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Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

lend-me-your-ears.specr.net

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Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#41

Post by w-m »

Great technical demo, but the usability feels unpolished. So here's a little bit of feedback of trying this out on a piano: Just because my piano has 88 keys doesn't mean they are all useful for ear training. The very low and very high notes shouldn't be used, at least not by default. Also they don't even show up properly in the sheet.

As the melodies get longer and longer with each win, this devolves quickly into a memory game. I'd like to keep playing ear training, but I struggle with remembering what sequence of notes came at steps 8+.

This is somewhat aggravated by completely resetting the current level and replaying the whole melody after a single mistake. If I keep making a mistake in note 10, I get all the notes over and over again, which is a bit maddening.

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#42

Post by moosedev »

ladidahh wrote: post #5

It be nice if you mapped the keys to the user keyboard kinda like ableton, for people who dont have a midi controller handy White Keys: The keys from ‘A’ to ‘L’ on your keyboard correspond to the white keys on a piano, covering a full octave from C to D. Black Keys: The keys in between, like ‘W’ and ‘E’, correspond to the black keys or the sharp notes on a piano. from : https://www.electrikjam.com/use-your-keyboard-a…

This, but (or "and") use the 4-row layout that dozens of tracker programs used[0], to fit over 2 octaves on the computer keyboard.

On a US keyboard:

QWERTYUIOP[] is the white keys starting at middle C. (The row above is the black keys; the 2 key plays C#.)

ZXCVBNM,./ is the white keys starting an octave lower. (S plays a low C#.)

The two ranges overlap; e.g. Q and , both play C in the same octave.

Grew up composing music on a computer this way when my (musical) keyboard didn't have MIDI and I couldn't afford a better one :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#43

Post by WesleyJohnson »

allenu wrote: post #39
RyanOD wrote: post #24

I took several years of Suzuki piano method when I was a kid. Suzuki focuses initially on developing the ear. During lessons, we did this kind of stuff all the time. I would close my eyes and my instructor would play a series of notes and I would need to play them back by ear. I would also listen to whatever song I was learning before I went to be bed and again when I woke up in the morning, visualizing every note. G…

It's really a great way to train your ear, and fun, too. I can play ukulele, but mostly just to strum and play songs to, but a few years ago I just started picking notes to try to recreate melodies of songs I knew or heard recently. At first it was slow-going with lots of searching on the fret for the right note, but over time I worked up the skill to mostly get the melody on the first few tries. It was the most amaz…

My disconnect is I can't read sheet music. So I can hear it, then memorize where it is on the piano/keyboard... but that just teaches you play piano by ear. It doesn't teach you how to play music in the traditional sense.

I guess this showing you the sheet music as you find the notes can help with that, but as others noted - I'd like a "mess around" mode, before a "test" mode.

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#44

Post by marcusverus »

evanmoran wrote: post #34

This is great! Please consider even easier settings for kids. Maybe 2 notes (not 4) as the min starting point and slower ramp up as you succeed. Also, I think the missed the first note UI could feel a little nicer. Something about the popup/hiding the music takes you out of the flow. Possibly just a subtitle would be enough with an encouraging message. There is a big difference between failing to do the whole pattern…

As a non-musical person, I went looking for how to set it to 1 note!

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#45

Post by cgriswald »

recursive wrote: post #32
Fraterkes wrote: post #13

[flagged]

I've been playing piano for 40 years, tend to hate anything with AI-buzzwords anywhere adjacent to it. But I generally think this particularly one is a good thing. Curious what you mean by no attempt to teach. We learn multiplication tables by rote. Are flash cards a genuine instrument of learning? The only way to learn intervals is to practice identifying them. This is how you do it. You can read about music theory…

This teaches intervals like Duolingo teaches language rules. You sort of pick them up because you need them to figure out the small melody it plays. But you don't get the concept of a 'fourth' or a 'fifth' and there's never a moment where the actual rules are explained.

That said, I think it's very useful for what it is and highlights that whatever your view on AI, there is a niche here that AI can fill that people otherwise would just not build either because they don't think it is interesting, or because no one would pay enough for it.

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#47

Post by mattydoincode »

allenu wrote: post #38

It's a very cool little game! One suggestion: could you make it so you can noodle around on the keyboard without submitting the answer and then once you've worked it out, have a submission mode? Right now, it's frustrating that if you enter a wrong note, it shows a message, so you can't experiment on the keyboard to try to work it out.

came here to write this comment, +1!

Re: Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear

#48

Post by polarbearballs »

As someone who practices music 2 to 3 hours a day. I love this. I think people are coming at it as if it were a video game or designed to be a "portfolio project" but as a musician, I think you really created something awesome and lets me practice on what I'm most insecure about....my ear.
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