I’m a dyslexic musician. Here’s what I wish people knew about how I learn.

(Or at least opened their mind to it. That’d be great).

Photo by author

Fun fact: I play the harp, and no, I didn’t start learning music on piano. I started on a harp. Both instruments tend to share the same sheet music, as you see above, especially for these easier pieces. So, yeah, I learned to read music with the help of an instrument that people don’t normally start on. Neurotypicals call me “ambitious” or “gifted” when I say that, but in my view, I was just doing the lazy thing (harp is easier than piano for me, but the other way around for most people). I’m dyslexic, you see. Far more than struggling with word spelling (or word order, or literally any linear sequence of things), I have an entirely different brain wiring than most people. So, my “quirks”, if you wanna call them that, go beyond verbal language. The entire way in which I record and organise information inside my mind is affected by dyslexia. Today I’m bringing you a musical example, instrumental only, to prove that.

Take the above music, for example. I chose Greensleeves to illustrate today’s point for several reasons: firstly, it’s public domain, so yay, I can freely post it here; Secondly, it’s iconic and you’ve probably already heard it even if you aren’t very into classical music. Lastly, but no less important, it’s quite simple. There isn’t a lot going on. When I was first learning Greensleeves, this is roughly what I did in my practice sheet music: I joined right and left hand. That was the very first thing I did, yep, before I even started thinking about fingering. (If you’re a neurotypical harp or piano player, you’re probably facepalming. For the uninitiated, though, I’ll explain why below).

So, when we start learning instruments like harp or piano, where you harmonise two melody lines using both hands (or melody + chords, for the pedantic), usually the first thing you do is learn each hand’s part separately. Or, let me rephrase that in a less ableist way: the *standard* thing to do is to take the music apart first because the neurotypical brain loves linearity.

I don’t have a neurotypical brain, though. I hate linearity. With a passion. I’m a lateral thinker, anything that goes on and on in a straight line makes me “bored” to the point I get lost (hence, word spelling. Straight lines galore). And if you relate to my brain wiring and have (probably) had the misfortune of only finding teachers who cater to the neurotypical, you might have assumed you’re “bad at reading music”. Nope. That’s not true. It’s just that you need a different strategy than the standard one we’re commonly taught. Allow me to help:

So, when starting to learn a new piece, here’s the step-by-step that works for me, even though it fundamentally “disagrees” with the standard music learning methods we’re all used to. (Lol, “disagree” is an understatement. It flips the entire thing upside down, because I’m starting by what neurotypicals consider advanced concepts).

1. Identify the harmonies and phrasing. Singing the music (or just imagining what the “finished product” sounds like in your mind’s ear, if you will) while you sight-read it for the first time helps. If you’re not very used to sight-reading, simply listen to a recording. No, that’s not cheating, I’ll explain later. Do it a few times until you get the hang of what’s going on in this piece.
2. Find the beat. It helps to go back to the beginning and tap it with hands or feet according to time signature (both hands’ parts together, I mean). Again, do it several times.
3. Section the music not by bar, but phrase by phrase instead; or something similar that makes sense. I sometimes do it rhythmically (like the image above or if the piece has syncopations), but I digress.
4. Practice these sections individually, starting by the beginning, VERY slowly. Hands together right off the bat. This will give you an idea about best fingering, so mark it with a pencil.
5. Join the sections gradually, until you’re playing in super slo mo and monotone (or in other words, no dynamics) the entire piece.
6. Practice #5 until you’ve committed the fingering to muscle memory. This can be done section by section if you want. It will take a good few days at least, for an easy piece.
7. Now it’s finally “safe” to take hands separately and work on things like technical details and speed. This will not make sense to your mind and it will sound as musically meaningless as doing scales, but that’s okay, because we’ve been through steps 1–6 already.
8. Join hands again, now at the desired speed. This step is only possible because we’ve already been through 1–7.
9. Work on dynamics.
10. Play the finished piece as many times as you need as a practice before performing, and that’s it, you’re done with it.

(Well, technically, we’re never “done” with a piece, but you know what I mean. You’ve got the basics down).

The logic behind my step-by-step guide for dyslexic musicians

As you can see, the step-by-step given above only “agrees” with the standard method where #9 is concerned — dynamics are best left for the late stages of learning a piece, not the beginning.

So, why does my method work for me but sound crazy to a neurotypical person? Well, that has to do with how a dyslexic person’s brain operates when making sense of information and committing it to memory: we are more comfortable with pattern and paradigm recognition than linear sequence recognition.

Side note: this (pattern/paradigm recognition VS sequential recognition) is the same reason why “crossing” scales on the harp is considered an intermediate skill for the neurotypical, but I’d say it’s very basic for the dyslexic: while the neurotypical has to process this as an extra step in the sequence of “things to do” committed to memory, the dyslexic automatically gets it from the beginning because instead of recording information linearly, we record the scale + the crossing as a single pattern in our mind’s eye, sort of like as a unit in and of itself. So, the crossing component doesn’t take any extra real estate in our memory, if you will.

Photo by Eaters Collective on Unsplash

If you want a silly analogy that might help you visualise the disconnect: think of music memorisation with multiple parts and/or clefs as if it was a sandwich. Linear thinkers (neurotypical) commit the “ingredients” to memory like this: bread -> cheese -> chicken -> lettuce -> ketchup -> bread. Lateral thinkers (for example, the dyslexic) mentally “cut” the sandwich: we think in terms of small individual bread-cheese-chicken-lettuce-ketchup-bread units, and we enjoy calculating the ratios of bread-to-cheese or bread-to-lettuce or chicken-to-ketchup (or whatever) in each little piece for them to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. We find this mental math relaxing and satisfying. A neurotypical would consider that as an extra complication, though.

A more “humanities” leaning dyslexic person might disagree with the math thing, but if you give them a word — say, “aisle” — they will start mentally grouping it together with other words that sound the same or similar (such as isle and I’ll) and even make some impromptu poems inside their heads… All of that without feeling like they’re making any effort. I mean, they might misspell it (or not, if they use autocorrect + grammarly) but the paradigm of “similarly sounding words” will be an easy task nonetheless.

This is all because we (dyslexic) have difficulty focusing on sequences that seem arbitrary and robotic; Instead, we unconsciously search for similarities or complimentary differences that harmonise one element with the other in order to group them together. When you separate each element, you take the “sense of synchronicity” out of it and discourage dyslexic people’s brains from paying attention to it.

My point (for teachers and other professionals) is: why be so stubborn about the particular way each person “makes a sandwich”, if the final product ends up being the same anyway? Why not allow people to be comfortable with their individual methods?

My dyslexia explains why I disagree with most people about which instrument is “easier” to learn.

Harp and piano have a lot in common. I personally love the sound of both, but I find harp infinitely easier to play.

That’s because, mechanics aside, the layout of pitches on a harp is more helpful for a dyslexic mind to navigate. So, yes, I’d agree that harp technique is a tad more awkward to learn than piano technique… But if I were to choose between allowing my hands/feet or mind to be comfortable, I will always choose to give my mind the comfort zone. It’s already overwhelmed navigating everyday life in a world that wasn’t designed for people like me! The least I can do is give my mind a rest whenever I can.

Let me visually show you what I mean.

This is the layout on a piano:

source: simply piano

…And this is the layout on a harp:

source: musicmakers

As you can see, the piano has EVERY pitch in our western standard tonal system laid out in a linear sequence — including sharps and flats. This is why most neurotypical people go like, “oh, piano makes music theory easier to learn. It’s all laid out there, you have no hidden notes”. This probably makes sense to you if you’re a linear thinker; But if you aren’t, it will instead be frustrating.

Harps have a different layout: supposing you’re tuning it to C major, each string will correspond to a white key on a piano (ie, the natural pitches). If you want sharps or flats, you need some pedal or lever action. That way, only 7 notes per octave (instead of the full 12) are laid out in front of you, but hidden half a step “above” or “below” some of these notes you can get sharps and flats. This adds an extra level of difficulty for the neurotypical mind, but for a dyslexic it’s actually making theory easier: why lay out Db, D, and D# on a linear sequence if you can just group them together on a single string? They’re different pitches, but belong in one single [apparently] seamless interval (ie, these 3 pitches are one note. And they’re 3 nonetheless. Sounds crazy to you? To me it makes perfect sense). I could go on an tangent about how the same logic allowed me to comfortably grasp the idea of microtonality and non-western tuning (or even, a second tangent on why I’m utterly unimpressed by “perfect pitch” and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy), but that’s a topic for a whole other article.

I have a rant about fingering, too: piano confuses me. Harp, however, feels intuitive. I can use the same exact fingers on both hands when playing the same notes on the scale one octave apart (or a similar symmetrical interval apart), even if there are accidentals! What’s not to love? Perhaps to a neurotypical, this is a non-issue, because they’re linear thinkers — their minds fixate more on the sequence of notes on the instrument than how symmetrical the “dance” of the fingers is; but for me, that’s a bigger deal.

The takeaway: not everyone’s minds learn the same way.

This is old news in classrooms all over the world, but music is not an exception. Music learning should take diversity into account too. I do appreciate that maybe more research is needed in order to “legitimise” certain methods of teaching before they’re made widely available, but there’s something to be said about believing your student when they talk about a particular difficulty you haven’t seen before.

Feel free to share your thoughts.