# Why Don't Rock Musicians Need Musical Scores? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2008, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192 "2008-07-20T23:00:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/21 "2008-07-21T06:06:55Z")
Actually, some aged rockers do use lyric sheets, they just do it in a way that is not as obvious to the audience. Most folks have noticed the [wedge-shaped speakers](http://www.meyersound.com/news/2001/india_adams/web/india_stage_monitor.jpg) sitting on the stage, facing up to the performer. In some cases, one or more of the boxes contains a video monitor instead, connected to a computer running teleprompter software comparable to that used by TV newscasters. Someone off to the side scrolls through the song to remind the performer of the lyrics. I first noticed this when The Who toured the very lyrics-heavy “Quadrophenia” a number of years ago. Guest vocalists Billy Idol and Gary Glitter used them extensively. Otherwise, they have to rely on reading the lips of the people in the front row. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/22 "2008-07-21T06:49:00Z")
I saw the Who in concert in 2002, at what turned out to be their first concert after John Entwistle’s death. The group had recruited Pino Palladino to play bass for them on less than a week’s notice, and he used sheet music, presumably because he hadn’t had enough time to commit all the bass parts to memory by then. When I saw the group again in 2006, he did just fine without any sheet music. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/23 "2008-07-21T07:24:40Z")
[QUOTE=Gukumatz] Came in to mention this, actually. I bet _It’s The End Of The World As I Know It (And I Feel Fine)_ would be a royal pain in the ass if he didn’t. [/QUOTE] I would be tempted to think that’s one of the songs he’d be least worried about. It’s such a blur of free association that, if he did happen to make a mistake during a performance, it would pretty much fit right in. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/24 "2008-07-21T10:04:40Z")
Mainly the music is an order of magnitude simpler, much more repetition, standard patterns, fewer modulations. [QUOTE=Huerta88] So how do they (generally) manage not to totally forget or mess up the music, when a concert pianist or symphony member can’t do this so easily? [/QUOTE] Rock bands are generally going to be playing their own music. So rather like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy if it’s wrong, then it’s _defintively_ wrong. Even a messed up version is correct. In any case there’s more wiggle room in rock music, in classical music there is essentialy none. A gigging band will have played any given song hundreds of times. I learned to read music mostly after I stopped gigging, I learned because I wanted to play Bach (Mozart etc. That crowd) and you have to be much more talented than I am to play that stuff by ear. I resort to dots for Steely Dan, which is about as complex as rock music gets. And I bought the (ahem) sheet music for System of a Down’s _Toxicity_ since I couldn’t figure out by ear what the hell they were up to. Otherwise all rock music I’ve learned by ear. I think it’s funny that you can buy sheet music for things like _Never Mind the Bollocks_. If you can’t figure that out by ear then. . . go back to guitar hero. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/25 "2008-07-21T10:26:54Z")
I know when it comes to lyrics, Billy Joel has spoken on how he has a book of lyrics on stage, but he doesn’t really USE them, it’s more a psychological thing. When he used a teleprompter (when touring w/Elton John) he found it confusing, as he’d start to focus on the words on the screen (“Hey Look! my stuff’s on TV!”), instead of the audience. When it came to songs like _We Didn’t Start The Fire_, he’d focus on an audience member who seemed to know the words, and just by watching he ‘knew’ he wouldn’t forget - because ‘if THAT guy could remember’ … (this is all on the fourth disc of his ‘greatest hits’ boxed set). ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/26 "2008-07-21T10:31:58Z")
[QUOTE=Gukumatz] Came in to mention this, actually. I bet _It’s The End Of The World As I Know It (And I Feel Fine)_ would be a royal pain in the ass if he didn’t. [/QUOTE] It is – my college _a cappella_ group covered this and I had lead vocals… with no sheet music. I only dropped the ball once and covered for it by saying “did you know Michael Stipe uses a lyrics sheet when he sings this? It’s true!” during one of the bridges. Huge applause. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/27 "2008-07-21T11:11:20Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] To be fair, their written music consists entirely of ‘annoy the foreigners’ in various typefaces. - **Derleth** , a fan of bagpipe music. [/QUOTE] I’d always assumed the bagpipes were designed as a weapon? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/28 "2008-07-21T11:40:19Z")
I’d also add to the above: in most situations where a rock band is playing, reading sheet music is rendered even more impractical by the conditions – ie, not sitting in a chair starting at a music stand with a clip light, but standing up (moving about, even) with poor lighting, or constantly changing lighting. I’d venture to guess that the abovementioned new bass player for The Who had chord sheets that he would glance at, and was not sightreading bass parts. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/29 "2008-07-21T11:57:13Z")
[QUOTE=Ichbin Dubist] I’d also add to the above: in most situations where a rock band is playing, reading sheet music is rendered even more impractical by the conditions – ie, not sitting in a chair starting at a music stand with a clip light, but standing up (moving about, even) with poor lighting, or constantly changing lighting. … [/QUOTE] Don’t forget the dry ice fog, strobe lights, giant plastic chrysalis and 18" model of Stonehenge with a dancing dwarf. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/30 "2008-07-21T13:31:58Z")
[QUOTE=Yookeroo] …classical musicians that play roughly the same set every night… [/QUOTE] Is there such a thing? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/31 "2008-07-21T15:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=Smapti] I saw the Who in concert in 2002, at what turned out to be their first concert after John Entwistle’s death. The group had recruited Pino Palladino to play bass for them on less than a week’s notice, and he used sheet music, presumably because he hadn’t had enough time to commit all the bass parts to memory by then. When I saw the group again in 2006, he did just fine without any sheet music. [/QUOTE] A band like the The Who has another advantage: They can mess up and get away with it. The improv and playing with the structure is part of the show. Pete is particularly gifted at screwing up and covering it up with a dive bomb or string bend to the correct note. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/32 "2008-07-21T19:56:33Z")
I played trumpet in school, then later switched to bass guitar. I started out using sheet music to learn rock songs, then quckly thre it out as worse than useless. On the neck of a guitar you can visualize a “roadmap” pegged out by 3 or 4 key frets. You can see the notes before you play them and look ahead to upcoming parts of the song. Eventually you develop “hand memory” and can visualize the neck, the chord progression, and even the associated scales without looking–all while balancing your checkbook in your head or scanning the room for cleavage. Keyboards are prertty much the same–you can see all the keys, so you know where the song is going. With wind instruments there are no visial cues. Upcoming notes are obscured behind the veil in your head created by the note you’re currently playing. So you need sheet music in order to look ahead. And a song’s cycle of peaks and valleys is less apparant on sheet music, making memorization all the more difficult. I don’t see the style of music as making much of a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/33 "2008-07-21T20:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] I’ve always wondered about this as it applies to prog rock. Did _Yes_ use staff paper to write out their songs when they were composing them? Did they read the notation in early rehearsals before being able to memorize it and play it in concert? Some prog rock is just ridiculously complicated and I can’t imagine how the musicians composed it without using notation. [/QUOTE] Yes’s music was very much written as **Mister Rik** described in post #4, point c. Jon Anderson might come in with a basic strum-along song he had written, other members would suggest ideas of their own that would fit in, and then the whole band would spend months in the studio hashing out the elaborate arrangements and instrumental interludes. They would notoriously get bogged down in arguing over tiny details, so by the time the music was ready to be played live, they all had it well memorized. ETA: Q: How do you get an electric guitarist to turn down his volume? A: Put sheet music in front of him. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/34 "2008-07-21T20:33:21Z")
[QUOTE=Ichbin Dubist] I’d venture to guess that the abovementioned new bass player for The Who had chord sheets that he would glance at, and was not sightreading bass parts. [/QUOTE] I’d guess that too. You don’t need to know every damn note in a song, just how the sections are arranged–i.e. verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, verse/solo, chorus, finale–and the chord progressions that make up these sections. A good player can then flesh out the “licks” in due time. As for the on-stage distractions, it’s a moot point because sheet music just plain isn’t neccessary going in. Memorizing a song on guitar is easier than you’d think. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/35 "2008-07-22T06:30:09Z")
[QUOTE=Smapti] I saw the Who in concert in 2002, at what turned out to be their first concert after John Entwistle’s death. The group had recruited Pino Palladino to play bass for them on less than a week’s notice, and he used sheet music, presumably because he hadn’t had enough time to commit all the bass parts to memory by then. When I saw the group again in 2006, he did just fine without any sheet music. [/QUOTE] Pino is one of my musical performance heros. If you like bass guitar, listen to Pino play a fretless. Find old Paul Young, or Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”. I don’t know what else he’s played on for official recordings. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/36 "2008-07-22T06:59:37Z")
As I see it, it makes more sense to ask the question the other way around, because classical music is the exception in its routine use of notation for performance. This is why many of the explanations already given are of this need rather than of why rock music avoids it. [QUOTE=Great Dave] And some classical musicians, primarily pianists, do memorize. [/QUOTE] It’s standard practice for any soloist in a concerto, for instance, and some conductors will do so with familiar repertoire (seeing the Rite of Spring conducted from memory is quite impressive). Opera singers couldn’t get away with using music, either! [QUOTE=CookingWithGas] A classical musician might spend 1-4 weeks learning a piece for a performance, then not play it again for months, years, or ever. A classical musician typically does not have much time to learn a piece, and reading music is an essential part of their education. I have heard stories of classical musicians doing a couple of cold read-throughs and then doing a recording [/QUOTE] In the UK, we’ve got something of an extreme, with two rehearsals per concert or recording as standard practice for orchestras. (4 weeks? Luxury! Rolled-up newspaper, damp cloth, etc. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/37 "2008-07-22T10:12:10Z")
One of my friends is a professional jazz pianist based in New Orleans (although he has toured the world). He can more or less sight read any sheet music, but doesn’t usually bother with it (not necessary / distraction). I asked him how many actual songs he had memorised, and he said the total was probably soemwhere between 400 - 420, and building all the time. This struck me as incredible… I can’t even think of 400 songs I’ve ever heard, so I can’t imagine carrying the music for so many tunes around in my head. My pianist friend explained that what he had in his head for each song wasn’t a full score, so to speak, of every note for both left and right hand, start to finish, so much as a pattern or template that sufficed to enable him to play the song. The pattern might go something like ‘tonic, tonic, sub-dominant…’ and so on, plus a basic awareness of how the bass line is supposed to go, a basic sense of the usual rhythmic pattern that most people would use with that song… and that was enough for him to ‘get by’. He also pointed out, as many posters have done here, that an awful lot of popular tunes involve a lot of repetition, so all he needs to know is one riff, one verse and one chorus, and he’s good to go for an 8 minute extended version of the song. Of course, it helps that he is a superb and highly talented player. He’s called Joshua Paxton, and if you ever get the chance to hear him play, take it. He will amaze you. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/38 "2008-07-22T13:57:53Z")
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas] Is there such a thing? :dubious: [/QUOTE] I think **Yookeroo** may have been thinking of something like the orchestra in a musical, which can, indeed, play the same tunes for months. Often when they’ve been doing a long run they do discard the sheets altogether. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/39 "2008-07-22T16:49:02Z")
As I play along in the game _Rock Band_, it occurs to me that bands like Fallout Boy that I thought were rather lame, are actually playing some complicated music. It would take me a LOT of practice to be able to play fluently without following the on-screen cues. And stuff like Metallica and Keith Moon’s drumming are just insane. Maybe it’s too fast to read the music? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192/40 "2008-07-22T17:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=control-z] Maybe it’s too fast to read the music? [/QUOTE] It’s too fast to _write_ it as well. 😃 But even musicians who are reading music are very often playing from memory. It’s not always possible to play very intricate or quick passages by eye. Very often musicians, whether classical or popular, are relying on the muscle memory of their hands to get through complicated bits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-rock-musicians-need-musical-scores/457192.md?page=3)