Do either of these have any relationship with finding difficulty in sight-reading music? Have there been any studies related? Or is learning to sight-read well very simply down to loads of practice despite having (or not having) either of these problems?
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Just a personal anecdote: I've taught one piano student with significant dyslexia, and reading music was exceptionally difficult for reasons clearly related to the dyslexia. – Aaron Feb 26 '22 at 15:54
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1Related post: [Dyslexia and sheet music](https://music.stackexchange.com/q/17508/70803). – Aaron Feb 26 '22 at 15:56
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My brother self-reports as being dyslexic when it comes to reading sheet music (perhaps as bad a reader as me when I'm reading music with 4 or more ledger lines, except this occurs for him with no ledger lines) and math notation, but pretty much nothing else (i.e. his reading skills are fine everywhere else). – Dekkadeci Feb 26 '22 at 16:17
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I have dyscalculia. I can play music "by ear" but I was unable to read music no matter how hard I tried. – Karen McIntosh Jan 24 '23 at 20:27
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Reading text vs numbers and mathematical symbols vs music appear to use different subsystems in the brain, so any problems reading one of them does not necessarily affect the others.
While text and music reading share some networks, they are largely independent. The pattern of activation for reading musical symbols and letters is different across the brain.
Some of the evidence comes from localized brain damage:
Ian McDonald, a neurologist and amateur pianist, documented the loss and recovery of his own ability to read music after a stroke, though his ability to read text was unaffected. Oliver Sacks described the case of a professional pianist who, through a degenerative brain disease, first lost her ability to read music while retaining her text reading for many years. In another case, showing the opposite pattern, a musician lost his ability to read text, but retained his ability to read music.
Differences in reading ability can occur even within musical notation. Cases have been reported where musicians have lost their ability to read pitch, but retained their ability to read rhythm, and vice versa. fMRI studies have confirmed that the brain processes pitch (spatial information) and rhythm (symbol recognition) differently.
From https://theconversation.com/how-the-brain-reads-music-the-evidence-for-musical-dyslexia-39550
There has also been research on dyslectic children vs music (not reading, just musical skills in general):
Results also indicated that dyslexic children showed difficulties with musical timing skills while showing no difficulties with pitch skills.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14681173/
So in general, it's complicated. Both reading and performing music uses many different and rather specialized skills. It's possible to have a learning disability that is limited to one domain, while the others are unaffected. But it's very common to be better at some aspects of music than others (say better at pitch than rhythm, or better at playing by ear than by reading, or the opposite), it doesn't necessarily imply that everyone has a learning disability of some sort.
A quote from The Conversation to round it off:
Inabilities to read music are not generally treated as a serious concern. Many gifted musicians are able to function at a professional level purely learning music by ear. Among musicians, there is a wide range of music reading proficiencies. This is especially apparent with sight reading.
j-g-faustus
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1I'd imagine that "difficulties with musical timing skills", which dyslexic children are indicated to have in one of your quotes, would really get in the way of learning music by ear. – Dekkadeci Feb 26 '22 at 16:12
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Are you asking whether someone with dyslexia should anticipate similar problems when reading music? It seems pretty well established that they needn't. Try, and cross bridges as and if you come to them.
If problems ARE encountered, this may be of interest.
Laurence
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