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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 10, 2015 at 5:53am

Mel Bay is great. Hopefully your brain's neuroplastic ability will kick in and make new pathways so you can relearn. Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 10, 2015 at 10:38am

Thanks Skeesix. Looking forward to the challenge. It's like I'm able to  play 'Marry had a little lamb.' But trying to read the notes wile playing is like trying to chew threw cement. When I was taking lessens I know i cheated a lot. I have relative pitch. Kind of out of practice now. But back then if I could hear it I could play it. My teacher didn't mind playing the lessons for me. Because he didn't know I had relative pitch. LOL I know I could read. Perhaps not as good as I should of been able to. Right now I might as well be trying to cook Chinese using a Chinese cook book. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 10, 2015 at 1:03pm

Rat,

The ability to read music can be relearned, albeit slowly. I'm sorry for your current disability, but can sympathize. I can read music, but really slowly. I can't hear it in my head as written on the page, have relative pitch as well, and learned by shapes. If I can hear it, I can usually play it after a few tries. But put me on a page of choral music, and I can sing it. I, too, started on the Mel Bay method books. I found them geared toward jazzbos, when I wanted to play blues-rock. I am self-taught, which has taken at least 5 times as long as if I had been guided by a good teacher. One thing that might help you get your head back around it is to try (horrors!) tablature (commonly called tab), for guitar music at least. I find that what I'm really trying to do is link muscle memory with pitch memory, so tab helps with that. And I can very slowly piece together a written score if I already know the song. Keep trying different approaches to learning to read music; one of them will suddenly click. Start small. Try just one or two notes at a time, then build to three, and so on. You're having to relearn the language.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 10, 2015 at 3:24pm

As a kid I had the ability to memorize a piece of classical music. Then break this piece down into separate instruments by their timber. Then play each separate instrument back in my head.  Or hum it out loud . I used this ability to recreate all the cords and parts to songs I wanted to learn. Or when listening to the cords within the lessons I was taking. A few years ago I decided to take up the violin. This was well after my brain damage. It's OK to laugh. I do. I've learned to live with it. This happened in 84. Anyway I kept getting really confused trying to read even the simplest of music scores. No matter how many times I pleaded for my teacher to not play the piece till after go it right she still would. I'd get pissed off. Close the book and play the score back perfectly. Got tired of paying $80+ a pop so I quit. All I really wanted was someone who would teach me playing techniques. This ability naturally decreases with age and infrequent use. Just like hearing. As you get older you start loosing the ability to hear higher frequencies. 

It's kinda hard to describe what happens when I try to read music. I see the notes but I see them wrong. Even if I tried playing at a snails pace I'd still end up playing the same note three different ways. It would be nice if it had been a combination of trying to learn classical violin techniques wile re learning how to read. However my teacher would give me a score and tell me to write the names of the notes down. The same thing. Hope things fall back in place when I start this with the guitar. Should know in a few days when the books come in. I don't have any problem drawing what I see. No problem with abstract shapes, reading or math. My physical reflex to visual stimuli is faster than average. This effect centers around trying to read music. Then crazy lines and dots drive me nuts. LOL 

Agree with your thoughts on tabs. (the horror). However they are really good for players who don't have someone to help them learn a song. As long as the player knows all tabs are wrong. Keeps the tabs from infringing on copy right laws. Best to learn the tab. Then fix the mistakes by listening to the music. 

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 25, 2015 at 12:25pm

After starting this a bit it appears I still may be struggling with this same phenomenon. Even though I'm on the really simple stuff I get flashbacks of these songs. I can play then threw memory alone. Be really awesome if this helps bring back more of the memory I've still got locked up in this brick of mine. 

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on August 25, 2015 at 2:47pm

It's amazing how resilient the brain is.  Here's hoping you unlock your own secrets!

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Permalink Reply by Ben "C. B. Gitty" Baker on August 27, 2015 at 6:01am

Good luck!

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