Funny you should mention reading music.
Elfman is kind of a musical idiot savant. No training and can't read music. He has been considered sort of an upstart and compared unfavorably to John Williams. And many times there have been snide comments about his inability to read music.
I first became aware of his movie work when I heard the theme from the first (first) Batman movie on a TV commercial. I later found out it was the Oingo Boingo guy and I was floored. Lots of other stuff he's done like the Simpson's TV theme. And The Nightmare Before Christmas music (pretty much all the Tim Burton movies have Elfman work).