Comment by H1Supreme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by H1Supreme | Hacker News Reader

Here's a few tips from a self-taught musician who couldn't read sheet music if you paid me to:

- Analyze songs that you like. While reading sheet music (as other's have mentioned) is certainly a good approach, take time to find songs you actually enjoy listening to. If the song is guitar driven (as many are in today's popular music), you can find "tabs" online. They're a little weird to decipher at first, but you'll be able to extract the notes, and transpose it to piano.

- Then take a melody, for example, and play it back. What scale degrees are they playing? Did they start on something other than the I (or i)? What part of the melody did you like, specifically? How did the melody change over the course of the song? Lots of little lessons to be learned. You can apply this to chords as well.

- Next, pay attention to the rhythm. I find this part left out of a lot of discussions surrounding music theory. When you play a note is as important, or often times, more important than the note itself. There's a seemingly infinite number of ways to play even the simplest set of notes.

- Finally, just play. Take whatever small lesson you learned, and improvise something. Over time, you'll commit all the little things you like to memory, and the music will just flow out of you (sorry if that sounds corny).

Came to say that nothing really beats the bottom-up approach you mention, but there WERE some top-down tools over my career that really helped me too:

- Understanding the circle of fifths (and just doing the exercise of playing a simple melody completely through it)

- Understanding the natural tones scale and its mathematical properties (simpler intervals with low integer fractions -> „nicer“ sounding intervals)

- Understanding Euler‘s Tonnetz for the multidimensional relationship of intervals

These were the backings letting me understand a lot of the rationale behind what happens on the keyboard (by all means, a keyboard based instrument makes it SO much easier to grok theory). Though in the end, if you want to play and compose, 80% is building intuition by just trying to first copy styles and second disassembling the chords and melodies behind.

Don't forget chord voicings!

Absolutely vital for harmony and basic arrangement

If someone asks about how to read sheet music faster, and you can't read it, it's ok to just not say anything

Did you read the title of the post? Or the last questions? Maybe take your own advice.

Michael Jackson never learned to read or write sheet music.

Many vocalists won’t have a deep understanding of music theory

That makes sense, but [1] lists 119 songs were Michael Jackson is the writer or co-writer. So reducing him to a vocalist [2] in this context makes little sense to me.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Mich...

[2]: I'm not trying to say that being a vocalist is somehow "worse" than being a songwriter, just that removing a skill he clearly had (writing songs) is weird.

When artists buy songs they are given a credit for legal purposes (and I suppose vanity, too)

Do you have any sources for the claim that the songs written, composed and co-produced by Jackson were actually just bought?

Most of the songs I went through from Jackson where he appear to be a writer, as the history of him writing and producing the song. Of course, he got plenty of help. But I don't think it's fair to reduce him as using ghost-writers/producers for his songs, people seem to be properly credited.

Oh I’m not claiming that about MJ. He had written songs, even some of his hits, it is just that you can’t just always look at song credits to see what’s what. MJ had written some of his songs, collaborated, and also had songs written for him at different times. He wasn’t using ghostwriters as far as I know. I could have been more clear on that.

Out of curiosity, is there any source to endorse that?

I mean, it certainly takes a MJ to get to this level without music theory, but if the fact is confirmed... wow! (Tried to phrase it properly but "wow" conveys best that I'm speechless)

There are lots. Here's one: https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-incredible-way-micha...

"without music theory"

Reading sheet music is not music theory

Also, historically, most people who made music probably never read music. I'm thinking of everyone from troubadours to traveling musicians to that great uncle who plays the mandolin or grandfather who plays the fiddle or the aunt who sings in the local church choir. It was all learned by ear from others, memorized, and improvised. Indeed, historically, improvisation was what characterized the musician and musicianship, not the ability to read music. That is a recent development.

If Michael Jackson indeed never learned to read music, then it would seem he is rather representative of the historical case rather than an exception. He grew up in a musical family and so he was always in an environment that constantly exercised the faculties involved. And we're talking popular music, after all, not some complicated orchestral work or composition.

Quincy Jones OTOH, had a very extensive musical education.

Irving Berlin couldn't read music and could only play the piano in F-sharp, so he had a piano build that could transpose to any key[1] and had someone to transcribe his music for him for publication.

[1] https://youtu.be/bO8VZoRw214

Why F#? When I play blues on the piano I tend to play in C (first one I learnt) or Eb. I've noticed Stevie Wonder plays in Eb a lot presumably because he can more easily identify the black notes by feel and Eb blues is mainly black keys.

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