I actually started the reverse of many of you. I grew up reading music. Actually got my college degree in music..but was weak in ear training because I only played the notes.. Then at my church im surrouned by people who didn't read so Ive learned over the last 15-20 years to play without music.. It really opens things up being able to do both things! Thats the Ideal!

I teach piano and in my experience it can be difficult to get students who have played by ear to play by notes. This sounds bad but just looking at the aspect of learning to read the notes its often easier to teach someone who knows nothing about music than it is to teach someone who plays by ear.

Why?

1. Note reading needs to be done in baby steps.. you need to go through the phase of counting ..whole notes/quarter notes/ egbdf/face/major scales minor scales Theory etc.. and the truth is it probally won't sound great for a while. This is the hard part but it needs to be done! ok the regular student does goes through this as the only way it can be done...but sometimes the one who can improvise likes to skip this part... Hehe the problem can be they often they want to make it sound better by jazzing it up changing some things NO! Not at this point! Follow the notes! learn proper fingering! Rythms! learn the theory behind your chords etc. Then read read read read read.. The parents sometime complain their learning these songs outside the lesson that they like to play for fun. I say Great! do your lesson but read read read! When I grew up our house was filled with song books..classic/pop/church/ etc. for fun my sister would sit down and just play through a book.. we all ended up excelent site readers.. read read read... but you'll need to learn the basics first.. you need a few years of bootcamp and then it will all come together... once your reading is profecient meld it with your improvising. change chords for color, make difficult arrangements easy, make easy arrangments difficult etc, play in all keys.. understand the theory behind your chord changes.. hehe you have the power!

GL with learning note reading!