I am the same, , i only play by ear.
I am 44 and been playing guitar since i was 5, and started tinkering round with synths and full scale keyboards for 6 years.
I cant read a single note of sheet music and have been self taught by ear all along.
Most people are amazed and bewildered by the fact that i can hear a few bars or a melody of a song, then pick up a guitar and start playing it straight away. I have even started doing it with piano recently to add more disbelief from onlookers. I really wish i had learnt to read music at school but they wouldnt teach me in music class simply because i was too much of a distraction. Whilst everyone else in class was learning to play 3 blind mice and silly little onefinger/ note songs on the guitar, i was playing blues,dylan,hendrix and clapton and drop tuned bluegrass, , i was told to leave and not come back !
Now i know how lisa felt in the simpsons, walking out of her saxaphone class
Although i regret not pushing the school to get me back in to read music, when i look back, it was probably for the best.
I get off on playing the way i do , , it gives me great pleasure entertaining people and watching their jaws (and draws !) drop whenever i get up and play. Very satisfied now , but occassionaly when i have gone to somone in the past and asked t o be taught by a well repected teacher, , i again get turned around again, , but this time with admriration and looks of genuine awe on their faces, , , , and plenty of tips and a few phone numbers to contact poeple in the industry, go boy, , but ring this number then go see the guy,
So i suppose in the grand scheme of things, , , i do very well for myself and earlier this year, a started writing recording and producing a fewv of my own songs onto my soundclik webpage to much adulation, in four months just 4 of my songs had been played and downloaded 145,000 times, , , , so i mustndo something right.
I sent a cd to mrsjones my music teacher at school. She hasnt seen me for over 25 years but she knew it ws from me just by listening to the cd before opning the envolope with a letter ana photo.
She wrote back to me less than a week later copletly delighted with the songs and my ability, , she played them to her class and then to the rest of the teachers and i got a box full of letters of thanks from my old school teachers old and new.
Last year the contacted me to ask politly if would considder going back to the school to spend an afternoon in her music class and play a few songs for the kids, and talk to them about the music industry. I gratefully accepted.
When i got there, it was being held in the main assembly with the whole school present , , , i shit myself. I sat and had to listen to one of my songs being played and sang by a bunch of girls playing piano and strings, and sang with passion by a 15yr old lass called laura, , , i was nearly in tears and had completly lost my stage fright in awe of the talented girls.
I played 3 more of my own songs just on guitar and on my last song, , the girls joined in with me after the first verse , , , then i was crying.
What a wonderful expeirience it was, , , had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, , but it was a wonderful day i spent there.
Went on the piss with the teachers afterwards, , fantastic evening.
I even allowed my old year master to give me the cane in the pub seems as he owed me six of the best but he got taken to hospital the last week of school and i had left by the time he was back
,
He hadnt forgotten though,, , So , , i was a man about it ang got me 28 year late six of the best, , he bough me another guiness and all was forgotten..
What a lovely day it was, , , and i now have a school full of fans who all sisten to my songs and download them mor their mp3s and keep pestering me for more songs.
A NICE STORY FOR A CHANGE EH ! ! !
