Sto Cazzo

I'm new here, hi everyone.

So I've got my trumpet, I've got my copy of Team Brass, and I've had 3 lessons on the logistics of playing. Things are going nicely, I practice 15 mins a day when I get home from work playing along to records. I've been doing this for about 7 months. However I have a block when it comes to reading, which I think limits my progression.

I'm 29, had piano lessons for four years and a child - still, didn't pick up music reading, classical guitar lessons for 2 years - still didn't pick it up, and I've been drumming for 15 years and dabble in reading, but I've never got to a point when I can sight read. I never think about the fact I was offically 'dyslexic' at school, with extra support and time in exams etc. I'm over that. But perhaps there is a link here.

So I'm looking for thoughts, does anyone here have experience of dyslexia and learning to read music, either personally or with pupils? I'm also considering not bothering as I learn the trumpet, as I intend to play by ear in my experimental/rock bands and for home recording, but are there any tips for methods I can use to learn without reading? The drums have been OK as I just work through rudiments. Are there trumpet rudiments?

Thanks!

Nick

marsuleu

hello and welcome , Nick !
I've started reading music for one month when I've decided to have a teacher , who forced me to learn reading... since 2007 when I start playing trumpet, I've never read ... of course, my skills were poor , but I can play a lot of songs without reading... I play guitar and keyboards for more than 15 years ( not a professional player, just a hobby ) and that helped me much ... it should help you too if you have some musical skills ...
first of all , try to blow corectly into yout trumpet . for that , you need to ask somebody who plays trumpet.there are a lot of things to do and not to do when you start playing... IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to know these things !
after that, you can play alone what you like,but remember this : play with your heart !

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Vulgano Brother

I've had one dyslexic beginner when teaching, and we didn't get far with reading. We had fun, and learned through muscle memory, but the reading part never took hold.

Have you looked into glasses--they can do some pretty nifty things with lenses now that have have freed up some friends of mine. Some weird thing with different colored lenses....

Have fun!

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The Dutch Guy

I've got dyslexia too. I think out of the last 14 exams during my final year of school, I maybe finished 4 of them. all others were somewhere between half finished and almost finished, all because I didn't have enough time to read everyting. (I did finish school that year though, with an average of 7 out of 10. No Idea what that would be in USA grades)

I have never had a problem with understanding stuff, and learned really fast. (as in teacher explains, and tells us to read the book. Then during the next class, summarizes it and moves on to next subject. I hardly ever opened the book, cause I memorized everything the teacher said, and just focussed all my time on the things I didn't understand.)
I guess the same goes for music reading. I practise a lot without sheet music, and eventually I noticed that improvisation skills improved really fast. that way, If you've heard a song, and get the sheet music for it to play it yourself, you don't just use the sheet music, but your improvisation skills too.
It helps me a lot. Most people that hear me play are suprised by the amount of songs I can play from memory. (so without any sheet music at all) (I'm playing in 4 orchestra's / bands, with a total of maybe 500 songs. out of those I can just play from memory about 200 untill at least half way through with a few mistakes, and of which maybe 50 without any mistakes.)

conclusion:
I've got dyslexia, and have trouble when I first get a new song to play during rehearsals. If someone plays it for me once, and I get some time to study it (depending on the difficulty from 5 minutes to a few days), I only use the sheet music as backup. I'll be watching the sheet, but I'll be playing from memory.

rowuk

I have written this so many times: easy tunes belong on our plate daily! Even if one has trouble reading, the 10 notes that we need to play the average hymn is manageable. You can only move forward if you stretch the envelope.

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Vulgano Brother

Which ten notes are they? Can I take them to a desert island and get dates?

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Sto Cazzo

By the way i'm not saynig that dyslexia is definately the reason I have never been able to pick up reading, indeed there had been research showing that dyslexia may not even exist! I was just wondering if anyone knew of any documented links between dyslexia and learning to read music. If so what methods can be used to get around it. For this reason (not lazyness!) I am wondering if there are trumpet rudiments that can give you a good 'work out' from memory. Stuff like this:


The above was all I did for a while until I got totally sick of the melody! I'm looking for others.

Thanks for your posts.

You mean learn to read anyway?

rowuk

A real trumpet player wants it all. Learning basic music reading skills is possible and would represent a very big, positive step for you and your development. I would say GO FOR IT!

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Sto Cazzo

I appreciate your advice. I must say I'm not exactly sure what a 'real' trumpet player is, but I certainly would like to develop on the trumpet! I would also like to be able to read music, but this isn't so much 'go for it' as 'go for it again, having gone for it again before'..! Do you know any dyslexics that have overcome this barrier and can read music?

Also Vulgano Brother, I've never ever heard of glasses that can help dyslexia, that seems really weird.

I'm impressed with Dutch Guys progression without being able to read, salut!

rowuk

Sto,
if you weren't successful last time, it may not have been dyslexia, but rather your approach.
I advocate starting slowly and NOT gradually working the speed up. Our brains do not work this way. We store patterns and we can load them into our brain without distortion by playing SLOWLY. Once slow is really 100%, we jump up a big step in speed and perfect that.
Gradually moving up generally means we are always on that border where things are no longer perfect. We are driven by speed instead of clean.

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.