My missus still says it to me, and we've been married 26 years! 

That's a very interesting article.  Rather alarmingly I read that:

- he had to work out each note in terms of its letter value and translate that the keys on the piano
- he had trouble navigating in a foreign city
- he couldn't do maths in his head very well...

In short, he became me.  Yikes.    I must have a dysfunctional parietal cortex (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it)...

I do find the way in which musical scores can get interpreted mechanically without seeming to pass through the conscious mind very interesting. For instance as soon as you go above or below the stave I can tell you which finger to put on which string of a violin in various positions, but I have to think about it to name the note.

I can work out a short piece on the piano in the long-winded way decribed above, and once learned I can play it by heart quite easily, but if I'm disrupted in the middle, I have to start again.  I couldn't tell you what I'm doing but something in my mind knows where the fingers are headed. I suppose that's getting into "muscle memory" now but it's certainly an interesting area.

It reminds me of the pianist amnesiac from a couple of years ago.  Was the identity of this man ever discovered, does anyone know?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Piano-may-be-the-key-to-mystery-man-from-the-sea/2005/05/16/1116095904891.html

Ruby2,

Yes, that's what I was thinking too. Thirty years ago when I was quite good on the recorder I would look at a line of music and put the fingers in the right place without thinking A, C, G etc. Today I would struggle to do the same, at least with an unseen piece. But playing sacles, a piece by ear, or to improvise on the recorder I still have all the fingerings in my brain.

I tried to self-teach the piano (electronic Casio keyboard) about 15 years ago but only got through the first two books of popular songs, and I still had to have the letters taped along the back of the keys, so I was reading the the top line of music but my fingers rarely knew where to go and I had to keep looking at that strip of paper with the letters.

I'm lost above/below the stave, so I'm going to struggle with the violin which I've tried to take up this year. In fact I think I'll have to get the keyboard out for a bit, practice reading the top line and knowing the letters of the notes again before I even think about proper violin lessons. I can't see a good teacher wanting to teach me to read music even though I'd be paying her/him.


John W