I've had my HD-600s for quite a few years now. Eventually the inner headband wore out as did the foam covers over the transducers. Replaced them both for under $20.
These are my non-DAW hp's that I use to check final mixes on.
I literally had that experience back in high school. One of our guitarists wrote a song and he wrote out the bass part for me. I tried and tried to to play it and finally said "Steve this is impossible to play. I need to change a few notes". It was something like the upper left picture. He told me I was crazy. I asked him to play it for me. He couldn't even slowly one note a time. And then sheepishly he said "OK change what you need to".