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Comment by nopurpose | Hacker News Reader

Just bought a digital piano as New Year present to myself. So far I am doing single-note-a-time melodies from my child's practice book and so far enjoying my slow progress, but I am really struggling. Spent 3 evenings on a single simplest song and still can't play it end to end reliably.

I have to sign every note with a letter in a music book because only other way to "read" music sheet for me is count lines for each note, which is unbearably slow.

I wonder if there is any modern (AI, bluetooth midi app, etc) way to get over initial hurdles easier?

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That's good question. While I think my app might help with your ability to pick out notes - it's not going to assist with stuff like proper pianistic ergonomics, fingering, etc.

I’ve heard some people say that the Piano Adventures Player app is a nice little tool because it serves as a supplement to the books themselves.

https://pianoadventures.com/resources/piano-adventures-playe...

Good luck on your journey!

Funnily, I felt the opposite when I learnt to read music a few years back - that even though I was extremely slow, I could now (theoretically) read and learn to play any music, just slowly! You'll get faster and better with practice, as with everything. I'm still slow. Just not as slow. But crucially I'm fast enough that it's not the bottleneck anymore, getting the notes under my fingers is.

Keep at it!

Former band kid who also just got a digital keyboard. Ime learning to read the staff just came from putting in the time on the instrument, but I’m also looking for ways to speed that up. I had the idea of making flashcards and even putting it into an SRS like Anki to see if I can make the process of (re-)learning the staff faster and make it stick. If you come across anything that would help I’m interested too!

I've found that a colorful note guide (such as: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BC8NVW4Q) to be very helpful. Without it, I felt completely lost when looking at sheet music.

Keep at it! It takes a few years, but so long as you practice new things consistently and every day you'll keep getting better and better.

I mean it took me like eight years as a kid to get good at this. It's just a slog. All learning is exponential.

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