I recently got a pia

Nice! A piano for your b day. I also have a piano but I didn't get it for me b day.

Congratulations on learning to play what I consider the best instrument in the world. The sound of the piano touches my heart very deeply. I am learning to play (at age 64) on an 1887 Mason & Hamlin Screwstringer Upright that I bought at an auction because I've always wanted to play piano. It's never too late. You can learn to read sheet music, if I can. I pretty much went cold turkey, starting with an easy song like Scarborough Fair. I know you will do it, and I hope my message encourages you. It's a fabulous journey. Blessings................ Carol

Learning to read sheet music is easy, but if you don't know the alphabet, you'll get nowhere fast. Let's talk about the treble staff first -- that's the top staff, has a symbol at the front that looks like an ampersand, or & sign, and is played with the right hand. There are always 4 spaces and 5 lines. The spaces are the notes F A C E, and can be remembered as FACE. The lines are E G B D F, and can be remembered with the mnemonic Every Good Boy Does Fine. The bass staff is the one on the bottom (both staffs together make the Grand Staff), and is played with the left hand. The symbol at the start of the staff looks like an overgrown comma , . Like the treble staff, it has 4 spaces and 5 lines, but the notes are different: the spaces are A C E G, and can be remembered as All Cows Eat Grass; the lines are G B D F A, and can be remembered as Great Big Dogs Fear Alligators. All you need now is to know middle C, which is an interstaff note that is always 2 notes below the treble staff and 2 notes above the bass staff; the two staffs can be said to intersect at middle C. It will always have one line through it. It's 2 spaces below F on the treble staff, 2 spaces above A on the bass staff. The note directly above middle C is D, and immediately below is B. So, starting with middle C (2 spaces below the bottom line) on the treble staff, you have C D E F G A B C D E F. Starting with G (the bottom line) on the bass staff, you have G A B C D E F G A B up to middle C. And now all you have to do is get hold of sheet music and start reading! Here's a picture of the grand staff with these notes: http://www.truedrumability.com/edgemoman5610/images/grand-staff.jpg

There are some beginner music books that put the letter-names for the notes in the noteheads or at least on the score. Just do a Google search for "lettered notes sheet music" or ask a teacher or local music store. This may help you play now but also get started on learning to read conventional music.

Took me about 3 months to start understanding any of the music I was reading. I have it all down packed now

I've just started too. I write notes on the music sheets in the beginning and eventually I started to recognize the common notes. I still write the notes down before playing them but I can tell I'm much better at recognizing notes than I did in the beginning.

Perhaps I should mention that my "piano" is a keyboard= Casio CTK2400 61- Key Portable Keyboard