Musically gifted or no?

>>17448450

Now the reason I ask this is because I don't know what traits qualify as being musically gifted.

Frankly, who cares if you're musically gifted?

If you like playing music and you're good at it, then that's good enough right?

Reading music is a skill you haven't learned because you're lazy. There is literally nothing to it except learning. Take a class at community college so you have a teacher and accountability and you will learn it. It has nothing to do with being musically gifted.

there is no real line between "not gifted" and "gifted". Your abilities are what they are.

>>17448474

But people are still considered gifted regardless if there's no "fine line." You can't deny that, a small child who learns how to play Beethoven's Symphonies better than adults will be considered a prodigy.

>>17448467

Sorry, let me rephrase what I said in the OP comment. I can read notes, but my main issue is tempo and timing. That's what fucks me up when reading music, basic things like rests screw me over when I'm playing.

>>17448463

Pretty much, to me, if you're not enjoying what you play, you should reconsider what you're doing. But asking this question isn't causing any harm.

>>17448486

So you have started to learn, but you haven't learned everything: because you're lazy. It's not magic. You don't have to get a letter from Hogwarts. You just learn it, and anyone can do it.

If I were a psychology-minded person, I'd say you were afraid to learn, because you like having this excuse for why you're not an acclaimed and fabulously successful musician, despite your patting yourself on the back for learning instruments quickly.

>>17448482
Yes but clearly you aren't an extreme case like that. You exist in the grey area that most serious musicians find themselves in, from Robert Johnson to David Bowie to a guy playing on a street corner. I'm sure you're better than hundreds of thousands of musicians, and I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of musicians better than you. No point in trying to quantify something so inherently subjective.

>>17448486
Nah, like the other guy says, this is simply a matter of work and practice. Try clapping out the rhythm a few times before you begin to play.

>>17448510

Whoever said anything about becoming a "fabulously successful musician?" You've just been calling me lazy for the past two comments because hurr durr durr I don't learn how to read music, DESPITE the fact that I just explained what my main problem is, tempo and rhythm is something that not everyone can follow right off the bat and I can say this because I've performed in numerous symphonies and have had lessons with multiple people. Of course this is anecdotal but take it or leave it, it's clearly something that can't be learned, you just have to feel it. Yes you can count beats, but how well you can follow it when playing differs with your natural ability to follow it. This does not have an effect on how well you can play an instrument, but how well you can read music.

>If I were a psychology-minded person
But you're fucking not, you're just typing out of your ass now. So even thinking "if" is useless because you're making a groundless statement based on your feelings.

>because you like having this excuse
Again, no one said anything about being an acclaimed and fabulously successful musician. You assume that because I can't follow rhythm and tempo well, I'm lazy. Aside from basic knowledge, whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, repeats, codas, dynamics, there's not much to learn. My problem rests in a case of being able to apply tempo and rhythm to these notes. This is something as I mentioned earlier that can't be learned. For example, not everyone can tap their foot on the beat to their favorite song simply because they don't have the natural ability to follow rhythm.

>>17448521

Mostly a good post, but read >>17448563

>>17448563

No, it's simply something you learn. Practice moar. Assuming your "incredibly fast learning pace" and "excelling your peers" and "incredible muscle memory, etc, is not bullshit, you have a natural talent so you are not used to working. It's just like smart kids who get to college and find out they don't know how to study and their less-smart peers are flying past them because they learned this skill in high school.

Take a class. You're mystifying a completely normal process. It's not magic. You can learn it. But not on your own. I don't mean playing in a symphony with people who have better things to do than teach you how to read music.

What you do with this skill can be magic, but learning it isn't. You can't learn to be (insert your favorite musician here). But you can learn to read music and follow the beat. It just takes more discipline than you're used to.

>>17448450
being able to learn songs from ear is MUCH more useful and practical than relying on a sheet.

I know people who cannot improvise whatsoever and struggle to play without a sheet since theyve relied on sheets for years.

If youre playing the guitar then dont worry about a formal education in music unless you really want to get graded.

Some of the best players like Tommy Emmanuel never learned how to read yet he is a remarkable song writer and player.

i believe you have more freedom without sheets

your average on guitar OP, you have some skills and strengths and weaknesses.

Guitarists who don't start strictly classical overwhelmingly have this problem more then every other instrument, it's cultural in terms of what learning resources are out there.

I learned to read no a different instrument (violin) and that made it easier to learn guitar, they're really different instruments.

Things that tend to be useful on guitar are being able to quickly interpret chords and build voicing, and knowing all of your scales and modes.

I would look into private lessons, most guitar teachers worth their salt should be able to show you what you need to deal with basic notation.

Most people have to 'rebuild' most their technique after 5 years and unlearn a lot of bad habits that hold you back. If you keep working on it in another 5 years you'll probably be a pretty well rounded musician.

>>17448871

I wasn't referring to guitar in my main post, sorry if you were mislead by the thumbnail it was the only picture of an instrument I had on my PC.

>>17448748
I agree, I would take learning songs from ear any day. It feels more natural and when I do learn things by ear I feel more in touch with the music I'm playing.

>>17448629
I still disagree with what you said, rhythm and tempo do not click for certain people, I can provide more anecdotal evidence for you (being in a marching band watching kids miss steps even after months of practice, and this wasn't just one step, they were off for like 10 measures). It's like singing, singing is so much more different than learning an instrument because of the way you have to go about learning it. You're born with your natural voice, but some people no matter how hard they try only improve slightly. I've taken music classes ever since elementary school through high school, during lessons we just practiced the same music, we played the same songs, but when it came to a new song the timing of the beats and everything was something that did not come naturally to me. I was taught how to count in half time as well as other metres, if you give me a sheet of music I can count out all the notes to you according to the time signature, but when it comes to playing my natural instinct is to play what I feel, and not play by the rhythm that's written on the page. This isn't a matter of discipline, this is a matter of instinct.

>>17448450
if your music instructor told you yo uwere.

>>17448871

Anyways, I actually picked up guitar two months ago, I've learned all the main chords (G, D, C, E minor, E major, A, A minor, Cadd9) One thing I'm not so great at is strumming, I've been playing fingerstyle these past two months since it's more fun for me. I don't take lessons for it because guitar is something you can easily learn on your own. I'm not really sure about classical guitar, though. But, most of the people who I know who are into music picked up the electric guitar and tried learning everything on electric. And they learned all modern songs as well. Let me tell you, once they played their first acoustic guitar it was a fucking trainwreck.

>>17448912
What instrument are you playing?
For basically every other instrument learning notation is massively advantageous.

Rhythm is strongly tied to notation also, you need a conceptual framework in which to code idea's. If you work on harder sheet music you'll get better at it.

Basically, you just need to play more.

Also, bargaining with yourself as to why you don't need to learn notation is flawed.

A lot of styles won't 'require' it but it's a universally good idea, it makes individual study more productive, will open up new styles and concepts, it's defacto required if you ever want to teach or get anything out of the school system.

That being said I do both, sometimes I just play, sometimes I read.

>>17448928
you are not musically gifted.

>>17448941

Depends, sometimes I play saxophone, piano, cello, guitar, or sing. I don't really classify the voice as an instrument, though. I agree learning notation is key if you want to play pieces and have a more in-depth experience with the music that you play. Good post.

>>17448954

Yeah? Your mom's not musically gifted.

>>17448954

Just kidding, but she's only gifted on one instrument, and that's the skin flute. Love the way she blows it.