Of course it's best to be able to do both, but I would vote that the ability to play by ear is the more important skill.

In a thread about the difference between a "musician" and "somebody who plays music", somebody said something that made an impression on me: that there is a difference between being able to play tunes on your instrument, and being able to play your instrument.

In the first case, being able to play a tune means knowing the sequence of actions that you have to do to get the tune out of your instrument - and sheet music is essentially a set of directions telling you what to do with your fingers (or whatever).

On the other hand, you know how to play your instrument when it becomes like a second voice to you. When you speak, you don't have to think about the tongue movements that are necessary to produce the different letters, or have them written down for you. When you sing along with others, it's not work to sing at the same pitch (unless you're tone deaf), it comes naturally. That's what I would love to be able to do with my fiddle - be able to reach for a note just as automatically with my fiddle as I do with my voice.

There is a lovely descant to the hymn "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" that I know by memory, but my voice isn't high enough to sing it well. We were playing it in church recently and someone suggested I figure out and play that descant on the violin, which I did, and it was a little revelation for me. Although I had to figure the descant out by myself through trial and error rather than spontaneously with the organist, I was letting my instrument be my voice, and it was a wonderful feeling.

My first instrument was classical piano, and I've always been very sheet-oriented: I can pick out melodies by ear, but only through a tedious process of trial and error, not on the spot. I know I should work more at developing my ear, but when I want a new tune it's usually so much easier to just find some sheet for it...

And I've also found that strictly literate and strictly aural people are intimidated by each other - it's humourous when my friends with great ears are just as much in awe of my literacy as I am of their jamming/improvising abilities.

And of those who know one method and want to learn the other, I think that the readers trying to learn ear playing have a bit of an advantage over people going the other way, because we can be motivated by our love of specific tunes: if I can't find sheet music for a tune I love, then I'm forced to learn it by ear. But an ear player can't be in love with a tune they've never heard, so they would never have the same feeling that "I MUST learn this one, and the only way I can do it is to read it."

Good discussion,

Marion