I agree with everyone (mostly.) I learned to finger-pick guitar taking lessons from Dave Van Ronk. He'd play through the song, and slow it down where I couldn't catch it, and I'd write it out in tablature. At least when I was taking lessons from him, Dave wasn't the most energetic guy about providing you with anything on paper. In a way, it was good, because you learned a lot better watching him play, having him break things down for you, and then writing the tablature yourself. But, right from the start, I tried to take what I learned and apply it to songs that I knew. That way, I could come in with a song I'd done on my own, and Dave could fill it out a little for me, or help me through rough spots. I only took lessons from him for three months, but it was all that I needed. He gave me everything that I needed, and taught me how to transcribe songs (or told me to as an assignment.) He taught me basic chord structure... not where everything was, but how chords were created. He was a wonderful teacher. A few years later when I had moved out of New York City and was asked by the local music store to give guitar and banjo lessons (I never had a banjo lesson,) I was happy to do it (and I needed the money.) I gave my students tablatures that I had worked out, and tried to teach them in the way that taught me, but I think that I gave them too much. After they'd learned the basics and could pick out simple songs, I tried to wean them. I gave them a simple song that I played for them, as Dave had for me. I asked them to watch me, and as I went through the song, I'd break it down and show them how the song was just the same licks they could do with tablature. They could stop me anywhere in the song and ask me to break things down, and they could write down anything they wanted. I would even give them a tape of me playing the song, slowed down and then played regular speed. I'd send them home, fully equipped to learn the song from the tape, and that was usually the end of their lessons. Either they never showed up again, or came back for the next lessons, not having been able to figure out the song, and not willing to. They just wanted the tablature. I told them that I wasn't just going to endlessly supply them with tablatures, and that they had everything they needed to work out both songs, and we had a parting of the way. None of my students seemed to be potential Leo Kotkes, and if they had been, I couldn't have taught them to sound like Leo, because I don't. They just wanted to be able to accompany themselves (and had never heard of the classic finger pick guitarists.) If they'd been willing to try to learn songs by working them out iwth my help, I would have been happy to do it. But, they weren't.

When I was working on a gospel album many years ago, I needed a bass singer, and asked several bass singers in a the choir of a church where I was going at the time. They all said the same thing. If you give me the sheet music, I'll try it. I write sheet music about as fluently as I do Sanskrit, so I'd tell them that I'll tape the song for you and sing the harmony that I want... even put it on one channel by itself so that it would be easy to learn. I got the same answer from all but one of them... "I can't sing it without sheet music." Gee, can you talk without a script? I finally found someone who was willing to try it by listening to a tape with the bass harmony separated onto a separate channel.

If you want to sing harmony, do you have to have it written down? Choir singers seem to need that, and I understand it in a choir because you have to have all the baritones singing the same harmony. But, I sing in a gospel choir where we are taught our parts by the choir director singing them for us. The only time we ever use sheet music is when we're singing an anthem (we learn one a year..) and everyone stumbles all over themselves trying to read them little black squiggles on the paper, along with the words, glancing up at the director every once in awhile. It seems like an unnatural act to us. That's not to knock people who play by reading sheet music. I'd certainly be a better musician and singer, if I could read music more comfortably. But, I sing and play folk music, not classical music or opera. I like to think of my limitations as my style. :-)

Jerry