Do Singers Need to Read Sheet Music?

You can be a wonderful and successful singer, regardless of whether you can read sheet music. There are situations where being able to read music as a singer isn’t all that useful, and other situations where it’s more necessary.

Commercial Pop Music: Not Necessary

Sheet music is rarely used in the creation of today’s commercial music (pop, R&B, country, etc.). Usually, the singer has either created the song themselves in their own head or they have learned it by ear from a demo recording, so the most they might look at for reference in the recording studio is a lyric sheet with chord symbols. When you buy fully notated sheet music for a commercial song, it is usually created by a third party after the recording has been released. It is the third party’s best attempt to write down what they hear on the track for other musicians who maybe don’t want to or can’t learn the song by ear. The artist(s) who wrote the song may have never even seen the sheet music you are buying. In the past, sheet music for commercial songs was often pretty terrible, written in the wrong keys with a poor rendition of the melody, wrong chords, a disappointing piano part, etc. Commercial music sheet music has improved greatly, and these days, you can often find really accurate transcriptions of commercial songs available for purchase online. 

Nevertheless, when my students want to learn a new commercial song, I usually suggest they learn it directly from the artist’s recording to capture all the nuances that may or may not be reflected in the available sheet music. If they are eventually going to need sheet music for the song for instrumental accompaniment in a live performance or audition, we’ll check right away to see if there is acceptable sheet music available for an instrumentalist to use, down the road.

Musical Theatre: Somewhat Necessary

Sheet music is a significant part of the process of creating a musical. Whether the composer writes their songs in their head, with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), or directly onto a page, sheet music is generally created right away so live instrumentalists and singers can perform the songs with minimal preparation. For this reason, it’s nice for musical theatre performers to have some ability to read sheet music. Still, many very successful musical theatre performers do not read sheet music beyond being able to tell if the notes go up and down, so don’t despair if reading music isn’t your strong suit. The performers who do read well generally become known in the community for being fast and easy to work with in this way. A large part of the reason sheet music is so important in the creation of a musical is that, while a musical is being developed, the music is constantly shifting and changing. A bar of music is added here, subtracted there. Backup vocals are added, rearranged, taken out, and added again. Keys are changed, accompaniment is changed, entire song structure is changed. And these things are happening every day of rehearsal. Everything has to be kept track of on the page at the risk of extremely expensive mistakes being made down the line. The sheet music is the bible of a musical, so if you have gotten your hands on the finished score of a show, you are looking at sheet music that has been mulled over and changed many, many times by the entire creative team. You may also come across musical scores floating around from time to time that are from a workshop or rehearsal prior to the show’s opening -- beware, there might be some surprising things in that score that are no longer valid because it’s not the most updated version of the show.

When my students want to learn a new musical theatre song, we first find a good copy of the sheet music. Then, I will “plunk” out a recording of the melody on the piano, exactly as it appears in the score. I recommend they listen to whatever versions of that song they can find, only a few times, to get familiar with performance practice. Finally, I ask that they put those recordings to the side and really learn the melody with the piano track I made.

Classical Singing: Quite Necessary

Most classical singers will want to have a good relationship with reading sheet music. Usually, classical singers work with complicated material that is carefully notated. Also, if you want to sing in a choir or perform as a worship soloist at a high level (which is a popular gig for classical singers), you’ll need to be able to pick up new music quickly on a weekly basis. This music is often not particularly intuitive, so it might be nearly impossible to learn it accurately by ear in the time frame. And much of what I said about new musicals in development is true for new operas in development.

Learning By Ear

If you are an amazing music reader and want to continue to grow musically, try learning some new music by ear. You might find it surprisingly challenging (a lot of good readers do), so I strongly encourage you to lean into the challenge. Using your ear more might open up new creative freedom for you. Alternatively, if you don’t read music and want to grow creatively, try a sight-singing course or take beginner piano. You might be surprised how your musical mind changes as it begins to process and organize music in a new way.