RCVN Victor learnt by imitating other bassists whilst being taught by his brother,
I think all the 'greats' learnt by ear & eye - I certainly got 'better' when I used tab as a backup and not the the truth. Back before tab I guess you only had ears and eyes to work with - and maybe someone transcribed something you wanted to learn, though I think that was only really popular for guitar, when guitar magazine's become popular in the 80's?
RCVN I actually know a few session muso's that knows how to read sheet music, but barely even use it.
I know two guys who both are sight readers - one has to learn the piece completely from the sheet music and not refer to to during performance, the other plays mostly off sheet music.
RCVN But nonetheless, it definitely has its place, and I'm going there.
Heh, probably ended up at the same place.
I can't reallly read sheet music - but I can read drum notation (super easy - anyone can ?). Now I get rhythm from ears & sheet music and pitch from ears & tab. On occasion, I actually prefer things to come with notation - while tab is cool...expressing rhythm in it is a p.i.t.a - sheet music is quite genius in how it expresses pitch and rhythm.