Many musicians much better than me are surprised at how I can play a song just by hearing it on the radio. My breakthrough came from understanding music was realizing that the real “meaning” of a note lies in its position relative to the tonic note (e,g, I-II-II, etc, also written do-re-mi). Suddenly, almost all of the clutter was removed, and the problem became manageable.
Let's consider the three-note tune “do, re, mi”. If that tune were played in the key of C, it would become C-D-E. If it were played in G, it would become G-A-B. But in either case, it's the same tune but with each frequency increased by the same percentage.
Trying to understand music by understanding the letters is like trying to read in a world where every article has been enciphered into a different “key”: e.g., the word "cab" in “the key of A” (the alphabet we normally use) would be written as "dbc" if the article were written in “the key of B”. In the latter case, you could discern meaning only once you realised that the letter “d” represented the third letter of the alphabet. There's nothing meaningful about a “d” but there is something meaningful about a “4th letter of the alphabet”.
Once you start to “decipher” all music into I, II, III, IV, V, etc., the complexity becomes manageable. You can start to learn to recognize the sound of a III note, or of a VI minor chord. After all, there are only eight notes in the major scale.
Let's consider the three-note tune “do, re, mi”. If that tune were played in the key of C, it would become C-D-E. If it were played in G, it would become G-A-B. But in either case, it's the same tune but with each frequency increased by the same percentage.
Trying to understand music by understanding the letters is like trying to read in a world where every article has been enciphered into a different “key”: e.g., the word "cab" in “the key of A” (the alphabet we normally use) would be written as "dbc" if the article were written in “the key of B”. In the latter case, you could discern meaning only once you realised that the letter “d” represented the third letter of the alphabet. There's nothing meaningful about a “d” but there is something meaningful about a “4th letter of the alphabet”.
Once you start to “decipher” all music into I, II, III, IV, V, etc., the complexity becomes manageable. You can start to learn to recognize the sound of a III note, or of a VI minor chord. After all, there are only eight notes in the major scale.