 Examples include the blind 18th-century composer John Stanley and the 20th-century songwriters Lionel Bart, Irving Berlin and Paul McCartney.As well, in traditional music styles such as the blues and folk music, there are many prolific songwriters who could not read music, and instead played and sang music "by ear".The skill of sight reading is the ability of a musician to perform an unfamiliar work of music upon viewing the sheet music for the first time.