Very interesting article Mark and fascinating to read from your music teacher/formal study perspective.

I learnt to play guitar as a kid by learning the patterns I had to press on the fretboard to get the chords and scales I needed, then recognising how to form more complex chords, other scales/modes and how they went together. I also applied this technique to learning the piano and uke later on. I guess that's a familiar story.

Now I have more time, I'm back-learning the theory which is fascinating. However, with music notation I can't translate musical notation to the 3-D shapes and patterns I have in my brain for the music. I guess this is familiar too.

For example, an F# for me isn't a little hash symbol next to a black dot with a tail sitting inside two straight lines on a page, it's a sound with a finger position related to my other finger positions inside a specific pattern. I guess I left it too late in life :-)