Yeah, I tried to balance it to be more friendly to new players, but it seems like there is no one-size-fits-all.
Maybe an adaptive difficulty would help to make the game more accessible. Thank you for the feedback, that's a very good lesson!
I went back and tried playing on my phone, and though I still have no rhythm (I'm musically cursed I guess) I was very impressed with the mobile controls, they worked very well!