i've a close friend who's a professional pianist. he also plays piano accordion, but when it comes to joining in with session tunes or songs, he's stuck because he needs to learn anything from the dots first. also he can only transpose stuff to another key by working it all out on paper at home.

i find this difficult to understand, as being a play by ear practioner, i find it very easy to do these things.

conclusion, while i sometimes feel handicapped by being unable to decipher 'dots', i can find out a tune some other way.

even so, i think being tied to tabs or dots is a far greater disadvantage, with loss of spontaineity & flexibility.