Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles • Hacker News Board

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#31

Post by dangrover » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 5:16 AM UTC

high5ths wrote: post #16

waqf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following an existing score should be a lot easier than de novo polyphonic transcription. For example, you could almost just track the beat while ignoring all the pitches.

It's impossible to do that with a lot of non-standard notational music. And even with standard music, "the beat" is annoying to track and changes FAR more than you'd expect. Good musicians are constantly altering the beat in subtle and unsubtle ways.

Exactly. Rhythm quantization is one of those things that no app ever gets right.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#32

Post by high5ths » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 6:09 AM UTC

usedtolurk wrote: post #30

danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode. Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

Playing speed changes over time, and the problem with continuous scroll is that musicians often need to look away from the music -- at their hands, feet, at other musicians or the conductor -- and if the music has moved in the meantime, it is disorientating and not useful. That's why a page-based model is still the only way to work, even when you think a scrolling model is more efficient.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#33

Post by high5ths » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 6:10 AM UTC

neonscribe wrote: post #18

danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

Here's a much simpler solution: a page-turning pedal: http://www.bilila.com/pagescore_turner

Or http://airturn.com/

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#34

Post by Bud » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 6:20 AM UTC

usedtolurk wrote: post #30

danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode. Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

Another real-life need for pages (and page numbers) is for easy reference in rehearsals. You don't want to wait while 100 people figure out how to scroll to a given point without common reference points (although, yes, bar numbers would work, too).

I also heartily agree with the commenter who noted that continuously-scrolling music would be disorienting in real use.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#35

Post by dangrover » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 6:53 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #27

zach wrote: post #2

Congrats, Dan! What a great write-up. So glad to see how far this has come. Leaving aside the practical matters native to the iPad, I think not having an extensive classical selection is one of the best ways you could be dinged. It speaks the app's value and a desire to use the app more. And it leaves the door open for a followup story.

It's not the place of any app to solve the problem of needing a full classical library. Various websites, from Art Song Central to IMSLP to Choral Public Domain Library have already attacked this need with vigor. There are a LOT of good PDFs out there already that can be used right now in forScore without any need to pay Steinway or anyone else for things that are in the public domain already. http://imslp.org/ http:…

If all you need are PDFs, you can use any PDF reader. This app does a great deal more than that.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#36

Post by __david__ » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 6:58 AM UTC

high5ths wrote: post #32

usedtolurk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode. Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

Playing speed changes over time, and the problem with continuous scroll is that musicians often need to look away from the music -- at their hands, feet, at other musicians or the conductor -- and if the music has moved in the meantime, it is disorientating and not useful. That's why a page-based model is still the only way to work, even when you think a scrolling model is more efficient.

Not only that, but a lot of times you memorize different sections by their physical placement on the page. To lose that orientation would make memorization harder.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#37

Post by phlee » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 8:29 AM UTC

dangrover wrote: post #31

high5ths wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to do that with a lot of non-standard notational music. And even with standard music, "the beat" is annoying to track and changes FAR more than you'd expect. Good musicians are constantly altering the beat in subtle and unsubtle ways.

Exactly. Rhythm quantization is one of those things that no app ever gets right.

I've been working on converting midi/virtual midi input (from a performer) to notation in real time for an iPad notation app. It really is hard - I spent a tremendous amount of time on it, an still plan on improving it indefinitely after the feature ships.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#38

Post by dangrover » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 8:50 AM UTC

usedtolurk wrote: post #30

danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode. Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

Tried that with the iPhone version that came out in March last year. In practice it was silly and people liked the iPad version better.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#39

Post by muxxa » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 9:12 AM UTC

dangrover wrote: post #38

usedtolurk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode. Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

Tried that with the iPhone version that came out in March last year. In practice it was silly and people liked the iPad version better.

I wonder have you thought of splitting pages in two, and showing the top half of the next page while you are playing through the bottom half of the current page? This would keep pages static. (I wish this could be implemented on my Kindle also, as I often push the button for the next page too early, and then have to turn back again to read the last 3 words).

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#40

Post by stdbrouw » Fri, Sep 16, 2011, 9:15 AM UTC

mutagen wrote: post #25

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you change? I'm curious.

That musicnotation.org site outlines the major issues with traditional music notation. Traditional notation is very piano-centric, making learning to read it on a chromatic instrument more difficult than it needs to be. Nearly all stringed instruments have no distinction between sharp, flat and natural notes. That being said, there are hundreds of years of tradition behind current notation and that kind of momentum i…

I fear it's always going to be something-centric though. I play the clarinet and there's simply no easy way to indicate which fingerings to play short of sketching a clarinet and drawing it out (which is what happens, very schematically).

That said, it is remarkable how easy it is for a pianist to play on sight, whereas for classical guitarists that's usually only a skill you can hope to attain if you major in music. Banjo and ukulele are even harder, because of the re-entrant tunings where your highest note is the topmost one instead of the bottom one, destroying what little correlation there was left between sheet notation and hand/finger position.