[mattbasta]

I really love this. When I was young, I was really excited to learn to play the piano. The biggest problem I had was being able to read the sheet music. It was incredibly difficult for me to read and understand the notes for both hands at the same time. A big part of this was that when individual notes were off the normal staff (e.g., C is below the staff), you either had to have an innate sense of how far from the staff it was and what note that corresponded to, or you had to stop playing and count to see which note it was. This seems to solve all of those problems.

[tacos]

So does a deck of flash cards. If you learned multiplication tables you can learn to read music. And if you can play video games you can play piano.

And it's NEVER too late to learn.

[ams6110]

I suppose one could also say "if you can learn to sight-read a novel you can learn to sight-read music" and it might be true but I think there is a certain natural ability prerequisite. I played in school concert bands for four years and could never manage to sight-read anything very complicated. Practicing was a chore and when we got new music I always had to sit and pick through it very slowly measure-by-measure until I figured out how it was supposed to sound. Once I knew that, I could "read" the music but I could never play a new piece on first sight. I knew all the notation but I could not look at a new piece of music and "hear" it in my head.. It felt more like trying to read a book letter by letter. I never was able to really see "words" and "sentences". By the time I quit I really just hated everything about it.

I also had tremendous difficulty learning basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts compared to most of my friends. And I don't play video games.

I do enjoy listening to music quite a bit, but I think I am a person who doesn't have an ability to play it.

[shiro]

There are two factors - an individual difference and a general matter.

In general, musical sight reading requires specific practice most people are not exposed to. Even if you play instruments fairly well, sight-reading practice is not something you implicitly pick up. I play piano for hobby over 30 years, took lessons time to time, but it's only recently I consciously started practicing sight reading and the effect is remarkable. It's a very specific exercise, different from just practicing a piece.

And there is the individual difference. My son is very visually-oriented, that he can make sense complicated figure at one look, but he's having hard time reading long sentences. Some people may just not good at read music.

[tacos]

I chose "flash cards and multiplication tables" as an example for a reason and I find your response fascinating. Thank you.

I will state that group instruction via band class at certain ages is perhaps the worst possible way to develop a love for something ("practicing was a chore...")

I too started note by note, then measure by measure. I felt like a total idiot! Gradually it became "phrase by phrase" and then turned into this surreal feeling where my eyes wander a few bars ahead and somehow my hands catch up in time. I wish everyone could experience that. I was just SO clumsy at first and I started SO late. I'm SURE you could do it given practice.

[PepeGomez]

Are you dyslexic as well, or does it only happen with music?

[ams6110]

Not in the usual sense. If there is such a think as numeric dyslexia I might have that to some degree. I frequently transpose digits. I have trained myself to be very careful whenever I have to transcribe a number, fill out forms, or even dial a phone number. I find it helps to look at numbers in groups (pairs or triplets) rather than individually. I don't recall every trying that with music...

But I don't have any difficulty with reading text, and enjoyed reading a lot as a kid so in that sense I am not dyslexic.

[mavhc]

There's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia

[Angostura]

My dad decided to learn in his late 70s. Now in his early 90s, he's not good, but he gets s lot of pleasure from it.

[baby]

I use such music sheets when they exist: http://herbalcell.com/static/sheets/legend-of-zelda-twilight...

it already simplifies reading A LOT.

[RogerL]

tl;dr don't cripple yourself with substandard notation when it takes 2 weeks to learn it.

You shouldn't be counting.

Any decent pedagogical training is going to introduce the lower and higher notes one at a time. And 'decent' can include self learning. Have some patience and don't try to jump into advanced things right off. You will just learn bad habits.

Say you know by sight all the notes g below middle c. The next exercise should introduce the f below middle c. When you see it it will be the one and only note you haven't trained on, and before you know it it will be trained into your muscle memory. Soon you will just see all the notes and know what it is. No counting required.

We are talking a couple of weeks here. A note a day, say, will get you pretty far - scores almost always change clefs before going 14 semitones above/below the staff.

Some people will do anything to avoid learning in a disciplined manner, and then spend years never advancing or fighting their bad technique. Take a bit of time, and the world of music is opened up to you.

Analogy - imagine somebody asks you to teach them how to pitch (baseball). You ask to see their current throw and it is some weird, lurchy, shot put type of throw. You show them a standard over shoulder release. They say no, they want to keep their current style, and maybe, just maybe, over many months, first remove some part of the weird lurch. In six months, then maybe they'll raise their hand a few inches. After that is working over several months, then maybe they'll start moving their hand behind their shoulder just a bit. Why, in just 10 years they'll be able to throw a ball!

It's crazy. If you want to pitch a baseball, just learn the movement that is required. If you want to play piano, learn how to hold your hands, and learn to read the music on sight. If you want to play guitar, learn the correct way to hold the strings with the left hand, and learn the proper plucking/fingering of the strings with the right hand. Etc. It's a few weeks of boredom, followed by a life time of being able to play.

actually I find it very zen, and love to go back to the beginning exercises, seeking absolute, unthinking perfection, letting each note ring for several seconds. Learned that from reading about Horowitz, and it works. But it is a bit much to expect 'zen' from a beginner that just wants to play some Billy Joel tune. To them I say Billy Joel did this to get the skill to play his songs, and you are probably not more a natural genius than he is, so you probably can't skip over what he had to do.

[ams6110]

What you say is not wrong but it's just not that simple for some people. In my case I did start with the basics, learned to play all the notes and could tell you any fact that the written music represented. The note, whether it was sharp or flat, the fingering to play it on my horn, the meter, the tempo, whether to play staccato or legato, fortissimo or piano, etc. but after four years as a kid I was never able to put it all together at tempo on sight. Once I had learned the piece yes I could use the written music as a reference and play it. But never on first sight. And I really don't think it had anything to do with the notation.