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Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

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Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#41

Post by adrianh »

namanyayg wrote: post #37
adrianh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Soundslice, which lets you import any sheet music. It has a PDF/photo-scanning feature plus an entire sheet music editor built-in. https://www.soundslice.com/ I’ve been working on it full-time for nearly 12 years now. It doesn’t do the “listen to your performance” thing — maybe someday. But the other bits, such as practice tracking and interactive sheet music features, are all there.

While trying to learn Playing God a couple of weeks ago, I had a desire to loop certain parts and play them with reduced tempo. I thought I'll have to dev something myself. But I googled and discovered SoundSlice. My practice technique has changed, I'm learning superfast thanks to SoundSlice. I play it on a tablet I've got a tripod in my playing area. It's awesome to see the creator here, I didn't know that it's been…

Hey, that's lovely to hear! Thanks for taking the time to share your story.

That's exactly my colleagues and I work on this — for outcomes like yours. Keep making music my friend.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#42

Post by nxobject »

As an aside, thanks for making the app available for desktop Mac, even if it of course isn't explicitly designed for it. I think most people overestimate how many people have iPads around; I was never quite able to justify purchasing one given the price-how much I'll use it ratio.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#43

Post by jocoda »

Disappointed. The App Store tells me that the app will run on my IPad, an older model, just out of support and waits for me to click install before it tells me it wants iOS 17.

Pity, this would be a great use for an older model.

Is there a reason to hard wire this to iOS 17? Version is configurable in xCode and so I'm wondering what specifics bind it to 17.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#44

Post by jmdots »

How about an LLM that talks to you and can see the midi notes you played, fine tuned to the task of course. I think the teacher part of learning pretty much anything is super important because we’re social beings. Hearing “great job” is priceless when you really did your best.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#45

Post by solarengineer »

kashunstva wrote: post #36
wccrawford wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not strong opposition there. One basically says it's boring, and the other says that only a certain technique can ever be good, and then it isn't even cited.

Professional pianist here. They are boring but that’s hardly the biggest issue with Hanon, unfortunately. The biggest problem is the instructions that the composer leaves for the student, which includes the insistence that the student lift the finger high off the keyboard with each note. I can think of practically nothing more injurious to good technique and nothing more likely to induce tension than this. Hanon coul…

Are there any exercise books or videos or schools that teach this concept of weight transfer that you speak of?

I am a one-finger pianist at the moment.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#46

Post by roessland »

Awesome, I'll definitely try it.

I've been paying for Piano Marvel for a few years, and there is tons of room for improvement in this space:

- Native, non-janky app. Ideally cross-platform.

- More inspiring music in lessons.

- Recommendation algorithm for what piece/lesson to practice next.

- More methods of measuring progress over time.

- Spaced repetition for sight reading, technique, scales, ear training, sections of known pieces.

- Splitting pieces automatically into overlapping sections to practice, RH, LH and hands together (whatever makes sense).

- Simple streaming/recording features for use with piano lessons over video chat (screen/video/audio mixed together to a single stream?).

- Show music theory concepts based on what you are playing, in the context of the current piece. E.g. what chord is being played, and its function. Possible continuations.

My setup is a Macbook + FP-30 + USB midi cable. Having the laptop standing on top of the piano makes keyboard and touch pad usage clunky, so navigation must be simple. Also uploading custom scores is a must for me.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#47

Post by dragandj »

jmdots wrote: post #44

How about an LLM that talks to you and can see the midi notes you played, fine tuned to the task of course. I think the teacher part of learning pretty much anything is super important because we’re social beings. Hearing “great job” is priceless when you really did your best.

Then skip the LLM part and just add random "great job" here and there.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#48

Post by jraph »

roessland wrote: post #46

Awesome, I'll definitely try it. I've been paying for Piano Marvel for a few years, and there is tons of room for improvement in this space: - Native, non-janky app. Ideally cross-platform. - More inspiring music in lessons. - Recommendation algorithm for what piece/lesson to practice next. - More methods of measuring progress over time. - Spaced repetition for sight reading, technique, scales, ear training, sections…

It doesn't have most of what you say, but it does let you practice on custom scores (midi files), so maybe it can be part of the solution:

https://www.pianojacq.com/

(open source, from jacquesm here)

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#49

Post by jmdots »

dragandj wrote: post #47
jmdots wrote: post #44

How about an LLM that talks to you and can see the midi notes you played, fine tuned to the task of course. I think the teacher part of learning pretty much anything is super important because we’re social beings. Hearing “great job” is priceless when you really did your best.

Then skip the LLM part and just add random "great job" here and there.

I think I understated the social part. Talking to a teacher is part of it. Not just the gamification.

Re: Show HN: Hanon Pro – piano technique and exercises for the digital age

#50

Post by jraph »

kashunstva wrote: post #36
wccrawford wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not strong opposition there. One basically says it's boring, and the other says that only a certain technique can ever be good, and then it isn't even cited.

Professional pianist here. They are boring but that’s hardly the biggest issue with Hanon, unfortunately. The biggest problem is the instructions that the composer leaves for the student, which includes the insistence that the student lift the finger high off the keyboard with each note. I can think of practically nothing more injurious to good technique and nothing more likely to induce tension than this. Hanon coul…

My piano teacher uses the Hanon for warmup, and it does seem to help train the fingers. We have never looked at the instructions, I didn't know it recommended this. It seems painful. Instead, she gives rhythms to follow, there's also one exercise consisting in accentuating times.

I guess it can (should) be used like this: keep the scores, disregard the instructions, add your own exercises on top of the scores.

I do find it a bit boring, but it seems it makes sense to warm up before playing and to strengthen the fingers / hands (although I have no evidence of this whatsoever). I guess warming up also helps moving your focus from whatever you were doing to the piano.

What other ways do pianists use for this?

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