Trotman is a self-taught musician and has never had traditional piano lessons nor does he possess substantial knowledge of reading or writing musical notation.

He wrote music on this napkin with his own method of writing notation with simple dots, not knowing the modern staff notation.

"This was written long before lined notation," according to Martin.

Useful skills in composition include writing musical notation, music theory, instrumentation, and handling musical ensembles (orchestration).

Despite not being able to play a musical instrument or write notation, Meek displayed a remarkable facility for writing and producing successful commercial recordings.

After sustaining damage to these regions, P.K.C. was selectively impaired in the areas of reading, writing and understanding musical notation but maintained other musical skills.

But over time, and with neither written notation nor musical instruments to keep the beat, the tunes have slowed down and ornamentation has been added in.

"I don't like writing musical notation and thought I'd have so much trouble with it," she said of the song.

It was not committed to paper, however, until 1915, when he learned to write musical notation.

Clinical, or expressive, symptoms include the loss of ability to sing, write musical notation, and/or play an instrument.