musician’s potential.