Yo @rrbirdman I can relate to your problem with reading music and it would be great to have that skill. Did you see the vid, Silent Sax Practice, on Procollab topic? One or two back. Thinking this is a great way to creatively visualise the music too – viz b is mid staff, D bottom, g top. When I write the staff out I put a big gap before G on the handwritten staff coz that is the first note on left hand. Like you I learnt other instruments with tab or hole numbers. It’s is very hard to read for me. Sometimes i use the 1 2 3 4 method ie holes going down being b a g f. Not reading music hampers me. I’m late 50s and been playing 18 mths and gave up for 6 mths recently. Coz I was a nastoz. To @Jeff .. It’s hard to rely on memory for the tunes. One day I hope i can play the sax just like talking. But at the mo mostly I am a stanger in a strange land, that is babbling gibberish. Blah blah blah. I wish you lotsa luck in your rockin’ endeavours and if you can work out a way to read easier please let me know ok? 🙂 Letz gabble soon ok, squeak honk squeak squawk

I knew a piano player who could read just about any sheet music and play it the first time through. I asked if I gave him sheet music for all my songs of interest can he play them at a party. He said only for about one hour because reading and playing new music as written is very demanding. He could play songs from memory all day long.

I used to play guitar for 5 years and I read sheet music. But I never read and play for a gigg. I learned new songs from sheet music and played them until I had most of it memorized. I could not play all of them from memory only, but referring back to the the sheet music while playing would help remind me what came next and then i could play that riff from memory. I used the sheet music for my gigs but I was not reading it note for note – just enough to remind me what riff was coming next and then muscle memory would take over.

Summary – Use the sheet music to learn the song. Then commit much of it to memory. Then use the sheet music only as a reminder of what comes next in the song. I do not think that anyone plays a gigs strictly from sheet music.

My point to all of this is, you do not have to know how to read sheet music fast. Even your read it painfully slow, that will be enough for you to learn the song and serve as notes when u r playing.

ya I think most people do that…read the music to learn the tune and then start looking away once you feel confident.
I’ve put out over 100 tunes and at the time I recorded them I knew each one very well. right now, I can probably remember the last few I did but would need the music for all the rest.
One thing I can say is that when playing a set of music just about every night with a band (say on tour) you do remember them….it’s when you’re away for a while that you forget.