Maybe that’s why he was so creative, he couldn’t just pick up a book and do what it said, not easily. Interesting.
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My Dad was an amazing guitar player. He had no idea how to read music.
In my experience most guitar players don’t know how to sight read sheet music. Guitar is very different than a keyboard, it’s laid out two dimensionally versus linearly like a keyboard. Sheet music translates to piano playing easier than guitar playing. Basically all piano players learn to sight read from the start, most guitar players never do. Perhaps that’s why improvisation is considered so important to guitar players. We need to be capable of winging it in a song, playing notes that suit the chords on they fly without being able to rely on sheet music to tell us what notes to finger next.
This guy was great, a one of a kind. You just had to smile when you heard his stuff. RIP and thanks for the ride.
Some of the best musicians I ever played with can’t read a lick. Many of us learn by having it passed down to us (lore).