How do I learn to read music?

I thought perhaps I could learn to read music by learning to play an instrument.   Makes sense, right?  Well, it turns out, it's extremely easy to learn ukulele without reading music.  Many books from the library discouraged it, in favour of ukulele short hand.

Without investing in a new instrument, is there some way for my dyslexic brain (that is resistant to all languages)  to learn to read music?

My theory is, if I can find out the normal way to learn to read music, I might be able to adjust it to work around the defects in my brain.

r ransom wrote:I thought perhaps I could learn to read music by learning to play an instrument.   Makes sense, right?  Well, it turns out, it's extremely easy to learn ukulele without reading music.  Many books from the library discouraged it, in favour of ukulele short hand.

Without investing in a new instrument, is there some way for my dyslexic brain (that is resistant to all languages)  to learn to read music?

My theory is, if I can find out the normal way to learn to read music, I might be able to adjust it to work around the defects in my brain.

Yep, I taught myself as I had basically no music education in school.  I had been playing guitar and mandolin for 20 years by ear and using tablature, but I wanted to learn the way they played it in the 1920s-30s, and that meant old books and having to read music.  It isn't hard - just takes practice.  Music is a 7  letter alphabet.  Get some staff paper and letter all the lines and spaces.  Each day, put a few dots on a blank staff and write the notes under each one.  Do this at random - no tune in mind.  Also write random letters like C, E, B, etc, and then put the dots on the staff accordingly.  Then, get some very simple music, maybe familiar folk tunes, written in standard notation, and write the letters of each note below the scale.  Then, play the tune and be sure to hum each note to train your ear.  Stay in the key of C for a while since it has no sharp or flat notes.  If you spend 5 min a day practicing reading music, it will be just as natural as reading this sentence by the end of the year.

One small tip is to write the note names underneath the notes to help bridge the two languages.

When I learnt to play piano as a child I had a simple tune book that started off with the different notes in different colours. Gradually as you went through the book they turned black and (hey presto) I was reading music. I don't know whether colours might help with the dyslexia. If so you could probably get music already coloured in....
Ah ha! I wasn't alone thinking this and apparently it can help:

this instructables suggests chosing the colours that work for you and just colouring the notes - all the As one colour, Bs another colour etc. Apparently making a copy of music for dyslexic individuals is fine in the UK. There is more advice on the British Dyslexia Association page on music. Not one approach suits all.

I suspect that there are probably on line sites to help read music, although other instruments might be more tricky to visualise than keyboards.

Oh yeah, I'm dyslexic too, BTW. If I had to bet I figure a lot of us on here are.

Ooh, the notes with colors are fascinating! And really distracting for me.

Duolingo has a “Music” lesson plan that is kind of fun and interactive.  If you’re paying for DL anyway it might be helpful.