Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano • Hacker News Board

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#151

Post by keymasta » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #93

murbard2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun example is this bar from Liebenstraum no 3, https://imgur.com/a/ud1VlJF It's the second bar on, the left hand goes A F# B# D# B# F# - Aflat F# C Eflat C F# Only the first note has actually changed though. Enharmonics in the same bar for the same pattern. I suppose there's some musicological explanation for this, maybe something along the lines of working towards a key change, but good luck intuiting this in sof…

I have no illusion that this will ever be perfect, but there is something that may be 'good enough' for the general purpose and then maybe we can very incrementally improve from there. One way in which to solve this is to use an algorithm for the bulk and a database of exceptions for cases where the algorithm would get it wrong.

This is my first comment on HN. I wrote some algorithms to do with this topic. I've been working on some code for a long time which looks at the c=2^12 combinations of notes, their properties and so on. I call each of them changes. I'm actually still working on material for a book which contains dynamically generated layouts based on these changes. So far I have addressed many music set theory properties, as well as some visualisation on different instruments like piano, fretboard (arbitrary). One of the algorithms looks at finding the most efficient enharmonic spelling for a given change.. It may be helpful. If anything you could look at the Python for that function and derive something suitable.. Feel free to PM.. Let's say that keys = 12, and changes = 2^12.. so you'd have 48152 possible key changes.. for each of these there are basically three enharmonic roots.. The you could multiply that by the potential variation within the scale degrees. If you just brute force that you'd essentially just keep the one with fewest accidentals

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#152

Post by lemming » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #13

murbard2 wrote: post #6

It's funny, I've had almost the same experience: decided to start playing again during Covid, and wanted to use the midi port to gamify things a bit. I've been using Synthesia[1] on an iPad, which also lets you take an arbitrary MIDI file and practice it. On the off-chance that this will inspire the article's author for their development, or simply for the curious, this has been my experience with it: The primary mod…

That's an interesting comment. So, the midi->score conversion is indeed one of the harder parts, I spent a lot of time on that and I'm not yet satisfied with the results. There are quite a few ways in which this can be improved further, there is a long list of 'todo's' where I basically have worked out how to make the improvement but I have not yet gotten around to actually implementing it. Midi is 'lossy' in the sen…

Piano Marvel allows you to add your own pieces to the library, I did it with one I found online. What they recommend is using Musescore to convert the MIDI to a score, fixing it up in Musescore and exporting as MusicXML. Musescore did a creditable but not perfect job of the conversion, but fixing it up was easy. Then you import both files into Piano Marvel. I'm actually not sure why they need the MIDI at all once you have the MusicXML, given that Musescore can play the music from the score directly.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#153

Post by vram22 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 2:21 AM UTC

Ha ha, good one, Jacques.

Another piano app, by me, this is as rudimentary as one can get, in Python. It turns your PC keyboard into a "piano":

Play the piano on your computer with Python:

https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2013/04/play-piano-on-your-compu...

The comments by people wih more music knowledge than me (zero) were interesting and informative.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#154

Post by thewebcount » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

d883kd8 wrote: post #144

murbard2 wrote: post #6

It's funny, I've had almost the same experience: decided to start playing again during Covid, and wanted to use the midi port to gamify things a bit. I've been using Synthesia[1] on an iPad, which also lets you take an arbitrary MIDI file and practice it. On the off-chance that this will inspire the article's author for their development, or simply for the curious, this has been my experience with it: The primary mod…

> you're playing at a given pace, miss, stop and repeat a bar, the app should detect that automatically instead of just carrying on expecting you to keep playing. I'm a piano noob but wouldn't you want to practice catching back up with the beat if you ever intend to perform?

This is a really good question, so I don't know why there are downvotes. There are 2 scenarios: 1) you're trying to learn the notes and 2) you're trying to get it in shape for a performance. It sounds like this software is geared towards scenario 1 where you don't yet know the piece and want to learn it. Generally when learning the piece it's best to fix mistakes as they happen, otherwise your brain sort of subconsciously assumes that was what you intended. Once you have the piece down, then when you make a mistake you want to keep going and pretend it never happened because otherwise the rest of the band will leave you behind. (And for soloists, nobody wants to hear you go back and correct a mistake.)

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#155

Post by turtlebits » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

This is great! My son, who normally loses interest in long songs that are a bit harder than his level, got through The well tempered clavier (one of the sample songs).

The timing/spacing of the notes is a bit off though, I wish it scrolled according to beats instead of speeding up and down depending on what type of note was being played. I understand it has to stop and wait for the note to be played, but some of the whole notes threw me off.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#156

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

zodiac wrote: post #141

hsitz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really follow the idea that "midi is lossy" in the sense described. Because it uses note-on/note-off pairs? I don't see the problem there. Certainly the idea that a score somehow has more information in it than a midi recording is ridiculous. A score always requires interpretation. The midi is, in contrast, fully specified, very little room for interpretation. A midi recording contains pretty precise velocity…

> Certainly the idea that a score somehow has more information in it than a midi recording is ridiculous A midi file is designed to contain different kinds of information than a score, so it can absolutely contain less information (of a certain kind) than a score. Imagine a group of notes that are attacked very close together in time in a midi file - is it meant to be a chord played without arpeggiation? A chord arpe…

[deleted]

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#157

Post by bmn__ » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #6

It's funny, I've had almost the same experience: decided to start playing again during Covid, and wanted to use the midi port to gamify things a bit. I've been using Synthesia[1] on an iPad, which also lets you take an arbitrary MIDI file and practice it. On the off-chance that this will inspire the article's author for their development, or simply for the curious, this has been my experience with it: The primary mod…

Notes should directly align with the keys for usability. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZJTdQ-xCBE

I'm not quite happy with Synthesia. There is no visual feedback on completing a note. This has been a staple feature in Doremi Mania and Keyboard Mania for twenty years, so they have zero excuse for not implementing it.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#158

Post by hsitz » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

zodiac wrote: post #141

hsitz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really follow the idea that "midi is lossy" in the sense described. Because it uses note-on/note-off pairs? I don't see the problem there. Certainly the idea that a score somehow has more information in it than a midi recording is ridiculous. A score always requires interpretation. The midi is, in contrast, fully specified, very little room for interpretation. A midi recording contains pretty precise velocity…

> Certainly the idea that a score somehow has more information in it than a midi recording is ridiculous A midi file is designed to contain different kinds of information than a score, so it can absolutely contain less information (of a certain kind) than a score. Imagine a group of notes that are attacked very close together in time in a midi file - is it meant to be a chord played without arpeggiation? A chord arpe…

Thanks, yes, I would agree that a midi recording and a score to a large extent encode different types of information. The score has less of some of the kinds of information that are in fact present in midi. And the midi, of course, doesn't specify anything about ranges of interpretation; it simply represents a specific interpretation of a score.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#159

Post by pianoboard » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 8:02 AM UTC

On this note,seeing as cheap qwerty keyboards easily come in $5 and good in $20, is there a "piano" keyboard that only has keys laid out in piano fashion, rest left to drivers a small software that plays appropriate tones ....

I'd prefer something small- only two octaves and a plus/minus button to shift octaves.

Re: Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano

#160

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 12:37 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #149

jacquesm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess here and say that you are practicing a very limited repertoire, rather than to learn to play the instrument, in which case you are memorizing movements instead of music. Is that correct?

A fine guess but actually I cycle through what I think is a pretty big range. E.g., several Denes Agay classical+romantic compilations, the standard basic Bach + Beethoven, simple Chopin, John Field, Philip Glass (repetitive patterns help), etc. Another frustrating thing is it's not just long-term finger memory that kills me, my real-time memory bus is slow when learning a piece -- the transfer of "what notes comes n…

That's interesting. So, personal story time: I used to have a pretty scarily good memory. But as I get older I find that I only think that I still have a good memory. Every day there is evidence that it isn't nearly as good as it used to be and if there is anything that scares me about getting older it's that.

Some parts of what you write remind me of stuff I've read about flying an airplane: never let the airplane get ahead of you. In music that would be 'never let the music get ahead of you', once it does the cognitive overload becomes overwhelming.

Then: I listen a lot to the pieces that I want to play, over and over again, until I have the music in my head and then playing piano becomes a lot more like singing, instead of memorizing the movements you memorize the music and playing then becomes actual playing, you now have time and braincycles to spend on making it sound nice rather than just what to play and when. I only have a few pieces in my very limited repertoire at that level but the difference is huge with the remainder, I can make them sound in whatever way I want, I can vary them when and where I want to play variations on the entire piece by changing style and so on. That is what playing piano to me is all about and I intend to spend a lot of time on reaching that kind of proficiency with more music to broaden the range a bit.

I wished I had some tip to help you, also, I'd love it if you gave the software a spin and let me know if there is a way that I can improve it so that it does help you, if that requires setting up a trial version then I'm all for it. Let me know if you're up for this. best regards, Jacques