During a late night rehearsal, MD the music director gives Ham the drummer some sheet music to rehearse with, but Ham has yet to reveal his hidden secret.
It was 2001.
Walking through the hallways of the Cerritos College music department I recognized my buddy Dave, a total musical monster on the keyboards. We joined together in the gospel choir that semester. Our conversation started with music of course, and then we suddenly ventured into the importance of music theory and reading music. I suggested that it was important to know all you can about it, but he on the other hand had the exact opposite opinion. So.. we battled it out for awhile to prove who was right. No one came out the victor.
It turns out that we both were correct. There are lots of successful musicians in the world that can read music and those that can’t read music.
I eventually came to the conclusion that we need both skills in order to become musical monsters and not musical midgets.
As time passed Dave and I went about our lives after college. Years later we bumped into each other at a local gig. He was raving to me on how he’s growing as a musician and told me a similar story as the one described above. He repented as a musician and started learning everything he could about music theory.
Now I can honestly say that he is no longer a musical midget, but now a musical MONSTER! GRRRR!!!!
This was a fun one to teach and thanks for reading.
Adios…