Chet discusses reading music
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:27 am
Over the years little has been said about Chet's ability to read music. He had a stock line "I do, but not enough to hurt my playing." which I always thought discouraged people from learning this valuable skill.
There is a clip of a series called “Yesteryear” on YouTube, a series of interviews hosted by Archie Campbell.
He does a four part set with Chet Atkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGHgtn--ELc
in which he asks Chet if he read music.
With no hesitation Chet said “Yes I do,” and went on to describe riding along with his father, who taught music on piano and voice and picking it up as he went along.
Then he made reference to his brother Jim Atkins working with him to learn to read music. He said he didn’t start reading classical guitar music until the fifties. He discussed the difficulty of sight reading music on a guitar due to the repetition of notes on the fingerboard. He claimed to be a “bar at a time” reader but said just reading melody lines was fairly easy.
At Campbell’s urging Chet explained the “Nashville Number System” and vocalized how it worked by singing the numbers as used in “Wildwood Flower.”
There were little nuggets during this portion of the interview when it was obvious that Chet had absorbed his father’s teaching in voice because he would sing part of a scale to illustrate a point. In his teaching DVD “The Guitar of Chet Atkins” you can hear him singing the chords he is demonstrating. Particularly on the song "The Lady Loves." He sings the melody and sings the chord names as they occur.
_____________
So there you have it. Learn how to read music even if only a little... It is a great tool...
There is a clip of a series called “Yesteryear” on YouTube, a series of interviews hosted by Archie Campbell.
He does a four part set with Chet Atkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGHgtn--ELc
in which he asks Chet if he read music.
With no hesitation Chet said “Yes I do,” and went on to describe riding along with his father, who taught music on piano and voice and picking it up as he went along.
Then he made reference to his brother Jim Atkins working with him to learn to read music. He said he didn’t start reading classical guitar music until the fifties. He discussed the difficulty of sight reading music on a guitar due to the repetition of notes on the fingerboard. He claimed to be a “bar at a time” reader but said just reading melody lines was fairly easy.
At Campbell’s urging Chet explained the “Nashville Number System” and vocalized how it worked by singing the numbers as used in “Wildwood Flower.”
There were little nuggets during this portion of the interview when it was obvious that Chet had absorbed his father’s teaching in voice because he would sing part of a scale to illustrate a point. In his teaching DVD “The Guitar of Chet Atkins” you can hear him singing the chords he is demonstrating. Particularly on the song "The Lady Loves." He sings the melody and sings the chord names as they occur.
_____________
So there you have it. Learn how to read music even if only a little... It is a great tool...