The Musical Crutch

Like most guitar players, I am 99% self taught. The guitar, being a folk instrument, (Meaning regular folks can easily play it) lends itself to personal experimentation. With half a dozen chords under your belt, you can accompany thousands of songs. Lots of folks do this, and actually think they are "Guitarists". But the guitar is a complex instrument that you could spend your whole life learning and perfecting, and still be a very long way from knowing everything. For example, a classical artist such as Christopher Parkening knows his stuff on the classical guitar, but (I'm guessing here) knows very little about blues, or bluegrass. But, I digress.

Being that I am self taught, I know precious little about music theory. When I look at a score, I don't see music; I see spots before my eyes.
Hey Rick, do you read music? - Not enough to hurt my playing! Haw Haw Haw!!
Actually, it hurts a lot. When I see the piano player sit down in front of a complex score and play it without even knowing the tune, I'm impressed. Knowing how to read separates the Musicians from the Duffers.
Having a good ear, and a feel for the music has enabled me to compensate quite well over the years, but I'm often confronted with my shortcomings. Oh, how I would love to be able to do what the piano player does and just play from the score.

Well, help has arrived... sort of. Technology has come to the rescue. There is a software company named Sibelius. They offer a program called G7 that is very useful for folks like me. With this program, you can take a piece of printed music, scan it into the program, and the program will play the piece so you can hear it. The software will also analyze the notes and tell you what the chords are! How cool is that? It's absolutely a-flippin'-mazing!
So once the program plays the tune for me, I'm off and running. I can then play it by ear. OK, so it's not as good as actually learning to read, but it sure helps.

If you are one of those illiterate guitarists like me, check it out. It may not make you a better musician, but it will save you the embarrassment of having to ask the pianist to write out the chords for you!

Cheers,
Rick