In my personal experience but also having observed other people try to find magical shortcuts, watching tutorials, guides and following different courses that never seem to satisfy your thirst for a fast-track, imo this is the way to do it.

And it will be tedious

And it will feel like meaningless or at least extremely boring. Until?
Until you begin to see/hear patterns.

That is the moment when a whole new dimension opens up in front of your eyes.

 

Hello, I just read the last posts and just want to say or encourage that learning to reed sheet music is actually very easy. It should not take any longer than 2 weeks to learn both the bass and violin clefs you need for piano. Guitar maybe is a little bit more complicated than piano, but learning to read sheet music is not really a hard task. Practice on an instrument is much harder. If you know sheet music you can read all compositions, thats a huge advantage. But if you're playing mostly by ear and you can make everything you want, you don't really need music theory. But it's still a very good skill to be able to read music. You can read notes and imagine the sound in your head, that's really handy.

 

Ohhh jeeeez foster is back.

The word you repeat the most is "cannot". That says a lot about you, you just cant. Get the fuck out of music and just start to play with clay.

 

@Foster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia

 

For beginners, a music book is very useful for learning the basics. Which key has which name, which fingerings are applicable. Beginners can also write the notes on the keyboard with a pencil. After three months at the most, you'll know where each note is and which fingerings you can play. It depends on how quickly you learn or how much time you invest.

After that, everything comes naturally...! You'll quickly realize what you like and what you don't; nurture what you have a talent for.
Remember, music should be fun and not a chore. A music book is useful if you want to look something up, new fingerings, keys, etc.! You don't need more than one music book.

If they are the next talented pianist the world is waiting for, they will know what to do and get a piano teacher anyway.
Piano From Scratch --> www.youtube.com/c/PianoFromScratch

 

That is probably the singularly most valuable statement of all on here. It doesn't matter how it is translated as long as it is translated.
There are other things that life teaches musicians that cannot be written down no matter how many expression symbols are written on a piece of manuscript, and people who have lived in music long enough know that it also cannot be quantified as sure as someone telling you they are hot or cold, does not truly explain how every nerve and fiber in their body is feeling.

 

One thing to keep in mind is how arbitrary the line can be here.

Nobody derides the creative output of writers because they were taught how to read or write. Literacy is accepted / expected / demanded for & of litterateurs.

Musicians on the other hand are often mocked for being musically literate.

Alighieri's art isn't diminished because he could read. Shakespeare's work isn't derivative because he read Seneca and Plutarch.

In a similar vein, not every footballer needs to be a genius football coach; not everyone who plays music needs to be a genius composer. Or a genius mixing engineer, or sound technician or luthier. Sometimes and for some people just playing music really well is perfectly fine too.

 

In my opinion, it all depends what kind of music and how proficient you want to be. A hobbyist, a bedroom producer, a session musician - play rock, pop, tecno, jazz or classical music. They demand specific knowledge accordantly. The more you know, the easier it gets to work within different styles.

Not to forget, there are a lot of competition and talented people out there, no matter which stile you choose. You should learn what is important, to find your way and satisfy your own inner voice. Wherever it takes you.

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2026 at 10:48 PM