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How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

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Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#3
This is great! I'm learning to read sheet music and play the piano at the same time and have found the same problem: I'm just memorising the music, not _reading_it.

Just this weekend I tried jalmus, but couldn't get it running and ended up trying to write something kinda similar to this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/philip_roberts/status/61775984704... Mine just does one note at a time though and I didn't know about webmidi, so was using node with electron shell for midi access, definitely gonna switch it over to webmidi now though, thanks!

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#4
post #2

I found this a while back and have been really enjoying it. http://www.synthesiagame.com With a laptop that folds flat, you can prop it on the music stand of your piano. Would be best with a touch screen, I think.

No need for a laptop if you have an iPad. Synthesia has an app. My iPad sits on my music stand connects to my digital piano via USB-MIDI.

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#5
From a musician's point of view this sounds like a dangerous idea. Training your hands on random sequences of notes which do not make sense musically and relying on visual feedback feels like it will do nothing to build the skill which you actually need which is the ability to associate hand movements to musical patterns.

But then it is probably just what you need if you want to play crazy atonal music. What do i know?

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#6

From a musician's point of view this sounds like a dangerous idea. Training your hands on random sequences of notes which do not make sense musically and relying on visual feedback feels like it will do nothing to build the skill which you actually need which is the ability to associate hand movements to musical patterns. But then it is probably just what you need if you want to play crazy atonal music. What do i kno…

Yes, it sounds a bit like learning to read 'letters' instead of 'words'... You will read letters quite fast but what about the meaning? Playing the piano is not touch-typing, as far as I know.

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#7
Stay tuned for awesomeness like this in my interactive sheet-music site Soundslice (https://www.soundslice.com). :-)

This, plus the ability to load in whatever piece of music you want to learn, plus the ability to listen to real audio recordings (as opposed to synthetic/MIDI), all available from the web, equals a lovely future for musicians.

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#8

From a musician's point of view this sounds like a dangerous idea. Training your hands on random sequences of notes which do not make sense musically and relying on visual feedback feels like it will do nothing to build the skill which you actually need which is the ability to associate hand movements to musical patterns. But then it is probably just what you need if you want to play crazy atonal music. What do i kno…

Atonal (actually, I'd argue microtonal) music is totally where it's at though...

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#9
"All numbers aside, I’m also feeling a vast improvement while playing piano. Instead of reading each note separately, I’m seeing patterns (within each chord) and distances which really astonished me. Of course, there is still room for improvement and I’m looking forward to the challenge."

Thats what we do when we learn to read anything. You don't read the individual characters but rather the entire words or even parts of sentences.

But he is right that it's cool.

Re: How I trained sheet reading using the Web MIDI API

#10

From a musician's point of view this sounds like a dangerous idea. Training your hands on random sequences of notes which do not make sense musically and relying on visual feedback feels like it will do nothing to build the skill which you actually need which is the ability to associate hand movements to musical patterns. But then it is probably just what you need if you want to play crazy atonal music. What do i kno…

There are many things you need in music though. Not just the ability to associate hand movement to musical patterns.
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