25 Feb 2010, 11:07 am
I took piano for 5 years, never really learned to play. The teacher would play the piece, I'd go 'got it', then (mostly) play it back. He said I was improvising...
I play by ear, always have. Guitar chords are pretty easy; you can listen for the intervals between notes to determine what the original chords are (unless their barre [sp?] chords).
If I had to, I can do a bout a bar a minute... It's a lot easier if someone says 'it's in C#', than trying to figure out (ok, this many black notes, etc...
26 Feb 2010, 10:58 am
Taupey
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26 Feb 2010, 11:24 am
26 Feb 2010, 12:19 pm
Taupey
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26 Feb 2010, 7:50 pm
I feel the same, I need to hear the piece first before I play it. I memorize the sheet music the first time, then I have the bad habit of never looking or reading the sheet music of that song again. My private instructors and college professors weren't always happy about it. So I'd dazed off with my head up and pretended to read the sheet music. But I have never stopped learning to play music that way.
26 Feb 2010, 9:32 pm
27 Feb 2010, 2:45 am
Taupey
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27 Feb 2010, 6:50 am
When I'm doing touchstyle things, I always have to find, transcribe or compose in sheet music. Then write out everything in tab, memorise fingerings and then use sheet music for rhythm.
Picking I just use sheet music, but wide interval tapping with no indication screws me over if I'm sight reading.
That all sounds very difficult. Sure, reading the upper fretboard is hard to master in sheetmusic, easier in tabs; but things like rythm and more refined ideas are impossible in tabs. I see you are trying to get the best of both worlds. I still have trouble reading difficult rythms, triplet semiquavers, etc, and upper fretboard at speed, but i persevere till i can get it. I have to admit i've never read tabs, (except one piece, years ago). So my view is very biased, and maybe unfairly so. I've done grades 3, 5, and 6 in practical classical guitar, and they wouldn't have let me in the door with tabs.
But for Taupey and Rhettoracle, i have a deep respect for the natural musicians. I will never be counted among them. I have to do it the hard way.
Thank you QuietMusical, I have never thought of myself in that way. One of my piano instructors called how I learned music, cheating.
I can read and understand sheet music but I'm very slow at sight reading/playing when I don't know what the piece sounds like.
I admire people who can play a piece they have never heard before just by reading the sheet music.
28 Feb 2010, 1:16 pm
I can't find it anywhere but I am sure there is a condition which makes reading music difficult... The search did bring up the whole Irlen thing as well. One question. Could you be long sighted? That's obviously not what causes ALL people who struggle to read music's problems but that has partially caused mine. I too see the notes dancing around and have to sit and think 'F A C E' or 'E G B D F' before I can work out where certain notes are.
I, like a lot of you, taught myself to play the keyboard, guitar, ukelele, fife, tin whistle, organ, banjo and even violin... although the latter sounds more like I am stepping on a cat's tail... needs work! 
I was only six when I perfectly imitated a song on my mini keyboard and have done this up until I was about 14 and suddenly REALLY needed to know which note was which. That's easy enough once you learn each note individually, but putting it all together was impossible!
It has taken me over 7 years but I can finally read music at a basic level. Good enough that, as long as I know the song too (I still cheat!) I can follow the notes along. Wearing my glasses or even sunglasses helps me. Just don't give up and hopefully you will find this comes to you as well.
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)28 Feb 2010, 3:52 pm
Taupey
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28 Feb 2010, 5:59 pm
I, like a lot of you, taught myself to play the keyboard, guitar, ukelele, fife, tin whistle, organ, banjo and even violin... although the latter sounds more like I am stepping on a cat's tail... needs work!
I was only six when I perfectly imitated a song on my mini keyboard and have done this up until I was about 14 and suddenly REALLY needed to know which note was which. That's easy enough once you learn each note individually, but putting it all together was impossible! It has taken me over 7 years but I can finally read music at a basic level. Good enough that, as long as I know the song too (I still cheat!) I can follow the notes along. Wearing my glasses or even sunglasses helps me. Just don't give up and hopefully you will find this comes to you as well.
This is interesting Jelly Bean. Yes, come to think of it I do remember having trouble telling which space or line the black dot was in or on. When I read a space note, I knew it wasn't a line note but I had a difficult time telling the space that it was in. The same rule applied to the line notes. I can remember one time confusing both space and line notes together. At that time I wasn't far-sighted but only near-sighted. Now I'm both. I haven't read sheet music in a few years. Once I was reading from a book of sheet music of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Album, the first song, Funeral For A Friend, the paper is yellow and the notes, staff and print are in green and I can remember thinking how much easier it was to read this sheet music compared to my other sheet music which is in black and white. This was before I had studied paino with an instructor or at college/university with a professor. I'll remember the sunglasses next time I sit down at a piano and begin to read sheet music, Thank You.
Taupey
01 Mar 2010, 2:08 am
01 Mar 2010, 2:43 am
02 Mar 2010, 4:49 am
Taupey
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Age: 62
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Location: Somewhere between juvenile and senile.
02 Mar 2010, 3:39 pm
We at least we're all in good company. And it's so nice to learn it's not just me being "weird"! 
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