Eyes & Ears by JC Magsalin

Eyes & Ears by JC Magsalin

I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding the importance of sight reading from my fellow bass players. Here’s my take on this matter.

Having the skill to read notes off a music sheet or book is definitely an advantage. For one thing, there are tons of books out there that teach you a lot about theory, practice techniques, transcriptions of music, and other music related topics. The only way that the music can be translated to visual instruction is by notating it on paper. Being able to read these invaluable information will maximize your learning experience in music.

Another advantage of reading music is being able to play notated music that you haven’t played or heard before with minimum practice time. I often experience this during session works with artists. Being in a session requires you to be able to play the music that’s written by the musical director and interpret it with little to no rehearsal.

But we must never disregard the value of a good ear. After all, music is an aural art form. For those who learn a song through listening and transcribing bass lines, you are developing your ears to hear the notes, as well as training your mind and body to react to where those notes are on the bass.

So for those who are still having trouble reading notes, don’t be hard on yourselves. Being able to learn a song by just listening to recordings is also beneficial to your playing.

That being said, our eyes and ears must work hand in hand to help us develop our skills as musicians. If you are a great sight reader, but have bad ears, it would be a good idea to buy some of those ear-training books and CD’s available out there. If you have great ears, but lack the sight reading skills, there are also books out there to train your eyes to sight read music (much so on basic music notation).