Playing something you have to look at

There are two ways to spend an hour with a screen, and one of them asks more of you than it seems to.

The first is the one where you choose. You pick the song, the level, the chapter. The second is the one where you commit to something long enough that the deciding is done for you.

When the shape of the thing is the point

A melody is easier to learn when you can see where it goes. Notes falling as they sound, chords forming on a staff, the pattern visible underneath the line.

MidiPlays does that: MIDI songs you can play on piano, guitar or wind instruments, with falling notes, full chords and a sheet music view, and a browser player that loads your own local files too. It is at https://midiplays.com.

When you want the decision out of your hands

The other kind of hour is the one where you have already decided and you just need to start. Not everything benefits from a menu.

There is a version of that for the series you like, with the player reduced to what it needs to be and nothing else competing for the attention, at https://youtube.kyaneko.com.

Why both take an hour

The interesting part is that they are not opposites in effort, they are opposites in decision. The first one asks you to choose constantly. The second one asks you to choose once.

Most people want the second one more often than they admit, and the hours that go wrong are usually the ones where the choice was never made in the first place.