I saw a clip where a pianist was playing and someone was turning her pages for her, but they fumbled and dropped the sheet music. The pianist kept on playing, but it got me wondering why have the sheet music if she knows the song anyway. Do they really need it? Why can’t they just learn the songs like all bands do?
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Popular musicians are typically playing their own compositions, often compositions that are heavily subject to improvisation and not very complex. They don’t need to be precise. Generally, they just need to remember the chord progression and basic melody.
Orchestra musicians need to be precise, as far as the composition and also the conductor’s instructions which they often note on the sheet music.
You might have noticed that soloists and singular concert pianists often don’t use sheet music. Sheet music is more of a requirement of ensemble playing or just when the musician isn’t as well-practiced on the composition.
Bands (such as rock bands for example) are constantly playing shows, recording and rehearsing their music, so it ends up becoming memorized and they can play while deafened and blindfolded (exaggerated). Also of note, rock band (still using as an example) music is quite a bit more simple compared to large orchestras.
Orchestral scores are more complicated and aren’t played as often, sure the musicians do
rehearse and practice but given the complexity of the scores, they have to have the sheet music in front of them to follow.
Aside from complexity, there’s also timing. All the musicians have to be on time with one another so the score can flow as the composer intended.
Caveat; this is how I understand the differences, however I am open to correction if any of it is incorrect
The kind of music bands play does not need to be as precise as the kind of music orchestras play. A guitar player will learn the 4-5 chords that a song uses and remember the order that they have to play them in. However, a violinist has to play *exactly* what is written in order not to mess up the rest of the orchestra.
Bands also kind of just learn music aurally, they don’t write it down in sheet music because they don’t expect anyone else to have to perform their music with super high fidelity.
Sheet music however is a relatively effective method of communicating what the music should sound like to a musician.
Lastly, orchestra musicians are often playing stuff in front of people after one or 2 rehearsals, so there really isn’t time to memorize it. Their concert cycles are pretty short and the music completely changes from one to the other. As opposed to bands where they’ll play the same 20 songs for years and years.
Soloists (like that pianist you’ve mentioned) often do not use sheet music, even in a contemporary classic setting. A solo performer has a lot of freedom to interpret the music, whereas the ten first violins and ten second violins in a typical orchestra need to keep in tight sync with each other. Bands are often in a similar situation as soloists, where they have a lot of freedom to interpret or improvise and don’t need to stay in lock-step with anybody else in the ensemble. Moreover, a symphony orchestra will typically have a handful of rehearsals for a given piece, where the conductor will give instructions about things like tempo and dynamics that need to be noted down. The piece will be performed once or twice, and the orchestra will move on to other music. A band might play the same set list at dozens of shows over weeks and weeks, or they might be the kind of band that plays ‘standards’ that are re-used for years and years. It’s just a different kind of music playing
Different genres have different standards on staying true to the written music. Rock and pop generally don’t care as much as long as it sounds close enough. In jazz, deviation is often encouraged. In orchestral settings, it’s expected to stay true to the original.
Pianists and orchestral musicians will generally have the music memorized, but it’s still helpful to have sheet music available as a backup just in case. It’s normalized to have sheet music there.
There are already some great answers here. I’ll try to give a short one.
When you are listening to an orchestra, they are attempting to collectively play a piece exactly as it was intended by composers and arrangers. When you are listening to a band, they are playing something the way they want to play it, and perhaps even of their own composition. It is entirely up to them what it sounds like, and in many cases improvisation is encouraged.
As a musician familiar in both worlds, the real reason is that orchestras give their musicians very very very little time to rehearse/prepare (which is why you have to be ***extremely fucking good*** to be in one, you have to sight read like an absolute demon), so they may only have had one or two rehearsals as a group prior to performing, and maybe a week or two of preparation/practice on their own.
Popular music acts are playing music they wrote and have had months to familiarize themselves with. If you played the same thing for six months straight you’ll have it memorized within about six weeks at the most (and that’s for something pretty complicated).
One thing I’ll note is that people are saying classical/orchestral music is more complex, and popular music has a good amount of improvisation. While this is certainly true on average, it varies heavily by genre. One, you don’t get to improvise much in modern pop music (i.e., The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, whatever). You don’t hear improvised guitar solos in Ariana Grande songs, yet none of them are reading from sheet music. In their case, the music isn’t particularly complex, so memorization isn’t as much of a barrier.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have extremely complex rock/metal/jazz/whatever where the musicians still have it memorized and don’t read from sheet music on stage despite its complexity. [Jazz fusion is one of the more show-off-y versions of this.](https://youtube.com/shorts/vmWRjZd-j1w?si=Sew6WawZyXH64YWm) Memorization is certainly a barrier here, so it’s probably no surprise to hear all those guys have graduate degrees in music.
I’ve never done symphony orchestra, but I’ve spent a lot of time playing musicals. When you’re reading a big score like that during a show, you’re not *reading* the notes per se as much as you are watching the score as it goes by and looking for landmarks.
In a big, complicated score with a lot of players, you sometimes have to sit out for a minute or two while other instruments play. And during that time the music may change quite a bit (tempo and timing changes) and you have to keep track of it. Sometimes you have to jump in, play a few notes, and then jump back out again. You can’t always depend on the conductor to hold your hand so you have to stay alert.
There are hundreds of little details like that, too many to memorize, and it’s usually a two-hour show. Better to keep the road map in front of you.
I’ve also spent ten gazillion hours playing various rock, blues, country, jazz, pop, bluegrass, etc., gigs. When you play a basic rock song, you have, like, five things to remember. And they are very big and logical things. Not a lot of tricks to worry about. It’s actually easier to just trust your memory than to try and read it.
(I should note that I’m over-simplifying the rock and pop world. The truth is, the songs are simple, but there’s an ***incredible*** amount of nuance in timing and feel. It’s the X-factor that separates the great artists from the wannabees. The difference is that part isn’t something you write down. You hear it and feel it.)
I just had the funniest vision of The Ramones standing onstage playing off of sheet music and the whole thing falls apart when somebody’s sheet music gets knocked off by a drunk falling onto the stage.
Your typical musician in an orchestra does not own a copy of the sheet music they are called on to perform. In fact, many symphony orchestras themselves *rent* the sheet music for major works, because it is very expensive. So the musicians really only get maybe three days to rehearse musical works that go on for 90 minutes or more – there’s no time to memorize the entire thing.
I *have* seen conductors lead entire symphonies from memory, without a score in front of them.
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