Still sounds like if you slog away at it, the light will dawn. I will never read music the way and obsessed friend does, who when she asks you what key you are playing in will, and your reply is something like "G", will correct you and give a dissertation on what actual mixolidian THING it it, but I want to read enough to translate the books. My memory just isn't good enough to memorize more than the 200 or so tunes that I know. So I find the written notation important. And, if I can make headway, simply by doggedly doing it, I think others can.