Hmmm. I can't read music and regret that. I learned everything I know musically by "ear". I always felt that it was OK to do so since what I am interested in comes from an "oral" tradition. I learned to improvise both by having listened "real good" to what I was playing, having a semi-jazz background and just listening to an incredible amount and variety of music. So I play Norwegian Wood, Hava Nagila, Meadowlands, Ode to joy and the like on the banjo. I play with a dozen or so tunings and I constantly experiment with the banjo by altering the instrument's tonality, it's structure, the kind of strings, the tension of the head, muting, "socking" and all sorts of stuff. Sometimes these experiments fall flat sometimes they are brilliant (well, at least great fun). But back in my mind is the thought that I am limited because I can't read music! And I believe this is true. Especially when I buy an old hymnal or a book of ballads from some exotic place and I can't read the music!

But music theory, apart from reading music, knowing why a particular combination of note works and another doesn't is important. Knowing how to dramatize a phrase, how to introduce an almost subliminal emotion by using just the right combination of notes, pauses, etc. THAT is beyond reading alone and oddly enough, even though I can't read music I do seem to know the other aspect of learning music. But I have been playing and singing almost all of my 64 years and lived in a family where music was very important and it's playing was almost constant.

CB