I can read, and apparently really well, too. Sightreading is pretty easy for me. Im not sure if this influences anything, but I also have perfect pitch.
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shanghai
i took piano lessons for a year or two in high school. but i never really learnt shit. but it helped me to realise i had no interest in reading other music that had already been written. i hated piano for that. i only enjoyed playing when i found an empty piano room at school and i could just make up simple melodies to play and stuff like that. try to work out the lead melody of some songs i liked by ear but that was about it..... it was only years after when i got a midi keyboard and acoustik piano when i was about 18 that i started to make tunes and really practice just playing piano or synth for about an hour every day. i still play atleast a few hours a week id say, when im not making songs, usually im doing it in ableton so i can record if anything awesome comes out. aside from that i learned a lot of sigur ros, radiohead,coldplay (yes coldplay),deathcab songs that had melodies i loved. I learned them just by watching people play on youtube and writing the notes like C D A B etc and then teaching myself by repitition. I'd say once id got down with some harder stuff, spinning plates by radiohead for example was a challenge for my skill level, but once i got that down, and some sigur ros songs, i had a decent enough understanding of what notes go with what, and what notes clash but still sound nice haha id love to be able to read sheet music for sure, but i know i never have the patience and concentration to do it.i guess ultimately when i sit at a keyboard now, the desire is to start making a tune and to relax, rather than using my brain to learn something my brain tells me is boring. sorry, stoned typing essay. just taking a quick break from max payne 3 yo
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shanghai
also its obvious to me when i hear people like Fear of Dark, that its a person that can read music and understands musical theory. There's lot of artists i hear making 8 bit stuff that i can tell are properly trained im sure of that.
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Philadelphia, PA
I think I'd be much better at reading if I didn't have a good ear (if I may say so). For me, it's always been so much more organic, productive and, frankly, easier to rely on just listening and learning/reacting. If I wasn't able to do that, I'd force myself to read better but to be honest, so far I've been able to get away with it this way 
I have played bass in orchestras and such where I had to read, but usually it ends up working out that I'll study and learn the music on my own time and basically memorize or just do what feels right during the performance, using the printed music as kind of just a guide in case something goes horribly wrong. In general I'm good (or at least I used to be) at recognizing notes but horrible at rhythms.
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The Multiverse ::: [CA, Sac]
Not any more. I'm notoriously rebellious of classical notions of music. (Notation, fingerings, theory) One of my piano teachers saw my fingerings and knew it was wrong but said it works for me and never bothered me again. She was a real stickler too. But if given time I can pick it back up.
I have a really good memory/muscle memory for music.
On a related note: I can sightread from a daw piano roll while it's playing pretty well. Sometimes I convert sheet music onto one just to read it.
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washington
I'm a current band geek (going into drum corps next year) and pretty much everything I do is music-related, so kinda. I have a very basic understanding of music theory (mostly pertaining to chord structure and progressions) and I try to apply that to the music I write.
Edit: French horn is for winners 
Last edited by basspuddle (Aug 31, 2012 5:11 pm)
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Austin, Texas
TheBronyChip wrote:
the bass clef I'm totally lost when i see it
They are the same, except everything is notationally transposed down by one line / three half steps.
So, the bottom line in a treble clef staff is E. On a bass clef, it is G.
As I said earlier, this is because it maintains accurate notation when you write in a grand staff:
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basspuddle wrote:
(going into drum corps next year)
LUCKY. What corps?
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Brighton/Southampton
an0va wrote:
I've always thought that was crazy how pianists can sightread dual clef action. I imagine one clef being okay, because one note has one location on the piano (middle C is...middle C). But on a six string guitar that same middle C can be found on five different strings in five different positions and all are fair game to play from.
Learning to read music for guitar sounds like a handfull. As you said, there are many possible different ways to play a melody on guitar. Then again, I know almost nothing about guitars and music notation for them (except that they use tab notation) 
I tried learning guitar for a bit, but it wasn't really my thing.
Sight reading for piano is really just difficult because there's sometimes lots of stuff going on at once. It can get especially entertaining when there's three/four part counterpoint going on. Other than that, it ain't too bad as it doesn't transpose and as you said, there's only one place to play a note.
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Brazil
Clefs are easy, just look what line it stand. We call it the Bass Clef here as Fa Clef and the Treble Sol Clef, which is F and G. So from that line you can go up and down. Is not that crazy and obscure. The Bass Clef actually have the punctuation of where is the respective line, but the Treble is there too, you can see it where it makes the swirl on the second line (from bottom to top). And the C-Clef goes the same way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clef
Is not that hard, is it?
Also, I can read, but to write and actually play what's written, is a totally diferent story.
Last edited by Subway Sonicbeat (Aug 31, 2012 6:06 pm)
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KC
I can, because my piano teacher is hot and I want to impress her.
That's a true story.
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brooklyn
I'm studying music tech at NYU and we still have to take a decent bit of music theory, ear training, piano, history, and performance classes. So yes, I can read music quite easily...
playing instruments, on the other hand........
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Tacoma, WA
I learned, like many, classical piano before expanding into playing percussion for my school's band then delving into guitar and finally chiptune. As for being able to read sheet music, I find it important, but I myself am no good at all at being able to sightread and play something. I usually figure out what it is I am playing through by going through it slowly a few times before really amping it up. I think that everyone interested in any sort of musical composition should know as much musical theory as they can so that when they go through their weird Avant-garde phase they can write something in the Mixolydian mode.
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Savannah, Georgia
can't read music, probably never will read music
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Westfield, NJ
basspuddle wrote:
Edit: French horn is for winners
are you familiar with these guys? http://frenchhornrebellion.com/
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AANABAY01
im self taught and skipped the sheet music stage entirely