# Why do (Classical) musicians need to read music? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622 "2009-06-22T18:02:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![zenArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ad7895/32.png) [@zenArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zenArcher)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/41 "2009-06-23T22:50:35Z")
But if you miscount, better be late than come in early! šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/42 "2009-06-24T04:15:35Z")
I find it a lot easier to improvise on the sax than I do on any other instrument, but that may be just because Iā€™m more proficient at it. I donā€™t think thereā€™s anything special about the way you play a sax that makes it any easier/harder to improvise with. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/43 "2009-06-24T06:46:41Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > - Al regretto: unrelated to allegretto, the name of a tempo in which the performer discovers, too late, that the easier opening passage has been played way too fast to render the difficult passage remotely possible. HILARIOUS! šŸ˜ƒ Another anecdote: My conductor in college said he was once preforming in an opera group and the wind section all bet to see who would memorize the whole opera first. He also observed a performance from an opera that had been running for very long time. He peaked over the barrier to see one of the cellists reading a magazine while he was playing. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/44 "2009-06-25T09:46:51Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Iā€™m a wind player who just took up playing guitar. The difference between the terrain of a clarinet and saxophone is entirely different. The strings and frets are a systematic roadmap that just does not exist on a wind instrument. It is not easy to articulate, but with the clarinet, I always knew where I was in time. but with the guitar, I have a real sense of the _space_ that is totally different than the wind experience. Orchestral strings are different again, in that a very physical geography of notes and especially of keys is developed through muscle memory. > [@Maeglin](#): > > This is especially true. I have had the good fortune to have played in some very large halls, including Carnegie and Alice Tully halls. The Carnegie experience was especially remarkable. I played in an rambling, huge orchestra of approximately 100 people. Yet while on stage, I could hardly hear anything played by anyone more than two or three seats away from me. Iā€™d been a musician for years, but that was without a doubt the first time I lived or died by that baton. I take it youā€™ve never played in a big European cathedral, then! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/45 "2009-06-25T10:31:48Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Of course. But it depends on the level of players. In groups Iā€™ve conducted, initial read-throughs were usually pretty painful. It would take three hours to get through 45 minutes of music. > > OTOH, I once sang with a professional orchestra. Their read-through was already at performance level. One rehearsal and they were ready. (The chorus, though, took months to prepare.) While it may have sounded like performance level, they may not have thought so. When you have the ability to sound good just sight-reading, you often strive for even higher quality for performance. As for the OP: when I play ā€œby ear,ā€ I usually donā€™t have anything memorized but the melody of the song. I actually have more memorized when I play with sheet music. But with neither do I have the whole thing memorized. While I can improv around that in the former case, I canā€™t in the latter. Still, I do think it looks tacky when a 3 person orchestra has to have sheet music to play with a pop band, and they only play the same phrase over and over. Iā€™ve always assumed it was because these people are usually not key members of the band, and donā€™t get to practice with them that often. Iā€™d much rather them use simplified sheet music and hide it, or at least format it so it doesnā€™t look out of place. (Oh, and a lot of choir directors donā€™t like people to hold music, either. I donā€™t know why, but choirs seem to have more problems following the conductor when they have music than bands/orchestras. Maybe reading the words and the music takes more concentration?) [RIGHT]BigT- concert Clarinetist, Pop Pianist, and occasional Vocalist[/RIGHT] ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/46 "2009-06-25T13:13:01Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > [You donā€™t need conductors, you donā€™t need sheet music, you just need to think about it.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeygf4L7l0A) Oddly enough I thought they would probably end up playing Ode to Joy. I must be psychic. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/47 "2009-06-25T13:45:14Z")
**Contrapuntal** , that vid is blocked on YouTube in the UK. Could you give me a few key terms I can search on to try to find it elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/48 "2009-06-25T14:10:46Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > Even stranger is horn players - and here Iā€™m talking about rock/pop/soul music - reading sheet music for really simple songs - songs in which they mainly play a repeated riff during the chorus. Iā€™ve seen this at numerous concerts and TV broadcasts, and it makes no sense to me. Those horn players may just be pick-up musicians hired to play for that one performance. They havenā€™t lived with the songs for months the way the core group has. They may just attend the dress rehearsal and then play on the concert that you see. Thereā€™s no time to have it securely memorized in that kind of situation. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/49 "2009-06-25T14:21:05Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > While it may have sounded like performance level, they may not have thought so. When you have the ability to sound good just sight-reading, you often strive for even higher quality for performance. No doubt. They were the premier symphony orchestra in that town, under the baton of arguably the best conductor in town (Isaiah Jackson), and I was a dumb high school kid who thought that my own band sounded pretty decent. I was easily impressed. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/50 "2009-06-25T15:40:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The brain isnā€™t really a conscious participant in the actā€¦ From that I would have thought you were one of the many other percussionists Iā€™ve worked with in my time as a percussionistā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/51 "2009-06-25T15:48:20Z")
> [@Liche](#): > > Notes aside, have you ever tried counting 200+ barsā€™ rest, sprinkled liberally with tempo, metre, and key changes, pauses/fermatas etc.? Even _with_ the sheet music it requires careful concentration. Good copyists will put in recognisable cues from the other parts roughly 8-16 bars before your entry, and conductors can also cue you, but youā€™ve still got to know exactly where you are. Such is the life of an orchestral brass player. Even in pieces which I know well from listening to them, I wouldnā€™t dare rely on my memory - I always count before my entry from a prior cue at the very least, and often count every bar from the end of my previous note. As a percussionist, Iā€™ve had to deal with just that same phenomenon. Now, imagine having to switch instruments between those rests and keep counting as your running across the stage. Fun. Or not. Another reason why music helps so much is repeated measures. In Holstā€™s _The Planets Suite_, the ā€œJupiterā€ movement, I played timpani. After about 50 some measures of the same rhythm on the same note, Iā€™d get lost. I would make notations on the music as to what else was going on in the orchestra at certain points to help me keep track (the cellos do such and such at measure x, the tubas come in here, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/52 "2009-06-25T16:09:53Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > In that situation? Because it would be one more thing to have to lug down to the subway, and because it would be pointless if you were playing short pieces youā€™d already memorized. Why add any unnecessary elements? If they were playing enough short pieces, they might not know any one piece that well. Also, as others have remarked, in an ensemble situation, even if they know all the notes, they may still need the added security of being able to count automatically where they need to come in, etc., without having to think about it all the time. (A soloist, who traditionally memorizes music, doesnā€™t need to worry about this nearly as much, since the soloist only needs to coordinate with one other body (the accompanist or conductor), and if the soloist gets off or miscounts the accompanist will generally figure out how to stay on course with the soloist. Note that the accompanist almost always plays with music.) Of course, there are string quartet pieces _cough_Pachebelā€™s Canon_cough_ where no musician whoā€™s been playing more than a couple of years should really have to use music šŸ™‚ On a related note, **Sam Stone** is absolutely right, at least in my experience as a violinist. I trained Suzuki, which means I learned a lot of things by ear, and I also have good sight reading skills, and the two ways of learning seem very different to me (think about memorizing a poem or a quote by a) reading it over and over again, or b) hearing someone speak it over and over again, and you might see what I mean ā€“ the picture in your head of the poem is very different even though you might be able to memorize it pretty well both ways). ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/53 "2009-06-25T17:21:04Z")
When I played in a professional symphony, we would often receive the sheet music on Friday. Rehearsals would start Monday. You needed to know the music by then. ā€œKnowā€ as in ā€œbe able to play it with good intonation and without mistakesā€. Memorizing a 2+ hour program in a few days was not going to happen. Keep in mind all these folks had day jobs as well. Starting Monday, we would have 4-5 rehearsals (string has 2 rehearsals on Monday), then a concert Friday and Saturday evenings. For a pop concert, such as when we played with Tony Bennett, we would only have one rehearsal. This was the first time we would see the music. The concert would be that evening. This music was a bit easier. Again, no chance to memorize it. I think itā€™s easier to memorize a solo piece than an orchestral piece of the same length. For me at least, melodies are easier than disjointed accompaniment. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/54 "2009-06-25T17:55:16Z")
I think part of it has to do with repeated passages. In a typical rock song thereā€™s basically verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus. And most of the material is pretty simple, just chords or a riff. In jazz itā€™s just a tune with some chord changes, and everything else is improvised. And the chord changes are repeated until every musicianā€™s ego has been stroked. Classical very often has very little repeated material. In a symphony the first movement might have one very long repeated section, but even then possibly in a different key. I remember talking to a violist about the opening section of Das Rhinegold. The viola part is this kind of sparkly trilly stuff that goes on for like seven hours, **and never repeats at all**. It would be like trying to memorize pi to the millionth digit. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/55 "2009-06-25T23:04:10Z")
Iā€™ve several classical-musician friends and they agree with most of whatā€™s said here, particularly with ā€œgettingā€ an unfamiliar piece quickly. Another good reason for the sheet music is that, while rehearsing, eacvh condcutor will give different instructions, so even if you know the notes, you have to look for you annotations regarding how the conductor wants them played. all classicla musicians bring pencil and erase r to the rehearsal. As for rock drummer, most of the time you just keep the same pattern and even most of your fills are pretty much the same. Good classical percusionists not only played drum et al, you must play ā€œmusicalā€ percussion (e.g. xylophone, vibraphone) and hold your on on a piano. Of course, the ā€œworstā€ is the sometimes endless rests. You can see horn players countng with their fingers when they have 3 or 4 barsā€™ rest, try that for 40! ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2009, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622/56 "2009-06-26T07:25:57Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > [You donā€™t need conductors, you donā€™t need sheet music, you just need to think about it.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeygf4L7l0A) I really thought this was going to be a link to a bit of The Music Man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-classical-musicians-need-to-read-music/500622.md?page=2)