Research by BBC Music Magazine has found that it is possible to achieve an A grade in GCSE Music without being able to read music, because none of the main examination boards award more than 20 percent of total marks for being able to do so.
Angered by this discovery, Damon Albarn told the magazine: "The idea of it being completely absent from the most important exams of your childhood is disgraceful. I used to write for small orchestras when I was fifteen. I sold my soul to the Devil and became a pop star and forgot about it, but in the past few years I have got back into orchestration after an almost 20-year hiatus. I'm so slow now. I think anyone interested in music should be forced to learn that discipline. If you don't learn to read music then there's a whole tradition that becomes very exclusive, and shouldn't be. It shouldn't be something made to feel old-fashioned".
Nigel Hildreth, head of music at Colchester Sixth Form College and one of Albarn's former music teachers said that he had to turn away many GCSE pupils with an interest in moving on to the A-level music course away because they did not have the required skills in reading sheet music: "The pressure of preparing youngsters in less than nine months means that insufficient time is available to bring sometimes very scant skills in music reading up to scratch".
I don't know, memorising the phrase 'Every Good Boy Deserves Football' can get you a long way. That and being a drummer.