Does music literacy make or break an aspiring singer/songwriter?

I grew up in the ’90s, took piano lessons, played in the school band, and sang. I was SO fortunate to have had so many progressive, young music educators as an adolescent. We weren’t taught EGBDF mnemonics or expected to memorize key signatures: we experience functional musicianship. How does a song work? How are the sections structured? Why did the composer choose this text? Can you feel the small and large beats?

So whenever I was put in a situation in which the objective was to purely memorize information, be it in a musical or academic context, I would ask, “but why? Why is this important?”

Photo Cred: Pablo

Frank Sinatra is one of the most influential singers of the 20th century. The man could not read a note. BUT he possessed innate musicality and artistry. If you listen to his outtakes of his recording sessions with Capitol Records, Sinatra recorded multiple takes of scat riffs, asked to change the meters of songs to give them new life, and constantly embellished the existing melody. These were no accidents of an “illiterate” musician but rather, intentional acts of musicality.

This begs the question: are legitimate musicians only those who can read music?

If the answer is yes, we’d alienate a lot of successful artists. Musical behaviors and instincts are often quashed by well-intentioned attempts to force literacy. Image if when you started to read your first language, you were forced to spell out every single word as you spoke. That would be infuriating- you’d give up. (Note, this analogy was originally made by Gerold Eskelin, it is not my own). So why do we practice this in music?

With the advent of devices such as ipads, we can allow kids to tap into their musical inclinations in ways we were not able to before. Kids can compose music through alternative notation, by auditory perception (hearing a melody), combining sound loops with the same meter, and by playing digital instruments. Is this legitimate music making? Of course it is! It requires the same neurological processes (hearing, reasoning, deducing, synthesizing, to name a few).

Singers particularly suffer a negative image when they struggle to read standard notation and very promising singers are often discouraged from continuing when they reach a certain level in their musicianship. Unless their job is to sight-read on the spot (I’ve had a few of those gigs) OR they are expected to be literate (this happens predominantly in classical music), then yes, literacy is paramount. But there are SO many other genres of music. And hey, I’ve met great pianists… who cannot read. They simple figured out the “grammatical tendencies” of music and used their sense of touch to navigate around the keyboard. I’ve had family members like this!

Music is a medium of art that exists through sound. Do you make sounds? Great! You’re invited to the party! We musicians just figure out how to manipulate sounds.

Literacy is important and does contribute to an overall positive trajectory for music-making, and I DO teach it. But musical behaviors and habits are always more important. You are allowed to make music if you are a sound making human. Music just happens to be organized sound.