Can you be successful in the music industry without being able to read music?

Rock...it has been the symbol for destruction, the devil, and rebellion for generations.  When you actually take a look inside the minds of these musicians, though, they are sophisticated, intelligent, and creative geniuses.  All musicians have a gift.  The gift of musical talent.  Many musicians can read music, basically another language to some.  This means they can decipher musical notes on a paper and make it into a sound and can relate music with proper vocabulary.  But for some, they didn’t think that reading was all that important and just took off and learned what every note sounded like and memorized the whole fretboard.  I have a powerful connection with these musicians because I can’t read music.

   If you think that this gives a disadvantage to musicians, you are mistaken.  If anything, I think this brings me confidence that I can hear a note and be able to play that same one just through memorization and not because I had an instructor teaching me how to play every single musical note since the age of 3, like some others.  But I am definitely not alone in the musical world.  There are many others that have made their own “Stairway to Heaven” or “Highway to Hell” even though they had a constant remembrance that they can’t read music.  According to Ultimate-Guitar.com, (a respected website that delivers tablature and interesting articles on everything music) some musicians that can’t read music include but not excluded to: Robert Johnson (the father of Rock n Roll), The Beatles, Slash, and Dave Mustaine of the early metal band, Megadeth.  According to, Ultimate Guitars Slash is musically illiterate.  He said "No, I can't read music," the axeman, [Slash] said during Snakepit Q&A. "I play by ear. I try to make what I hear (sometimes just in my head) come out my hands into the guitar. When I write music, I usually write on my own at least to start."Also they included a past interview with John Lennon which said  “None of us could read music," John Lennon said during a 1980 Playboy interview. "None of us can write it. But as pure musicians, as inspired humans to make the noise, they are as good as anybody."All of these musicians have made their fame without the way of reading music.  Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith once said "most rock musicians play by ear - if it sounds good we do it,"