I can just barely read standard musical notation but it’s far from fluent. I’m wondering if, with enough practice you can look at sheet music that you have never heard or seen before and sound it out in your head before ever touching your instrument?
Fun fact: you know how you can maintain a conversation while listening to music, but it’s awful hard to do so while reading text? Well, musicians trained to do so can read a music sheet while talking because “reading music” triggers the same brain bit that is used to process music, so they’re effectively “listening” to the music while talking.
Also, I’ve heard 3 different orchestra conductors say that no orchestra performs better, no matter the piece, than the one in their minds.