Music Is Being Taught Wrong
As songs have become divorced from their sheet music, music students are still taught to worship the score.
Ask any kid who’s taken piano lessons to play “Moonlight Sonata,” and they’ll be able to recite it from memory. Same goes with “Fur Elise,” “Clair de Lune,” or any other piece in the childhood classical piano canon. However, ask them for a simple rendition of “Shake It Off,” and nine times out of ten they’ll refuse, stating that they never learned it, or that they’d need to look at sheet music first.
Without trying to sound like an old man shouting at clouds about how music has devolved, I think anyone would agree that “Moonlight Sonata” is much more complex than “Shake It Off.” The former has intricate harmonies, changing melodies, and three entire movements to memorize, while the latter can be summed up in four chords, a repeating verse + chorus, and a total three minute runtime.1 So why can’t the piano student figure it out?
Music education is centered around the music score. Students are taught how to read sheet music, play the notes on the page, and practice until they’ve burned it into their muscle memory. To most students, a song is just a collection of notes to play in a certain order. Without a score in front of them, casual music students2 are helpless—they’ve only ever learned music through reading. Asking them to reproduce a pop song contradicts the framework they’ve been taught throughout their entire music education—music must be written down to be played!
In the past, this paradigm mirrored how music was actually composed, shared, and performed. Beethoven composed his pieces with ink and paper, writing parts in parallel and only hearing them come together when he handed his score to an orchestra. The music was the score; any deviation from what was written, and the piece would no longer be Beethoven.
The opposite is true for contemporary music. Taylor Swift isn’t spending her days in Sibelius; she’s in a studio, improvising until she finds something that works. She’s immediately playing back what she recorded and hearing it in real time. You can sing “Shake It Off” in Spanish, add an accordion, and change the key, and it’s still a Swift song!
Music has evolved, but music education hasn’t yet caught up. Why are piano students still worshipping the music score instead of embracing the contemporary definition of what a song is?
It’s been four years since I started playing bass, yet I’ve never learned a song from start-to-finish. I don’t know the note names associated with each fret—if you asked me to play a C, I’d have to think about it first. And yet, I’d consider my journey with bass a success so far. I’m able to jam with friends and even post short covers on Youtube.
The way I teach myself instruments is contrary to traditional music education, and I truly believe it is superior. I’ll find a song I want to play on bass, whether it be jazz, pop, or rock. Then, I’ll play the song out loud, trying my best to sync up with the track. I know my basic scale shapes, and I know how to pick out the relative notes of a line—if the bass line goes 1, 2, 5, 2, 3, I can play the corresponding degrees in the scale with the correct rhythm. After I’ve figured that out, I can pick out the chord progression—if I know the song goes IV, V, iii, vi, I can stick to chord tones and improvise for variation!
Nowhere in this process did I look up a bass tab or even the chord progression. I’m able to use my ear to pick out these elements, and use them as a basis for playing and improvising on a rough rendition of the song. Jamming with friends who also have this ability is remarkably fun! If I call out "Please Please Please,” everyone in the practice room can take five minutes to figure it out on their own instrument, and then we come together and play without ever practicing beforehand. This form of musicking is much more social—instead of standing awkwardly while your pianist friend tries to impress you with Rachmaninoff, you get to join in on a shared experience.
Also, I’d like to remark that these ear training skills are incredibly transferable. When I strapped into an accordion for the first time a few months ago, I was able to play some basic songs within the first hour without needing to read sheet music or sit through Youtube tutorials. As soon as I knew how to play chords and a melody, I could apply my theory knowledge.
I believe music education would benefit from embracing this contemporary paradigm in which music is separated from its transcriptions. The most obvious benefit is that it creates for much more engaging class– and practice–time, especially for kids: instead of playing the same section over and over while trying to cram it into your muscle memory, practice looks like “band rehearsal” with friends where you get to play your favorite pop repertoire!
One distinction: you can’t teach this sort of music theory with textbooks and exams. Even if you know all about harmony and have memorized the circle of fifths, you’re still not going to have an intuitive understanding of it without the practice of ear training. Being able to pick out the melody and chord progression of a song is achieved through consistent repetition. You can understand the physics and engineering of how a bike works, but that doesn’t make you able to ride a bike.
So, how can you start learning in a way that’s in-line with the state of contemporary music? Next time you’re listening to Spotify, idly try to identify the scale degrees of each note in the melody, or the roman numeral of each chord. Keep your instrument at-hand so you can pull it out and try to play along. Before you reach for sheet music downloads, try figuring it out yourself! Songs are not their transcriptions, and transcriptions are not their songs; if you play a slightly different bassline or introduce an accidental but pleasing reharmonization, you’re still playing the song. Do learn “textbook” music theory basics so you can communicate with other musicians, but remember that ear training is more important than knowing the definition of an “authentic cadence.” And get in the studio with your friends and have an awesome time musicking together.
To be clear, I don’t think “Shake It Off” is less valuable or “worse” than “Moonlight Sonata” in any way! Complexity ≠ quality. I <3 pop music.
Intentionally excluded from discussion are professional musicians. Any musician worth their salt would be able to play any adequately simple piece by ear, as accompanists are paid to do.