music

I'm glad you're able to get into music! And you are right, perfect practice makes perfect is the distilled version of what I was saying. You want to make sure any practice session you have has a goal. And it can be reading music you alteady have on hand, I just fear that if the fundamentals aren't practiced then it will lead to difficulties later down the road.

You can still have some fun with music notes and playing by ear. You can learn some scales, even a blues scale, and boom you can do some fun improv. There are YouTube videos with backing tracks in a certain key where you can improv over them.

I am also guilty of not practicing well, I often just "noodle" around and play songs or play around. That's fine, but ideally it would be only one part of practice. Ideally I'd spend the beginning working on perfecting, over time, those fundamentals. I try to split my practice up into those two sections when I am feeling more disciplined. I am not as good as wish I was, but playing music is one of my few joys. I don't have to play well to be happy doing it - but it makes me feel accomplished when I can notice I've made (slow) improvement.

Whether its a book, a video on YouTube, etc. as long as the practice sessions have a goal, structure, and intention then it'll build up with time. I suggested a book since that gives you the structure, and introduces concepts as they're needed, but a good YouTube series can provide that too. I dont play keyboards (wish I did) so I cant give much more specifics there. if you can't get the metronome to work on the keyboard you can always find an app or even website. But I hope you keep at it, have fun, and one day I'll find you jamming on YouTube or Spotify.