I'm really happy with this app. Reading sheet music always felt like a tedious and disorganized task to me, so I built my own method: an app that quizzes you on notes, tracks how you're doing, and lets you raise the difficulty little by little. I don't read fluently yet, but this method is giving me great results, and it's key for me to start sharing it. At the end of the article I'll leave you the video where I explain it.
The app is here: Sheet Reading: Pitch.
It's in beta. I'm still developing it, so you'll see changes often, but you can already use it.
I never went to music school. For years I felt like I was missing out on a part of music because I couldn't read those little dots, which are actually very simple. I tried several methods and none of them really clicked for me, so I built my own, in the way I personally learn best.
How it works:
One note at a time: a note appears on the staff and you answer as fast as you can. You start with four notes and add clef, key signature, and register when you feel comfortable.
Answer however you like: by typing, playing guitar, clarinet or violin, singing, or with a MIDI keyboard. If you play guitar, you choose which frets you want to work on and the app only quizzes you on notes from that area of the neck.
Everything is tracked: the app saves every answer, whether you got it right and how long you took. From that it builds a heat map of the staff, with notes you already know in green and ones you still don't in red, and it shows you how your range has grown and how your response time has dropped.
Practice what you struggle with most: you can make slow or incorrect notes appear more often, and have the ones you've already mastered stop showing up.
More than 100 options: key signature, treble or bass clef, pedal note, triads in arpeggio, accidentals. Each one raises the difficulty one step, not the whole staircase.
It is dedicated purely and exclusively to pitch: recognizing every note correctly and at first sight. Rhythm is left out on purpose.
It's not a little game. What can't be measured can't be improved, and here everything you practice is visible, so you can keep at it until sight-reading feels natural and fast. What I did take care of is keeping the curve stress-free: you raise the difficulty when you want to.
It comes with the subscription, along with the other subscriber apps. On the app page you can try reading 8 notes without signing up: try it here.