I taught myself to read music the summer of my 16th year. I went to a school that had no music program. Going into 5th grade, my family moved. I arrived at the new school apparently the only kid who did not know what ‘FACE’ meant. The music teacher would ask me to name this note or that and I had no clue. I would inevitably get stuck in the back of the chorus, relegated to the ranks of the un-musical.

That all changed when my older sister got into music. Despite my aspirations, asking for a guitar one Christmas, she promptly appropriated it. She did get me going on singing harmonies, forced me, actually, to sing melody on every Beatles song ever made while she harmonized. I was eager to learn and she had a good ear if not a gentle manner (“NO! You’re singing MY note, it’s: OH BLA DEE!”). At least I started to believe I might have a musical bone in my body after all. One day she brought home this medieval LP featuring recorders—the primitive woodwind instrument not the device. I was smitten by the sound. The movie Romeo and Juliet was just out, so I had a romantic attachment to everything medieval, well actually, Renaissance.

I bought a recorder and a book. Lucky for me it was the Trapp Family Singers’ classic on beginning recorder. Now those of you who came up through public school music lessons will find it hilarious that I had no experience with this before the age of 16. But to me, that little book was my Bible. I would sit with it, reading and internalizing the meaning of each note and committing the shorthand for the various metres to memory—counting out the beats with a slow foot or sometimes, my whole arm—whole notes, half notes, graduating to eighths, sixteenths and even triplets. By the end of that summer I was able to play more than just rudimentary tunes. What convinced me that I needed to get out of my room and play with other musicians was my sister’s revelation upon hearing me play the “Irish Washerwoman” learned from the Trapp book.

I had no idea this was the hugely familiar Irish tune that evokes images of green hills and leapin’ leprechauns to just about anyone. I had had little experience with 6/8 jig time. I was emphasizing all the wrong notes. I could play it at a nice dirge-like tempo, but still did not recognize the tune until my sister heard me and said “That’s great, but why are you playing it like that?” “Like what?” I say. Then she hums it the way it’s supposed to go.

That episode provided a major revelation and one that has stuck with me. It’s great to be able to read, and to this day I am happy to use written music to help me learn tunes, but it can only take you so far. You have to LISTEN to tunes, over and over sometimes, before you can really be a fiddler, or attempt authentic playing. Immerse yourself in the style; listen, listen and listen some more. Develop your own take on it, yes, add your own flavor, but first know the style like the beat of your own heart.