various bits
(earlier post)
.....I am not being mean but all I am hearing is negative reactions with nothing that even helps just a tiny bit, all sounds depressing and defeatist.
To the OP - You may think it's easy for everyone here, and that we don't have moments of feeling defeated, struggling and seeming to get nowhere - we just don't talk about it. In this way, negativity can be offputting. In your original thread about this, I don't remember much of "thanks, I'll try this". A thing one hears from teacher who have taught regularly for a longer time, is that they frequently get students (esp. ones who are not children) who immediately say "This won't work.", try for 3 seconds listlessy and say "It doesn't work." or "I won't try this.", complain further about how hard it is - and a teacher will read the same behaviour into responses by those asking (for their free help). Thus you can get "attitude" and a reaction.
At the same time, those who have not yet had to contend with age, can't quite imagine the reality.
So to LiW.
So you can no longer distinguish colors by the looks of it. How on earth are you driving a car??
The OP did not write that he cannot distinguish colours. He wrote that trying the method via colours didn't work. I anticipated that when I first read the suggestion. You don't need to read symbols printed on a traffic light; you just have to see whether red, yellow, or green are on. for the colourblind: top, middle or bottom being brighter.
I remember suggesting enlarge the music and print it off a while back and your response was something along the lines of that it is too troublesome to actually do. Personally I don't believe you can't see a super magnified bar, if one bar fills an entire page.
Without going back to the other thread, I don't remember seeing much of a response to that suggestion either. That may be why I didn't get involved in the old thread.
That said, super magnification to the point of a single bar on a page seems impractical for sight reading. It would take forever. But if combined with memorizing, understanding and seeing patterns, maybe jotting things down in a different way, it could be one way in. I worked with the massive chords of the Rach C#m prelude and after a first reading, I made a point of knowing which chords they were, in which inversion and I only look back at the score to check.
Deal with your swollen optic nerve seems the best solution, most likely it is something that will heal unless you have a more serious underlying condition. Seek better medical advice on that one.
I'm reading this from the POV of where I'm at myself, where what's happening with my eye (I'm told it's a cataract, I have some reasons to doubt) is a matter of surgery. I was shocked when my former optometrist told me my brain "could not handle" an optimum prescription, and for the first time in my life, experience it to almost be true - where it turned to double vision until the brain "retrained". When we are "not yet old", we rely on all our senses and physical system, and just assume it will always be there. We switch around, try this and that, and have variable things to switch
to and suddenly that landscape changes.
In my case I switched optometrists. I understand that in the OP's case, this is a gradually degenerating condition. (may be wrong) I told my story and the decision to start aiming more toward proprioception and memory, because alternatives to reading - with reading playing less of a role and being supplemented by other skills, is probably the answer.
How do you read words here on piano street, how do you type here on piano street? Are you going to say it is all done via voice? If you can read words on the screen I don't see why you can't read sheet music or write in the letters of the notes since you seem to read posts on the internet fine.
I can answer that one for my own situation - and there may be some new ideas for the OP. This site with its white on black is far from ideal. The thing with words created out of the alphabet, we don't need to see details. We're not reading every letter, and we're not following the details of each shape. In fact, we probably don't read every word, because we anticipate how the sentence will go. Also, your eyes stay fixed in one region. You don't have to look up and down at any time.
But a segue to this going back to reading music - the anticipation part - If you get a decent understanding of musical form and grammar, you can also anticipate there. For example: sharp vs. natural sign ---- and I've had trouble visually with this as well depending on the music ---- If you understand music, you'll often know which sign it is
likely to be. So a study and application of music theory, in a practical way, might be a strategy to explore.
On this last point, the teacher should be involved. For example, if an etude is assigned: my impression of etudes is that they tend to be more predictable in nature, so that one doesn't have to look at every note and accidental in detail. A teacher can point out these patterns and propose strategies. If the teacher is young and inexperienced in teaching (if) she may need to be asked such things.
Topic: Isn't there an easier way?