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On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 03:26:26PM -0700, Stephen Doonan wrote:
> In my case, music reading was hard because my eyes have different focal

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> planes. The harder I tried to focus, the more it looked like the notes

> were dancing on the page.

That can probably be corrected using the right glasses...  If you can

communicate using this medium, i.e. read a computer screen, you should

be able to read music as well. The technicalities are not difficult,

it broadens your horizon, and it's never too late to learn it...
OTOH, there is a lot of truth in what you write:
> When I learned my piano recital piece at 12 years old, an Impromptu by

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> Schubert, I was lucky. My mother had a recording of Vladimir Horowitz

> playing the  same piece,

knowing Horowitz, probably a very nice rendering of it...
> so I used the recording to learn the piece by

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> ear, except that I learned and played it a half-step higher than it was

> written (it was written in B-flat). I learned that many years later when

> a friend played the same piece in what I thought was the wrong key.

Quite strange that your teacher(s) never noticed you played it in

the wrong key ! I learned the 'Promenade' of 'Pictures at an

Exhibition' that way - luckily in the right key :-)
> I think that there was at least one benefit in not learning to read

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> music, and that is that my concept of music was not overly set or

> influenced by the conventions of sheet music. I learned more about

> sound, especially harmony.

Same here. When my voice changed I was expelled from the boys

choir and promoted to organist (the choir's conductor was also

my piano teacher). I learned practical harmony well before I had

any formal teaching of it, and that's a skill you never forget.
> I learned that a key signature for example is

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> mostly just a notational convenience, ever since the equal temperament

> system of tuning gave us a complete 12-tone chromatic scale. Most of the

> music since Bach's time depends upon this "keyless" tuning and its

> introduction of much more complex and rich harmonic possibilities.

Well, Bach's 'well tempered' tuning is not the same as equal temperament,

each key still has its typical character - but you can use all of them.

Nor is equal temperament the ultimate - I've been rediscovering the

charms of unequal temperaments, and of modal music, as the years passed. 
Quite much of the minimalist 'electronica' is quite modal - and for good

reasons.
> I'm sorry to be babbling. :-)
You're welcome !
--

FA
Laboratorio di Acustica ed Elettroacustica

Parma, Italia
Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa.
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