Steve>   if you can do it all aurally, by memory, without the dots, I envy you. I can try for weeks to memorise something, and still make a mess of it in public; though I could sightread almost anything till the sight got a bit iffY. You mention the spoken/written language. Because you know the grammar, you are able to write seriously, make jokes and puns, and understand different dialects. And you write english well enough. So why not music (rhetorical question). Perhaps with a good memory you don't need to?

Jack>   those made me giggle!

Manitas>   one of the first things I noticed when I came into folk was that some tunes fitted the fiddle and others didn't. Then I realised that they either were written for a different instrument, or I'd heard a version modified for a different instrument. After a while it's possible to make out characteristic finger petterns in a tune, that betray its (apparent) origins.

I'm always amazed that while we (and that includes a whole terrible lot of people) are all musicians, we are all so different, and have such different gifts.