[RalphH]

Well I can't do either, even after a whole life of on and off playing. I find I just need to commit to memory and that is a slow process even for a simple couple of chord sequences and a few riffs or hooks. I still can't seem to make the into for Let Her Go stick in my brain and I've tried a few times recently.

Would love to be able to read music well enough to play from it. The freedom would be amazing! I can hardly imagine how great it would be to decide to play and song and just play it rather than decide to commit time to learning it.

Part of the problem is that I'm normally playing and singing and the mental workload of reading notes, words and producing both is just too great for me.

I can do words + chords, but not well.

I have a friend who plays the piano and she can just play and sing anything straight from the page and it blows my mind. If she wants to play 50 new songs she can just buy a book and shes done. I have to buy a book and then spend a few hundred hours learning it all.


I will also add that I suspect very few people able to read and play are unable to commit to memory, they just dont need to; like the stories I have to read over and over to my kids every night, sometimes my mind is miles away on something else because I can easily read aloud without consciously mentally process it. Does this mean I'm 'chained to their books'? I guess, but better that than having to burn 100s of hours to learn them all off by heart so I can recite them from memory.