I used to play the piano, though I quit playing in grade 9. I spent a good 6+ years playing. I think four of those years were in the Royal Conservatory, and I moved up in levels. All classical.

However, this is about six years later. I'm twenty now, and I've forgotten a lot. I do have a decent piano (electrical keyboard), and it does include some "learning features" which are sort-of decent. I spent a bit of time relearning a simple piece (Moonlight Sonata I believe, not sure).

My biggest problem is that I hardly concerned myself with reading music. I learned by ear, and that's how I played. I'd listen and watch my teacher, and then memorize that way. I want to learn how to read the music... which is much more valuable than memorizing a number.

Any suggestions? Any sites I can go to? Anything free ^_^; I want to spend some time studying this... I've got the eye-hand-piano coordination and remember a lot about playing... and I figure if I devote a fair amount of time to the reading portion, a lot will come more easily... and then I can really tie things together and move forward at a quicker pace.

I am willing to pay some fg to some real help ^_^. Since this is somewhat of a long read and the request is one that takes a little patience.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Dec 29 2009 04:09am

I had the same problem, I've gotten over it by looking notes, counting them one by one with a metronome and playing them. It's really slow at the start, but when you get the hang of it, it'll go faster and faster. Few weeks with immense training, you should be able to play straightforward from the notes.
There's also another way, get yourself guitar pro, create basic scales and change the rhytm. After that, play some tune and try writing it down to guitar pro. That's how our bands drummer learned to write notes to our songs

Edit: oh and I recommend the guitar pro system, it's really easy to learn rhytms that way. Guitar pro has a free version, the only problem is that you can't print notes with it. You can download it legally from here: http://www.guitar-pro.com/en/index.php

This post was edited by hartwall on Dec 30 2009 09:20am

Royal Conservatory offers theory courses. You would be interested in Rudimentary theory, or Grade 1.

Also, practice harmony. Take an easy grade one piece, learn the chords, and try playing it in different keys. This way, you'll get better at chord progressions, making it much easier to read music. This is especially useful for the 1st and 3rd movement of Moonlight.