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This is true. I read an interview with Hans Zimmer who has scored dozens of Hollywood films (including Blade Runner 2049) and when he first arrived in London in the 1980s he couldn’t read music. Not sure about now.

ETA: he did eventually learn how to read music:

“I learnt to read music after I bought the Roland MC8 Microcomposer, because it then became essential for me. … I learnt music by ear and have picked up most of my technical knowledge through the sessions and gigs.”

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/ronnys-electro-music-caba...

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So, I looked up this piece of equipment that he references.

The Roland MC-8 MicroComposer by the Roland Corporation was introduced in early 1977 at a list price of US$4,795 (¥1,200,000 JPY) ... it was considered revolutionary at the time, introducing features such as a keypad to enter note information and 16 kilobytes of random access memory which allowed a maximum sequence length of 5200 notes, a huge step forward from the 8-16 step sequencers ... Roland switched to the then brand new Intel 8080A 8-bit microprocessor and increased the RAM from 512 bytes to 16KB, allowing storage of over 5,300 notes, which could be entered via the calculator keyboard (the preferred method) or recorded in real-time (not so easy). Backup was via cassette and could take 45 minutes to an hour for a three- or four-minute piece of music to back up and verify. The memory was volatile, so a loss of power meant complete loss of data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MC-8_Microcomposer

Only 200 were made, but it's possible he purchased it second-hand, as he had done for the Moog that was once owned by Tangerine Dream.

The really interesting thing about the MC-8 is that it’s pre-MIDI, so CV and gate.

Tangerine Dream are listed as users on the wiki page so I guess he could have got it from them with the Moog.

As with all things vintage music Alex Ball has brilliant video on it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9l79HgXvxP8&pp=ygUNQWxleCBiYWx...

Insightful Hans Zimmer, 1982:

"You should be able to get something out of a machine that is better than an average musician."

I think he was even more `absolutely right` than he even thought

> Have you had any training?

> Hans: Oh yes — I have had two weeks of piano lessons!

Germans are much funnier than they are given credit for!

Hans Zimmer's protegé Lorne Balfe is dyslexic and started off as a drummer. Balfe probably can't read music well although he's done well for himself.

This is a great interview. This is the first time I have seen a younger Hans Zimmer.