I always have done, when there was no internet or it wasn’t affordable you didn’t have much choice, it was learn by ear (as in transcribe) or buy expensive sheet music that was all squiggles that you didn’t understand.
Just out of interest I posted some of the stuff I’ve done in the past that should be interesting for you, you might understand why I’m doing what I’m doing now; I’ve just moved on to my next interesting phase!