Donovan Banks

When I learned to play guitar I never bothered learning to read staff notation. As a result every time I wanted to learn a new song I had to hear it, memorise it and then try play along with whatever guidance was given to me, which was usually either "fake books" or Tabs. Recently I have been reading and the best way to explain it is like this:

If you speak mainly English and try speak another language, like German, there are subtle nuances and pronunciations you will miss out. I went to Germany and was given a basic run down of phrases, like how to order a beer, "Ein Bitter." I was even taught to count and got given a dictionary with a few phrases.

I got lost one day looking for Mülheim. I asked a lot of people how I could get there and nobody had heard of it. After asking everyone one guy looked eager to help so I showed him the map, "OOooh,"he exclaimed,"M(ule) heim. That's round the corner."

I was utterly disappointed that all those people couldn't help me, but I was saying, "Mullheim," when it was supposed to be pronounced, "Muleheim"

I had completely failed to communicate. While I had learned a few phrases, I certainly wasn't well versed at communicating, like I though I was.

Music is another language altogether. We can speak it, play it, write it and read it. By writing a letter in English, we have the ability to communicate well with other English speaking people. When we write down a piece of music, a musician (who can read!) will pick it up and play it exactly as you wrote it.

If you learn the language of music fluently, you will be able to create, understand and communicate in a language of Gods. Once you know the language you can make people feel how you want them to, think what you want them to. You can make people fall in love, be excited or you can make them scared, sad or angry.

Yet so many of us try to learn a few phrases, then we try communicate anything and everything we feel. Sometimes we get lucky but one has to look at great composers and wonder why they never had a song consisting of only 3 chords.

At least we'll always know where the bus station is.