Hi Dmanx,
>I have heard that the Boom Town Rats, Sex Pistols and Pet Shop Boys cant read or write music, they just play by ear...is this true?
It's entirely possible, although based on some of the music I've heard from Mr. Geldorf, I suspect he knows at least a little about music theory.
However, it has little bearing on the question of whether a musician should bother to learn some musical theory and/or how to read and write music -- just as the fact that Eddie Van Halen is (was?) a classically-trained pianist of award-winning caliber has little bearing on the same topic.
I sense that you are looking for opinions that reinforce your own convictions, which seem to be, "for many styles of music, but especially for ambient and electronic music, musical training is unnecessary, and possibly irrelevant." My personal opinions are: 1) it is not absolutely necessary to study music to make music; and 2) studying music is still likely to make you a better creator of music. How and where you study music is up to you, but as a general rule those who study and understand a task do better at it than those who just perform the task. There are, of course notable exceptions, and you have to answer the question as to whether you are one of those exceptions. However, to say that ambient music has made learning music obsolete is oversimplification at best, and more likely plain wrong.
I am an engineer by trade, with a college degree in engineering. I have a good friend and peer who has never set foot in a college classroom; he has never formally studied engineering, yet he is every bit as good as any engineer I have met. He is, of course, an exception to the rule. Most engineers benefit from their training, as do most doctors, lawyers, carpenters, bookkeepers, truck drivers, and TV repairmen.
Written music is just a language, not all that different from English or Spanish. It's not necessary to know Spanish to visit Spain, but it may make the experience more fulfilling. Modern technology has made written music unnecessary in many situations, but there are still cases where written music can bridge a knowledge gap between two musicians: lack of a working CD player, incompatible recording formats, etc. If you are working with another musician, and he/she is not getting your ideas about the music, you could play a recording of the song to help her/him. But, if you both read and write music, you could also write out your ideas.
Music theory -- the way that notes interact with each other and the listener -- is even more important than written music, because it is a tool to help the player better understand the craft. Music is not just a random collection of sounds, just as a book is not just a random collection of letters and numbers. You don't have to take classes in music theory to understand some of what it is about. And, as others have mentioned, you don't have to get hung up on the rules; the pioneers in any field understand the rules, then the tend to ignore them!
Regards,
-BW
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Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™
http://consult.ashbysolutions.com978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@...