I have come across The Landmark System for reading music (well, individual notes) so if you, like me, 'cannot read music' and have already read the discussion we have had about this .. skip straight to this post by clicking this LINK below:
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=5595#p45088
I never have been able to read music. I'm OK with chords written on the music. If I see A, or D7, or Ebm, or Fnat7, or Fdim I'm fine. My left hand will play that chord immediately, and will play whatever inversion of that chord sounds best in the situation I'm in. But 'reading the dots'? If I saw the notes F, A and C on the Stave I would not connect those notes as being the chord of F. D, F# and A? I can't even get into my head which of those are 'on the lines', and which are 'in the spaces'; let alone recognise that this is the chord of D.
Then I came across a Video that said, "HOW TO READ MUSIC IN 15 MINUTES" At last! Give me 15 mins then and I'll be away!
Well, I think I knew all that from about the age of 8. Maybe they should re-word the video to HOW TO UNDERSTAND MUSIC THEORY IN 15 MINUTES. This is not the same as reading music.
When my two granddaughters were at primary school I took them once a week to 'Keyboard Lessons' (out of school). The music books they used had the 'letters' written inside the notes, supposedly to help them identify which notes to play on the keyboard. Wish they didn't do that, as they may as well have written the notes along a straight line, as the grandchildren were just reading the letters to play the notes and not referring to the position of the note on the stave. After two years of this they were getting absolutely nowhere (and weren't enjoying the lessons), so I stopped the lessons.
Then some time later, at Christmas, my eldest granddaughter asked me to put some music up on my organ (I had a Farfisa in those days) and she would accompany me on her recorder (which she was playing at school) for a carol. I thought to myself, no way is this girl going to be able to do that! But she surprised me by playing the melody perfectly while I played the chords that were written on the music. When I questioned her about how she had done that she said, "Well, this note is putting my finger over this hole; and that note is putting my finger over that hole .. and so on". "So you don't know that the notes have letters then?" "No", she said.
Maybe I can learn something from all this. I think I must identify the note on the Stave with which note it corresponds to on the keyboard .. forget the letters!
But I have taken note (if you'll pardon the pun) of what he said in the video about the 'rhythm' aspect of a note. Ignore it. I can play the notes according to how I hear them played. It's which notes to play that is the important bit.
Hugh