[HN Gopher] Piano Practice Software Progress
___________________________________________________________________
Piano Practice Software Progress
Author : jacquesm
Score : 236 points
Date : 2021-03-28 11:37 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jacquesmattheij.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jacquesmattheij.com)
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| This may be a very naive question as although I have a good
| musical ear, I have never learned sheet music (I would like to,
| but it's difficult to find time).
|
| I'm pretty sure that in the Prelude in C, all those notes have
| the same length. So then why are the notes at the bottom
| displayed as whites and those at the top semiquavers?
| siraben wrote:
| That's because for the left hand, the white notes are meant to
| be held for 2 beats. What you are hearing when you say the
| notes are the same length is that they _start_ every
| semiquaver. If you see a player 's left hand you'll see they
| get held for the corresponding denoted time.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| OK, that makes perfect sense, thanks. But then, a second
| question: from looking at the sheet, how do you know when the
| second note in each measure should start? It needs to start
| in the second semiquaver, but where is that information
| encoded and how do you know you don't need to wait for the
| white to finish?
| siraben wrote:
| They're sort of represented as voices. The top voice has a
| rest for half a beat, the bottom voice starts immediately
| and the middle voice starts after a quarter of a beat.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I see, I understand it better here, where the rests that
| you are mentioned are pictured explicitly: https://www.gm
| ajormusictheory.org/Freebies/Intermediate/Bach...
|
| In this software they are not shown, I suppose with
| experience one can omit things from the notation.
| siraben wrote:
| Oh that's interesting. Rests are usually are not omitted
| in sheet music though, what does it look like on your
| software?
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| If you go to the software in the link
| (https://pianojacq.com/), "settings", "repertoire",
| "Bach: Prelude C", you will see it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Rests are a non-trivial problem, even though they seem to
| be very easy to solve. The problem stems from the fact
| that rests have no representation in the midi file, so
| you need to figure them out. Because midi files can be
| quite messy if not done perfectly you end up with all
| kind of spurious rests. So I decided to leave them out
| for now, but they will be added as soon as I've figured
| out how to do them well enough that they are not a
| distraction or teaching people really bad habits. The
| spacing of the notes should be correct.
|
| This is the single biggest item on my todo list right
| now, and I wished I had more time to dedicate to this
| project.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Anyway this is very cool. It made me want to have a MIDI
| piano here to try it fully. Great work and I hope you
| find the time to keep improving it!
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm very much short on time at the moment, in fact, this
| weekend is the first time in a month that I have some
| time for myself but soon that will hopefully change and
| then I will be able to devote much more time to this
| project and some others that I'm tinkering with.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Al-Khwarizmi is right, the rests are not there - yet. The
| rests are very tricky (see other comment) to get exactly
| right. I've figured out most of the note timings to be
| precise enough to render the score accurately but the
| rests do not have any representation in a midi file, so
| you have to make them up as you go.
|
| There are other problems like that, such as trills and
| other ornamentation, which show like a bunch of note
| on/off pairs in a midi file but as a single note with a
| decorator in the score. Reversing those is non-trivial,
| as are grace notes.
| jackewiehose wrote:
| This inspired me to hook up the piano I once bought but then
| never touched.
|
| Two questions:
|
| 1) Can you make it more sensitive to slow keypresses? I have to
| press quite fast / with force to get the keypress recognized (for
| comparison pianobooster does recognize my slow (quiet) press).
|
| 2) Can you recommend midi files that are well supported? Most
| midi-files I found on my PC don't work at all. Those who do look
| different in pianobooster (for example pianobooster has notes on
| both hands but pianojacq only one one).
|
| Thank you.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As for 1) yes, I can do that, the reason it is set where it is
| right now is because very soft keypresses on real pianos with
| sensorbars installed are typically fingers brushing keys on the
| way to other keys and these false triggers leave a lot of
| errors that aren't really errors. I'll make that setting
| configurable.
|
| 2) yes, if you look in the 'midi' directory on the gitlab site
| ( https://gitlab.com/jmattheij/pianojacq/-/tree/master/midi ,
| but also linked from the application) there are whole bunch of
| them that all should work well
|
| If you have problematic midi files you can send them to me and
| I can try to figure out what the problem is and why they will
| not import the way they should.
| jackewiehose wrote:
| Great, I'd appreciate that setting very much. And also thanks
| for the midi files. I missed visiting the gitlab link, do you
| mean there should be a direct link to the midi-directory? I
| can't find that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Another reply to the same comment, bad form, but there you have
| it :)
|
| Can you have a look what level you are outputting when the
| notes are missed? Maybe there is some kind of happy compromise
| here that would do away with a setting that most people would
| not understand.
| jackewiehose wrote:
| Level? Sorry I don't know midi at all. I sent you the file
| (it also plays very slow). In this case I don't even need the
| missing notes. That would just be more complicated :)
| benkaiser wrote:
| For those interested, I built a "falling notes" style web
| interface that works with a midi keyboard. You can mark a split
| in the keyboard and just practice one side or the other. Most of
| the controls I've baked in use the keyboards other buttons
| (Novation Launchkey 61).
|
| It's open source so feel free to adapt as needed.
|
| https://benkaiser.github.io/learn-piano/
|
| I've found it works well for my wife and I playing simple songs
| together, she never learned sheet music (and I'm not great at it)
| so this format is very easy to follow.
| Andrex wrote:
| The digital pianos I've owned support MIDI over a USB Type-B
| port, so I invested in a Type-B to Type-C cable. Works like a
| dream with a Chromebook and websites like Flowkey (and Pianojacq,
| I'm assuming!) No adapters needed either. :)
|
| Here's the one I got:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YQFPX8Y?th=1
|
| Edit- I have the same piano as the OP, a Yamaha P-515. Best
| purchase I ever made!
| jacquesm wrote:
| The P-515 is very good for what it costs. I tried a whole bunch
| of them before deciding, Nord Stage 3 wasn't as good at almost
| 3 times the price. And what it lacks in gimmicks you can easily
| add in software.
| Andrex wrote:
| I get so much entertainment out of just switching between the
| default Yamaha CFX voice and the Bosendorfer. They make the
| same song sound so different!
|
| I'm excited to give Pianojacq a try soon! Maybe I'll even try
| my hand at custom user CSS. :) Have you given any thought to
| a theming engine?
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Is the source code available?
| yboris wrote:
| Must share my favorite piece of piano + software conjunction:
| _Pianoteq_ [0] see the video and hear how amazing it is [1]
|
| _Pianoteq_ makes digital pianos sound like a real piano without
| using pre-recorded samples, but by instead generating sound via
| an advanced model.
|
| [0] https://www.modartt.com/
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvGTsIkdsBU
| breckinloggins wrote:
| I've been on the search for the perfect Piano VST forever and I
| absolutely found it with Pianoteq 7.
|
| Unlike all the other ones I've tried where I get ear fatigue
| after a few minutes due to some issue I can never consciously
| identify, with Pianoteq I can play for HOURS.
|
| Not trying to shill for them, honest. I just really really like
| it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've found the same with all of the digital pianos except for
| the Yamaha I ended up buying and if not for that one I would
| have probably not embarked on this project at all, I really
| hate it when the sound isn't right. Now it still doesn't feel
| right (especially not when you hit a bass note), but I can
| live with that and with headphones on at least I don't
| irritate everybody else here.
|
| But the most fun in practicing is on the real piano.
| mckirk wrote:
| Damn, that's really cool!
|
| Also, thanks for showing me that YT channel. That soothing
| voice and the clean style alone makes it worth a subscribe,
| heh.
| acd wrote:
| Pianoteq makes mathematical modelling of pianos. I think of it
| some what like raytracing is for graphics, but sound tracing is
| for a piano.
|
| Pianoteq is very good!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Pianoteq is very impressive. It doesn't sound quite as good as
| a real piano 'live' but it sounds better than most real pianos
| when recorded.
|
| I have another interesting setup at home that I'll do a blog
| post on one of these days that works extremely well with
| Pianoteq and other virtual pianos, costs peanuts and gives you
| some amazing capabilities. Stay tuned! (pun intended ;) ).
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Pianoteq models pianos very accurately, but in my opinion, it
| doesn't reproduce the effect of using the best condenser mics
| and the talent of pro audio engineers.
|
| Top-of-the-line sampled piano VSTs may lack the dynamic range
| and versatility of Pianoteq, or its ability to reproduce
| sympathetic resonance and partial pedaling, but they at least
| capture not only a great piano but also the added effect of
| pro mics mixed/recorded by pros in a pro studio.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's a matter of time, really. They are doing some pretty
| impressive modeling there sooner or later the difference
| between that and reality will be on the level of gold-
| plated plugs for your stereo.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Yeah... and I'd also add that a pro could make Pianotek 7
| sound awesome.
|
| I'm not an audio engineer, so I just use Abbey Road's
| Yamaha VST - its default settings sound great, no extra
| work for me.
| yboris wrote:
| I'm really eager to see if I can replicate the Raspberry Pi
| setup with Pianoteq!
|
| https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?id=8302
| jacquesm wrote:
| That would make that one of the highest quality _and_
| cheapest digital pianos available.
|
| Inspiring, thank you!
| fit2rule wrote:
| Just use zynthian:
|
| http://zynthian.org/
|
| Works out of the box on rpi3 and rpi4... pianoteq is
| included - among a mass of other very impressive synths and
| so on ..
| tobr wrote:
| I've played piano my entire life, but I've never learned to play
| sheet music, and have no interest in it. I play by ear and I
| mostly improvise. Just mentioning this because sometimes it seems
| that people think the way you learn to play an instrument is by
| learning to play a score. No! These things are about a different
| as learning to program and learning to type in a program from a
| magazine. Even the idea that you could grade how well someone
| plays seems antithetical to the joy of expressing yourself
| through music.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is very much true. I've played saxophone with lots of
| pleasure for many years without being able to read notes
| properly (spell notes would be more accurate). But I've found
| that being able to read notes is a useful skill and once I've
| decided on something like that I tend to plod away at it until
| I get it, I'm a pretty slow learner but I have good stamina
| which is what usually gets me to the end of the race. As long
| as I'm enjoying myself it will work out fine.
|
| The main takeaway from your comment is that whatever you do
| with music should be fun, to make sure you don't destroy your
| motivation. And just like there is fun in being able to
| improvise there can also be fun in being able to play some
| piece perfectly (which, as you can see from the linked video I
| still had a long way to go with on that piece when I made the
| recording, it is actually much better now :) ).
|
| Incidentally, the biggest consumer of the software in my house
| is my son Luca, who has taught himself a whole raft of pieces
| that he likes, he learns _far_ faster than I do and his
| confidence is impressive, huge jumps from one end of the
| keyboard to the other without ever looking down, and all that
| with nothing but the software to guide him. He tends to come to
| me with some piece he wants to play, we find a youtube video, I
| extract the mp3, turn it into a score, we polish the score
| until it looks and sounds just right and then he 's off to the
| races. Floors me every time how fast he will master something
| and how confident he is when playing.
| tobr wrote:
| That's great! I certainly don't mean to say that there's
| something wrong with playing specific pieces. The fact that
| you're creating the scores yourself sounds great, as it
| should make it clear to your son that there isn't a "right"
| or "wrong" way to play. If your son continues to be
| interested in playing, maybe consider encouraging him to
| learn some melodies on his own by just listening to a
| recording.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I get the intent of what you're saying, but the reality is
| there are definitely "righter" and "wronger" ways to play.
| Music is incredibly mathematical, and the piano even more
| so. Written music provides input and queues to things like
| phrasing, fingering and the patterns that are often harder
| to decipher by ear. The true beauty to me is that we can
| use rules and technique to produce something that sounds so
| organic and pure. That's probably what also drives my deep
| love of computers and software.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, absolutely, I show him how to make variations on the
| pieces he knows, adding ornaments, stripping it down to
| chord changes, harmonizing with it when playing back a
| recording and changing the timing and so on. Music is like
| paint for time, you can mix it and apply it any way you
| want.
| julian_t wrote:
| "The main takeaway from your comment is that whatever you do
| with music should be fun, to make sure you don't destroy your
| motivation."
|
| Absolutely. As a child, I encountered both music and maths in
| a way that destroyed any idea that they could be fun. I took
| piano lessons for eight years and got to a fairly advanced
| amateur level, but the emphasis on theory and having to play
| exactly what was written on the page led to me eventually
| hating it, and I haven't touched a piano since.
|
| I later took up guitar, and discovered that I just like
| making stuff up, and seldom play anything exactly the same
| way twice. I think that now a little more understanding of
| the underpinnings might give me more to play with, but I
| still have a rather visceral reaction when I see written
| music...
| jacquesm wrote:
| This very much mirrors my own experience as a child
| (violin, piano), the later on saxophone was a lot of fun
| and now piano again, but this time without guidance just
| enjoying myself figuring it all out and using my software
| skills to help me.
| tobr wrote:
| That said, it would be interesting to design a piece of
| software that helped you learn to play by ear! Maybe something
| that plays a short phrase or chord progression and asks you to
| repeat it. Improvisation is tougher because there's no good way
| for software to say if you're making progress or not...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| The Suzuki method has been around forever. It typically
| targets children who don't yet know how to read period, but
| there's no reason an adult can't use it. It doesn't work as
| well with improvisation because you need to understand that
| improvisation is not just "different", it's different within
| a set of constraints. You can find this by accident but it's
| much easier to first understand the underlying structure,
| then experiment.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This exists:
|
| https://tonedear.com/ear-training/intervals
| browningstreet wrote:
| Rick Beato has an ear training course. He's big on YouTube.
| agallant wrote:
| There are absolutely folks - usually parents without musical
| experience who want their kid to have it (often for status, as
| a "good" extracurricular) - who push the sort of perspective
| you're countering. Onerous practice routines and robotization
| of expression are indeed antithetical to joy, and often result
| in the kids quitting sooner or later.
|
| But just because it is commonly misapplied and misperceived
| doesn't mean musical literacy is a bad thing. It has many
| benefits, just as regular literacy does - but it doesn't have a
| monopoly on expression or storytelling any more than prose, and
| indeed there can be bad writing and excessive concern over
| grammar as well. And, just as anyone who does live poetry
| readings often memorizes the words, actual musical performance
| should not heavily lean on the written copy - even in an
| orchestra, players should know the music well enough to also
| keep the conductor in their vision.
|
| Lots of benefits of musical literacy are pretty similar to
| regular reading and writing - you can explore ideas from past
| creators, serialize and share your own ideas more broadly, and
| more consistently track something that you're making subtle
| changes to over time (ink on paper doesn't shift or falter as
| our memory does). But one non-obvious benefit - it's also
| critical to coordination for larger ensembles.
|
| Musical expression is a joy, and a very individualistic thing.
| But the creations of an orchestra or similar ensemble require
| intense coordination - I believe this doesn't rob them of
| value, but rather adds another dimension to them. It's not
| unlike the difference between making a solo or small group
| project versus trying to build something as a company with more
| employees. People have to align on the basics so, as a group,
| they can achieve larger things.
|
| A mantra I have for this is "Play the Indicated Pitches at the
| Indicated Rhythms", which I explain more here -
| https://gallant.dev/posts/play-the-indicated-pitches-at-the-...
| tobr wrote:
| > you can explore ideas from past creators, serialize and
| share your own ideas more broadly, and more consistently
| track something that you're making subtle changes to over
| time (ink on paper doesn't shift or falter as our memory
| does).
|
| Recording does it even better!
|
| > But the creations of an orchestra or similar ensemble
| require intense coordination - I believe this doesn't rob
| them of value, but rather adds another dimension to them.
|
| Again, recording is an amazing tool for this. In modern music
| protection it's not uncommon to coordinate many hundreds of
| tracks into a single song, without the involvement of sheet
| music.
| agallant wrote:
| Recordings are great, and powerful (and I'm very familiar
| with multitracking - it works for a studio setting, but not
| so much live ensemble performance which is what I was
| referring to). But, to someone versed in both sheet music
| and improvisation, the written form can be freer (leaves
| more up to you), yet also more precise (knowing the
| specific harmonies desired rather than whatever happened in
| the recorded take). It can also be more convenient and
| efficient for focused practice. You can also take in more
| visually in a score and see the overall form of something
| in a glance, whereas with a recording you have to
| experience it over time and store the model fully in your
| head.
|
| This is really a "yes and" situation - improvisation and
| "playing by ear" are great, and have always been part of
| music (the original "classical" musicians improvised, a
| tradition we've sadly mostly lost). Improvisation is even
| more dependent on theory than written music (many folks who
| "read music" don't actually understand the theory behind
| it). But being able to read and write is just a super
| convenient tool, and it addresses use cases that other
| tools (including recordings) don't.
|
| As with regular writing, it lets you give persistent form
| and structure to your thoughts. This enables sharing,
| reviewing, and coordinating in a way categorically
| different than recordings (books still have value despite
| the existence of podcasts). This doesn't mean you're "not a
| musician" if you can't read sheet music, any more than a
| classical musician who doesn't improvise "isn't a musician"
| - I'm not trying to gatekeep in any fashion. I'm just
| saying that _both_ of these dimensions are valuable, and
| ultimately, complementary.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Recordings are the 'binary' form of music, sheetmusic is
| the source code and you are much freer to interpret that
| sourcecode than the binary form, which can only be
| listened to, it is as if all the meta information got
| flattened and there are only two layers of data left.
| (Assuming stereo...).
|
| Things like pedal markings, subtle timing hints and so on
| are given to the interpreter as a way to encode the
| composers expression, a recording can have errors in it
| and will lose a lot of those markings. Even 'note
| release' can be very hard to pull out of a recording
| (heck, even 'note struck' can be hard).
| holri wrote:
| Yes you can talk without being able to read. Nevertheless is
| reading a very useful skill.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Sheet music is about reproducibility, and is a means to quickly
| learn a piece. You learn new pieces MUCH MUCH MUCH faster once
| you have decent sight reading skills. It also allows you to put
| in your own notes, compose your own passages or variations, and
| have them available for reading years later. It also gives you
| a common vocabulary and framework for talking about musical and
| instrument techniques and common patterns in music.
|
| Learning an instrument without learning how to read music is
| like learning to code without learning anything anything about
| programming theory and methodology, and without going back to
| look at any of your past work. Yes, you can do it, but you'll
| cut yourself off at the knees with all the bad habits you pick
| up, and any ability to deeply reason about it will be
| coincidental (just a "gut" feeling most of the time).
|
| Do yourself a favour and do it right. Get a teacher. Learn
| proper posture (stops you from getting tired or injuring
| yourself), proper techniques (allows you to play more complex
| things with less effort required), and a good training regimen
| (so you can get maximum coverage of all techniques available to
| you at a manageable pace).
|
| People ask me how I got so good at guitar in so short a time,
| when they've been plucking away at it for years, even decades.
| It's simply because I chose to find a teacher FIRST, and an
| instrument SECOND, and went through all the fundamentals,
| starting with very boring and basic pieces like
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ysOIJFm3Rg
| tobr wrote:
| I can sit down at a piano and immediately play any melody I
| know by ear, with reasonable-sounding chords, unless there's
| some very surprising harmony involved. I'm not sure how sight
| reading would improve on that speed.
|
| I'm also not sure why you assume I've never had a teacher,
| just because I haven't bothered to learn to read notes well.
|
| All the benefits you talk about in sheet music, you can also
| get from listening to and making recordings, and playing with
| other people.
| siraben wrote:
| I'm curious, how does this approach fare with classical
| pieces where learning by sheet is the norm? The melody and
| chord progression is not hard to for a lot pf pieces (e.g.
| pop and jazz if you have a trained ear for complex chords),
| but learning Listz's _Un Sospiro_ by ear is going to be
| really hard no?
|
| I learned that piece by its 6 page sheet then memorized it,
| would be amazing if that could have been done by ear, if
| possible.
| plank_time wrote:
| I think the people who don't want to master reading from
| sheet music are not interested in learning long piano
| pieces like that.
| tobr wrote:
| That type of music really isn't a part of my life, but I
| can't see why not. Even classical music tends to boil
| down to a melody + harmony. You wouldn't get the exact
| fingerings right, but I don't really find that
| interesting anyway.
| jimmy2times wrote:
| I guess it would take a lot of patience, but it should be
| doable, maybe even more feasible than some contemporary
| music that is heavy on sound fx.
|
| I don't find this as rewarding as trying to understand
| how a piece "works" though, or creating something new.
| siraben wrote:
| I think sheet music is a great way to see how a piece
| works since things are laid out spatially, and complex or
| subtle patterns can be teased out (e.g. voices in a Bach
| fugue). I often follow the sheet music as I listen as
| well.
| jimmy2times wrote:
| Yes, excellent point. Notation can be a great aid to
| understanding. I should give this a try more often.
| kstenerud wrote:
| It would be like learning Romeo and Juliet by ear. You
| _could_ in theory do it, but it 's far easier if you know
| how to read. And far easier to refresh your memory down
| the road if you need to perform it again.
| linknoid wrote:
| I think different individuals learn different ways. I had
| piano lessons from a young age, and everything was done off
| of sheet music. I would spend all this time reading through
| note by note, chord by chord, working my way through. But
| even after practicing reading music for over 10 years, I
| ALWAYS learn to play a song much, much faster by hearing it
| than by trying to read the music. My brain just can't
| automatically look at the position of black dots and
| translate that to which keys to press, I have to actively
| think about it, but once I can hear the music, my brain says,
| "I want to hear this note, so that's what note that dot must
| correspond to".
|
| Imagine trying to learn to read English, and instead of
| seeing words, you see a bunch of letters and have to decipher
| each letter. I'd almost describe it as dyslexia for musical
| notation or something (which isn't a problem for me when
| reading text). I can recognize C,D,E,F,G pretty instantly
| because of their position relative to the bottom bar of the
| treble clef, but as soon as you start getting above that, I
| start having to count spaces relative to a known position,
| because everything internal looks like a big jumble. So G-B-E
| (on the treble clef) is easy because I see G as the base, and
| then the other two notes are space by two, but if it's just
| B-E without the context of the G, I have to stop and figure
| out exactly where those notes fall. And as soon as I get
| below C (on the treble clef), I start having to stop to count
| the separator lines.
|
| But if I can hear what I'm trying to play, I can usually just
| jump to the correct note/chord. Maybe I'll have to stop and
| experiment to get the right chord periodically, but I don't
| have to stop and analyze the position of each dot on the
| score. To me, the greatest value of sheet music for me has
| always been in keeping place, so I associate the location of
| specific patterns on a specific page, and based on all the
| context, and know that I'm supposed to be at this point in
| the song that I've already taken the time to memorize
| beforehand. But I'm pretty much never paying attention to the
| actual notes on the notation at that point.
| plank_time wrote:
| I've been playing piano for over 40 years, the first 10
| years through lessons. I'm not good, as in I can't and do
| not want to perform for people. I play for personal
| pleasure which means I might play it once every few weeks.
|
| But things like sight reading come very naturally to me. I
| read music the way that I read a language. I don't have to
| think hard at all to recognize notes, chords, etc and then
| to play them. So my ability to pick up a new song is faster
| than even my wife, who is about an order of magnitude
| better than me. She can transpose songs, learn songs by
| listening to them, the whole gamut. But in that one small
| area of sight reading, I can pick up a moderately complex
| song pretty quickly relative to my wife, despite the fact
| that I practice much less frequently than her. It must have
| something yo do with how the brain is wired or some sort of
| hand eye coordination, but it's very interesting how I
| perceive sheet music vs her.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Are you learning 50 min long difficult classical pieces by
| ear?
| linknoid wrote:
| Nope, I pretty much stopped once I got to college. At
| some point I decided I was going to learn Rhapsody in
| Blue on the piano, and got the sheet music (book) and
| started practicing. I didn't make it too far, but I made
| it a lot farther by trying to imitate what I heard than
| trying to play it from the book.
| kstenerud wrote:
| > I can recognize C,D,E,F,G pretty instantly because of
| their position relative to the bottom bar of the treble
| clef, but as soon as you start getting above that, I start
| having to count spaces relative to a known position,
| because everything internal looks like a big jumble.
|
| It was the same for me until I really started practicing
| sight reading (there are special books for that). Just like
| learning the alphabet and how to read as a child, it took a
| couple of years of doing sight reading many days a week
| before I got good enough to sight read musical pieces.
| Becoming fluent at reading takes a lot of practice. And
| like learning to read and write in any language, it's best
| to do it at the same time while you are learning to speak
| and understand.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This was the level I was at, which is why I wrote this
| software to begin with, it started out as a re-write of
| pianobooster, which is a very neat program with a bunch
| of hard to fix basic ideas. Now, about a year later it is
| very far ahead of pianobooster, and I've learned to
| sightread much better than I ever could have achieved
| with pianobooster.
| Bekwnn wrote:
| I started learning piano just over a year ago and picked
| up reading sheet music decently in an extremely short
| amount of time.
|
| The gaps is the treble clef are | F | A
| | C | E |
|
| The bass clef is the same but shifted down one gap (and
| the highest note is G) F | A | C | E | G
| |
|
| And then middle C is, well, C. Just remembering that FACE
| goes in two places you get: bass clef
| (C) treble clef F | A | C | E | G | | | F | A
| | C | E |
|
| And from that it's easy to go to the closest note and the
| count up/down one note and gradually memorize more. This
| was, at least to me, a drop dead simple way to memorize
| where everything goes.
| coliveira wrote:
| This is a little better, but don't do this. You still
| need to calculate what are the notes outside of F A C E.
| Just memorize each note independently, it may take longer
| but it is much easier after that. If you continue using
| clutches like this, you'll forever have to do the
| translation in your head, which takes a lot of time and
| effort.
| tobr wrote:
| The comparison with learning English is spot on. The way
| you learn your native language is by simply growing up in a
| context where you are forced to try to use the sounds of
| the language to make yourself understood. You start with
| the intuition; writing, spelling, and word classes come
| much, much later, when you're really an expert on the
| language already.
|
| For some reason when people learn a foreign language they
| tend to start with the written language, and actually
| holding a conversation or understanding a native speaker is
| often a less prominent part of learning. This, to me, is a
| lot like thinking that learning music starts with reading a
| score and studying up on music theory, when you actually
| already have an intuitive understanding of music because
| you've listened to it all your life, and should probably
| focus on building similar intuition for expressing yourself
| with an instrument.
| iamsaitam wrote:
| This is only "true" if you want to pursue a classical
| repertoire. For anything else you don't need to know music
| theory to make music or read it for that matter. A good ear
| and instinctive knowledge is far more valuable. Just look
| outside of classical music, plenty of examples where the
| musician has no idea of the theoretical part, but has a great
| grasp of it practically.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Jazz was a genre mainly taught as an oral tradition, and of
| course improvisation was at the heart of it. Musicians
| played what they thought sounded good. That still didn't
| stop George Russell's book _The Lydian Chromatic Concept of
| Tonal Organization_ from becoming hugely popular and
| influential among jazz musicians in the '50s. Even when
| performers have an intuitive understanding of music, they
| can still benefit from explicit discussion of theory.
|
| Also, a lot of jazz musicians wanted to eventually learn
| musical notation at least so that they could write their
| own lead sheets for copyright-claim purposes.
| coliveira wrote:
| There are other reasons to learn written music, even if
| you're popular musician. For example, you may want to
| become a studio musician, so you need to learn to play
| quickly (in a few minutes) a complex piece of music to
| perform immediately. Studio musicians need to do this all
| the time, and reading from a score is the easiest way to
| achieve it. You may need to write music for other musicians
| (for example, wind instrument players and pianists).
| Finally, reading music will help you to learn theory and
| have a better understanding of music.
| jahewson wrote:
| > instinctive knowledge
|
| There's no such thing!
| jimmy2times wrote:
| I think of this as analogous to self-supervised
| pretraining followed by training on a smaller labeled
| set. When you study theory you can ground it on music
| you've listened to throughout your life.
|
| Also to improvise confidently you have to internalize the
| theory, not just understand it and memorize it at a
| conscious level.
|
| I'd say "intuitive knowledge" is a good way to sum this
| up.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I beg to differ. Music theory is essential regardless of
| whether you're playing off lead sheets, playing by ear,
| improvising, or reading scores.
|
| You can't get good at any of them beyond a certain point
| without having your theory nailed down.
| jimmy2times wrote:
| I would add that music theory and sight-reading are
| orthogonal. My partner learned piano at a young age, and
| she can follow a sheet but won't know what chords she's
| playing. I learned guitar by ear but I'm always thinking
| about intervals/chords/modes. Obviously having both of
| these skills would be great.
| lyricaljoke wrote:
| "A good ear" and grasp of music theory go hand in hand.
| Strongly disagree that the latter is limited to classical
| music. The best musicians in jazz and pop music absolutely
| know how to incorporate the circle of fifths, types of
| cadences, Roman numeral harmony, etc., in their playing.
| That's... music theory! While there are musicians who can
| make it without that, they are the exception, not the rule.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Some of the best Jazz pianists started out as classical
| pianists. Friedrich Gulda for instance, and Keith
| Jarrett.
| tobr wrote:
| This is a bit like saying that all the best speakers know
| a lot of grammar. Maybe they do, but that's not why they
| are able to put together complete sentences, let alone
| why they are able to move an audience with a speech.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, "theory" is not an all-or-nothing affair. There's
| a level of "theory" that's just learning why certain
| intervals are harmonious in the 12 tone system, and the
| names of things. I certainly learned those things, but if
| asked whether I know "theory," my answer is no. Virtually
| everything I know about harmony in jazz is due to hearing
| and recognizing recurring patterns.
|
| In my case, I've gotten through 40 years of performing
| with jazz groups, so in some sense I'm doing OK, but I
| also know that I struggle with ultra-modern jazz
| harmonies. This came into pretty sharp relief when I
| played with some musicians who were composing all of
| their own tunes. I reach the end of my mental map, and
| then I have to fake it, or improvise directly from the
| melody.
|
| But I agree that "ear" and perception of harmonic
| structure are closely related. It's hard to describe, and
| might make a psychologist cringe, but a musician develops
| a "mental ear." And I wouldn't recommend my approach to a
| young player. Most people want to become proficient in
| fewer than 40 years. ;-) There are things I can't do. I
| can't compose or arrange anything worth playing. Without
| exception, every musician I've played with who could
| compose or arrange decent jazz material has a music
| degree.
| kstenerud wrote:
| There are some great musicians who have no formal training,
| but far more who actually do have formal training.
|
| Musical pedagogy follows classical music out of tradition,
| but there are plenty of contemporary pieces available as
| well.
|
| The thing about the classical pieces is that they're good
| showcases and practice pieces for the fundamental
| techniques of music (hundreds of years of development will
| do that), which you absolutely will use in your musical
| career, regardless of whether you're even aware of it.
|
| The difference is that when you can read and speak music,
| you can read, understand, and construct music far more
| easily than you could without the named concepts,
| nomenclature, and writing system. It's no different from
| the power that language and writing in general confers. An
| illiterate person can make himself understood, but a
| learned person can do so much more with far less effort.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > Musical pedagogy follows classical music out of
| tradition
|
| i think at some levels, of pedagogy, there's also an
| element of "and because it is cheap to free".
|
| my piano teacher bemoans how we only teach music from
| "dead white men" (a common refrain in some parts of the
| internet), but is hesitant to suggest i spend money to
| purchase anything, instead, referring me to IMSLP for
| everything.
|
| if you want music from living folks, it is still under
| copyright, regardless of their color or gender. that
| costs more.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I get your point that it's easier to learn music faster by
| learning to read sheet music. But there's also no such thing
| as doing it right without context. If someone wants to just
| jam & relax by playing the piano, learning to read sheet
| music may not be doing it right.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Yes, much like a non-programmer can relax and hack up an
| Excel script to do a bunch of automation stuff. In certain
| contexts there's nothing wrong with that. But on the other
| hand, the farther you go, the harder it becomes, and the
| more the equation shifts towards "it would have been better
| to start with the right fundamentals".
| quirmian wrote:
| I've played piano for the last 20 years, starting off
| initially with a teacher and going through the usual sheet
| music pieces. I used to think as you do for the longest
| time - "The important thing is to have fun!"
|
| I still believe that, but I find that I learn new
| techniques every time I read, learn and play an existing
| piece - this makes my improvisation and jam sessions all
| that much better! So would highly recommend learning to
| read sheet music.
| saurik wrote:
| > Learning an instrument without learning how to read music
| is like learning to code without learning anything anything
| about programming theory and methodology, and without going
| back to look at any of your past work.
|
| No: learning an instrument without learning how to read music
| is like learning to speak without learning to read, and
| doesn't imply anything about "reproducibility" or "theory" or
| "methodology", as all of those things existed before we had
| written language.
|
| People who don't know how to read are still able to form
| beautiful and coherent thoughts/tunes and repeat what other
| people say/play... entire oral/audial traditions exist, and
| you would be hard pressed to find anything written down from
| some cultures.
|
| More to the point: the way people write isn't even the same
| as the way people talk, and that isn't to say the people who
| are talking are somehow _worse_ at the language; find some
| sheet music for an Irish jig and then see if even a single
| musician is literally playing what was actually written and I
| think you 'll be surprised that sheet music doesn't even
| cause "reproducibility" outside of some music traditions that
| cared about that (such as classical orchestra).
|
| And, hell: using sheet music can itself be a "bad habit". The
| greatest musicians I admire hear some music and then just
| join in and start playing it themselves, as they are fluent
| in music; and sure: some of them can also read sheet music.
| On the other side, I experience people who are somehow
| crippled by the lack of sheet music: who you whistle a tune
| to, and then they need sheet music to play it, as if they are
| some kind of player piano, and that's it... imagine if you
| couldn't speak--even if merely repeating what someone else
| just said--without first having written down what you are
| going to say... it would be a bit crippling, no?
|
| (None of this has anything to do with your points about
| finding an instructor, learning proper technique, having a
| good training refining, etc. but you will find a ton of
| instructors who don't concentrate on sheet music...
| particularly with guitar, an entire instrument where sheet
| music isn't common at all, as the vast majority of use of the
| guitar in music people want to play is based on chord
| patterns.)
| lc9er wrote:
| > It also gives you a common vocabulary and framework for
| talking about musical and instrument techniques and common
| patterns in music.
|
| This right here. Even if you want to play rock music it can
| help. Guitarists and bassists have tablature, which makes
| working with each other easy. But tab is foreign to other
| musicians.
|
| I've a background in music theory, so there's been dozens of
| times I've had to act as translator between guitarist and
| another musician, explaining that "3rd fret barred shape, to
| this one" is a GM7 to CM progression. Not because it was
| impossible to figure out, but having a common language made
| it that much faster to get to work.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Curious what your thoughts are on the _second_ best way to
| learn Piano, then? Second best to an in-person /live teacher.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Second best is to do it without the support and discipline
| of a teacher. It's just like any other thing that takes
| skill. You can either stand on the shoulders of giants and
| learn from their wisdom, or you can go it alone and make
| the mistakes and form the bad habits they could have warned
| you about. And when it comes to a musical instrument, it's
| all about the FEEL and POSTURE as you play, which only in-
| person teachers can show you.
|
| Anyone can take a hammer and saw and build something that
| resembles a table, but the one who learned from a craftsman
| (even for just a little while) will be able to produce far
| better work with far less effort and mistakes. Knowing how
| to draft and read plans will also go a LONG way towards
| getting good results.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Yea, right now i'm looking for resources that at least
| attempt to describe and teach posture, hand patterns,
| etc. I may at some point hire a virtual teacher, but that
| seems difficult to setup. I imagine they'd need cameras,
| my hands, body, etc - and it sounds like work. So i'm
| going to pursue some non-live methods i can find, if any.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fingering patterns are 'work in progress', we have some
| interesting ideas about this.
| kstenerud wrote:
| It's just not the same. At one point I moved away from
| the city where my teacher lived. We tried it over skype,
| with me changing the camera angle a bunch so he could
| observe properly, but it was slow, frustrating, and he
| missed so many things that came to light when I went to
| visit for an in-person lesson.
|
| Music teachers are cheap to hire. Even 1 hour a week for
| 6 months would do WONDERS, and not cost much. Plus, your
| teacher will likely be a student as well, or attempting
| to supplement their music career. Taking lessons is
| supporting the arts directly.
| glaugh wrote:
| I'm not qualified to have an opinion here, but interesting to
| note that Thom Yorke of Radiohead has never learned to read
| sheet music (and they have a decent number of piano-based
| tunes)
| snarfy wrote:
| I'm a big fan of videos like this[1]. Feels like guitar tab for
| piano.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3FYU72jwEA
| derriz wrote:
| Really? I guess everyone is different but I get absolutely
| nothing from those types of videos and I've tried a few
| times. How do you do actually use these videos in practice?
|
| They provide no key signature, timing, chord, fingering or
| expression information at all? It's just pitch and duration
| on a fast scrolling marquee. It feels like like trying to
| read a book when someone else who reads at a different pace
| keeps turning the pages.
|
| My preference is the standard youtube "piano lesson" format -
| someone sitting at the keys who plays it once and then breaks
| the piece down into digestible chunks, explains a bit of
| theory/musical context, provides fingering advice, goes over
| the harder parts, etc. If not that, then traditional sheet
| even though I'm useless at sight reading but at least, given
| time, I can work it out.
| snarfy wrote:
| I've been playing long enough I can usually pick up a
| melody by ear, but sometimes it is transposed. Even without
| a key signature the videos help knowing what key it's in.
| Timing and expression are in the actual audio, so for me
| it's not needed in the display. I'm trying to play it how I
| hear it, not how I see it.
| derriz wrote:
| I also have an ok ear for melody and given a bit of time
| can usually come up with some sort of harmonisation so I
| get learning by ear.
|
| But for me that process is about listening to the music
| or replaying it mentally.
|
| I don't get what this seemingly popular falling
| note/guitar hero style display brings?
|
| You mention that you use it to tell the scales used in a
| piece? To me, the "falling note" representation is a poor
| and indirect way to communicate that information.
| snarfy wrote:
| For me there is nothing indirect about it. The falling
| notes point directly at which key on the piano to press.
| I can hear it's a I, IV, V, VI progression, but I might
| not recognize it's in the key of A#. With the falling
| notes, I see the first chord is A#. I might get that from
| sheet music too, but it's a lot harder to decipher.
| robomartin wrote:
| Classical guitar and piano, classically trained on both.
|
| While I admire those who can just grab an instrument and have a
| great time, musical notation isn't just a way to real and play
| something, it's the foundation of learning technique, growth,
| exploration and developing as a musician.
|
| The idea that practicing correctly makes perfect (no, practice
| alone does not make perfect) is at the core of this. Musical
| notation (along with a teacher) provides the guidance and
| structure necessary to learn and grow.
|
| There's also the ability to communicate about music in general.
| A simple example of this is a book I have with practice
| exercises for the piano. Once I taught my kids to read musical
| notation and use a metronome (super important) I could simply
| ask them to learn and practice the scale on page 42 and that
| was that. On the guitar, Scott Tennant communicated his
| practice exercises to the worth through "Pumping Nylon".
|
| It's easy to say "Yeah, but I can just listen to someone
| playing the scale and copy it by ear". Well, that's missing the
| point. None of this material would have survived decades or
| centuries if it were not for the evolution of domain-specific
| notation as a means of communication in the art. That's the
| other aspect of musical notation, it's a means for making works
| of art survive for centuries, something that is impossible
| without being able to write things down.
|
| To go into CS for a moment, the power of notation got driven
| into my head when my Physics professor in the early 80's
| convinced me to not take a FORTRAN class and sign-up for an APL
| class he was teaching instead. It was absolutely amazing. At
| the time it was like being from the future. In just a few
| characters I could do what took heaps of code in COBOL or
| FORTRAN, and the power of communicating such ideas through
| notation was just unbelievable. Sometimes I wonder if I took to
| APL (which I used professionally for ten years afterwards)
| because I was fluent in musical notation already.
|
| All of that said, I think it is great to "just play". Nothing
| wrong with that. I'll also add that it took me a long time to
| be able to pull away from sheet music and "just play". And so I
| do have a level of admiration for people who are able to do
| that and came at it without any form of formal training. At the
| end of the day, if your goals in music are not to be a concert
| pianist/guitarist, frankly, if you are having fun, go for it.
| Just be conscious of the fact that once bad habits are learned
| it is extremely difficult to unlearn them. That's were a formal
| and traditional beginning in music tends to be useful and
| important.
| cordellwren wrote:
| It's no longer musical notation, but audio recordings that
| are the "text," or primary source for popular music. This
| principle applies even only from a practical perspective, as
| the pedagogy of popular music has a heavy emphasis on
| listening to and replicating or transcribing audio
| recordings.
|
| But more fundamentally, you're approaching from an outdated
| common practice-period perspective what should be understood
| from a (post)modernist, electronic framework. Transcribing
| Stockhausen or Xenakis into notation would be a worthy
| endeavor, but the output of such an effort is secondary to
| the recording itself. Not just in terms of importance, but in
| that the recording represents the ultimate creative decisions
| and expressions made by the musician, whereas the notation is
| a mere reduction produced for convenience. This was certainly
| not the case for classical music, but music has changed since
| then.
|
| And so the same goes for jazz, rock, or any other popular
| genre. Our music has evolved in such a way that those musical
| elements that do not lend themselves easily to being written
| down in standard Western musical notation have become central
| to the expression and stylistic idiom thereof.
|
| Finally, if you're interested in what I've had to say, look
| up a concept called "notational centricity" by musicologist
| Richard Middleton, and a book called "Everyday Tonality" by
| Philip Tagg.
| skybrian wrote:
| Learning to play by ear and learning to play from a score are
| both useful and reinforce each other.
|
| In addition, I would encourage learning to use music notation
| software like Musescore. These days I transcribe a lot of
| pieces because I have preferences about how they're laid out on
| the page. (I prefer lead sheets and dislike turning pages.)
| Also, for some pieces I want to play, the sheet music isn't
| available. Listening to a recording to figure out how it works
| can take a while, so why not write it down? You don't want to
| forget and have to do it again.
|
| Having a three ring binder of music laid out how you like it is
| very nice. It makes it considerably easier to go back to a
| piece if you haven't played it in a while. You can also change
| it whenever you want and print it out again, making it more
| your own arrangement.
| tartoran wrote:
| I feel the same and am also an improviser on multiple
| instruments but a few times I regretted not being able to
| cursively read sheet music. However, all that effort and energy
| it would take, I'd rather spend creatively and enjoying myself
| just improvising.
| Beldin wrote:
| > _people think the way you learn to play an instrument is by
| learning to play a score. No! These things are about a
| different as learning to program and learning to type in a
| program from a magazine._
|
| In the time of home computers, before Internet emerged, just
| about everyone learned to program like that.
|
| (Arguably, with StackExchange seen as a magazine, many still
| do.)
| siraben wrote:
| I'm classically trained in piano (13+ years) and reading sheet
| music fluently was integral to practice, but I also have been
| getting into improvisation and playing by ear over the last few
| years. I think knowing how to read sheet music and play by ear
| are both valuable, sheet music provides a visual medium on
| which to notate time, pitch and dynamics (how precisely to
| follow the markings of course depends on the genre). It'd be a
| nightmare to learn a Bach fugue by ear though.
|
| Personally I think it's great fun to be able to read music and
| play a piece you've never heard before, and bring your own life
| into it just as it is fun to sporadically create the unwritten.
| kerng wrote:
| Although of course not necessary but as a personal advice, I
| would pick up site reading early on. It teaches you a lot about
| music and it's a formal way of persisting your musical
| thoughts.
|
| Also, finding a good teacher and taking regular lessons helps.
| I would be suspicious of a teacher who wouldn't recommend
| learning to read the score.
|
| Progress in the beginning might be slower, but long term
| trajectory and possibilities are greater when a student knows
| how to read/write also.
|
| But of course everyone is free to use an instrument and music
| how they get most joy out of and can express themselves the way
| they want.
| hungryhobo wrote:
| Pure speculation, but does this impose an upper limit on the
| complexity of music you can play? Personally I cannot fathom
| someone play Liszt complete my by ear.
| c_e wrote:
| Coming from a background as a professional music performer and
| educator (now a software engineer), seeing highly-upvoted
| comments like this one that are so confident and yet so
| completely wrong is a great reminder that you should always
| take what you read in an internet comment section with a grain
| of salt, no matter how many people are nodding virtually in
| agreement.
|
| Of course, there's nothing wrong with anybody learning to play
| piano entirely by ear and never picking up a music score. If
| that brings you enjoyment, that's truly fantastic, and I mean
| that sincerely. But for the vast majority of pianists, being
| unable to read sheet music will cut you off from many genres of
| music entirely, make in-person instruction mostly impossible,
| render all written pedagogical resources inaccessible to you,
| and enormously limit your ability to play in ensembles. Even
| jazz pianists who improvise and play by ear for all of their
| meaningful playing can read music; in fact you'd probably find
| that most of the really good ones are incredible sight-readers.
|
| > These things are about a different as learning to program and
| learning to type in a program from a magazine.
|
| I think a better analogy is probably something like "these
| things are about as different as being able to understand a
| spoken language, and being able to speak and write it".
| attractivechaos wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Advanced piano pieces often come with
| nontrivial cords and multiple voices. Those without proper
| ear training can hardly recognize even a single cord, let
| alone replicate a whole piece just by ear. Genius born with
| perfect pitch may do the magic without training, but they are
| extreme outliers and their experience can't be generalized to
| the wider population. For most people, inability to read
| music will severely limit their reach in future.
| tobr wrote:
| > seeing highly-upvoted comments like this one that are so
| confident and yet so completely wrong
|
| Looking back at my comment and scratching my head. In what
| way _could_ it even be wrong? I'm literally just offering my
| personal experience from a life of playing piano, in reaction
| to the implicit assumption in the post that learning to play
| the piano means learning to play by reading a score.
|
| I'm not against reading sheet music, but I'm against the idea
| that you somehow must do it to play this instrument, because
| I know it's absolutely wrong. I'm not cut off from any genre
| I'm interested in playing, I've been able to receive in-
| person instructions, and I've certainly played in bands. I'm
| not really sure what "written pedagogical resources" about
| playing the piano would be, so not sure what to say about
| that.
|
| > background as a professional music performer and educator
| (now a software engineer)
|
| For what it's worth, this is a reasonably accurate
| description of me as well.
| contrast wrote:
| You were literally just saying that people who learn to
| play an instrument and express themselves through music, if
| they learned how to read, were no more musicians than some
| who can't actually program is a programmer.
|
| I suppose you can argue it's just an opinion, so therefore
| while it might sound condescending, arrogant and profoundly
| self-centred, it isn't wrong as such. The problem with that
| is it wasn't just an opinion, it was an argument. I would
| say that learning to become a concert pianist it a
| completely different thing to typing in programs from
| magazines, and so you are very much wrong to say that it
| is.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > in reaction to the implicit assumption in the post that
| learning to play the piano means learning to play by
| reading a score
|
| And even that wasn't implied, I'm well aware of many people
| playing piano at a level that I can only dream of that
| couldn't read a score if their lives depended on it.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Of course, if they could read scores, they'd be more
| capable (and more employable) pianists for it, all else
| being equal.
| jader201 wrote:
| > Just mentioning this because sometimes it seems that
| people think the way you learn to play an instrument is by
| learning to play a score.
|
| I think this is what can be a little misleading, depending
| on what "learn to play" means.
|
| Yes, anyone can "play" an instrument without formal
| instruction/training, but it will definitely limit your
| abilities and potential (for the average person and most
| above average people).
|
| As someone that took very little formal training and can
| play piano by ear relatively well and can pick out and play
| many tunes, my abilities and potential are quite limited. I
| can also read music (I'm more formally trained as a
| trombonist), but I'm super slow at reading and playing
| piano music.
|
| Looking back, I now wish I had learned more formally.
|
| I'm speculating this was one of the points the GP was
| trying to point out.
| tobr wrote:
| Learning to play by a score is very different from
| getting instructions or training.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Per my bigger post, a lot of people are conflating "music
| theory" or "formal training", with "sheet notation". You
| will be limited performer if you don't develop an
| understanding of music theory at some level yes. But I've
| successfully challenged my music Instructor to teach me
| music theory without sheet music for the last year...
| They really aren't as inseparable as sometimes people
| assume :)
| gjulianm wrote:
| > Looking back at my comment and scratching my head. In
| what way could it even be wrong?
|
| Your original comments gives the impression that reading
| scores is "bad" somehow. The analogy of "These things are
| about a different as learning to program and learning to
| type in a program from a magazine" gives off the wrong
| impression. I play piano and I get what you mean, music is
| much more than playing a score. But the score is just a
| medium to learn a song. It's not "typing a program from a
| magazine", it's more towards "reading an algorithm
| description and writing the code".
|
| > I'm not cut off from any genre I'm interested in playing,
|
| The "I'm interested in playing" part is important. I don't
| think trying to play some classical piano pieces by ear is
| going to be easy, for example.
|
| Is it necessary? No, of course it isn't necessary to be
| able to read sheet music. But it's pretty useful, not that
| hard, and will make a lot of things easier. You could make
| analogies diminishing every way to learn music (e.g.,
| learning by ear is just like looking at a program your
| buddy wrote and writing the same, you're just imitating; or
| learning chord notation is just like writing in scratch,
| you're limited to the blocks someone created before) but
| they're not useful at all. While it worked for you, most
| people will actually benefit from having multiple ways to
| learn music.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > not that hard
|
| I'd beg to differ. To read a moderately complex piece at
| the speed at which it is played _while playing_ is
| tougher than most other skills that I 've acquired. If it
| weren't hard then it probably wouldn't be the major
| reason lots of people give up music, the notation is
| inconsistent, hard to read, requires mode shifts,
| requires a lot of attention and can get extremely
| cluttered. It is anything but easy, but of course, once
| you've mastered it completely it might _feel_ easy. Just
| like computer programming feels easy to me. But that
| doesn 't mean that it is easy. It's just something I've
| been doing all my life so the underlying complexity has
| been long ago internalized to a level where I'm not
| really thinking about the code, just about the problem I
| want to solve.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > To read a moderately complex piece at the speed at
| which it is played while playing is tougher than most
| other skills that I've acquired
|
| Playing moderately complex pieces will be tough, no
| matter the method. Also, you're using the score to learn
| it, in most cases by the time you're able to play it at
| the correct speed you don't need to read every note, you
| use the score as a cue and guide. And some pieces fit
| with different methods, for example I find it more
| difficult to play pop songs by sheet music than by ear
| (or ear + chord notation for the harmony). On the other
| hand I recall Satie pieces, they're pretty easy to read
| but I'd really struggle a lot if I wanted to play them by
| ear.
|
| > If it weren't hard then it probably wouldn't be the
| major reason lots of people give up music
|
| Is it though? I'd say that the major reason lots of
| people give up music is because it's harder than they
| think, and because there usually is a disconnect between
| what the student expects and what the teacher wants or
| teaches.
|
| > once you've mastered it completely it might feel easy
|
| This also applies to your point. I think people would get
| frustrated with their professor if their way of teaching
| pieces was just playing it and saying "now play it"
| without telling them what the notes are. Playing by ear
| is not easy, and it's really tough for people that
| haven't developed a musical ear and don't know any
| musical theory yet. At least when reading there's a set
| of instructions that you can follow and advance on that.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| It's tricky.
|
| I started piano lessons last year late in my life with
| explicit purpose to learn music theory and apply it to my
| limited and plateaued guitar skills.
|
| _It took several weeks to persuade my teacher that "learning
| music theory" is not the same thing as "learning sheet
| music"_.
|
| I want to learn truths and relationships and connections
| which are separate and independent from any specific
| culturally and historically burdened notation.
|
| Notation has its place and I won't claim its useless, of
| course its not... But i do see too many instructors think it
| a mandatory step when it isn't (FWIW, I've been studying
| music theory for a year now with tremendous weekly
| enlightenment and still cannot read sheet music and it's not
| my I'm ediate goal. If anything I find that way madness lies
| - math and relationships and insights of music theory are
| beautiful and universal and eye opening. Sheet music is a
| crap ton of inconsistencies we are stuck with, giving
| privileged view to a random scale and basicly hindering true
| understanding. I want to build as much understanding as I can
| before getting stuck in C major as a random baseline :-)
|
| So I would say music theory to sheet music is at best math
| theory to written numbering system. And both are separate
| from any practical skill that utilizes them - just like you
| CAN be a great blacksmith or craftsperson with developed
| intuitive uderstanding of your matter, without learning
| blueprints and its notation (though it doesn't hurt and for
| some things it's necessary)
| jacquesm wrote:
| > giving privileged view to a random scale
|
| The piano gives that privileged view as well.
|
| There have been some attempts to remedy this (Janko) but
| nothing that really succeeded. The inertia to change is
| tremendous.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Agreed. I'm torn between obtaining an isomorphic I out
| device... And practicality of only being to play at home
| :-/
| jacquesm wrote:
| I have one here if you want to mess around with it you
| are welcome to come visit (Netherlands, hope you are
| close).
|
| It is interesting, for want of a better word, it's like
| Dvorak to Qwerty only much worse.
| resource0x wrote:
| Quite a few _outstanding_ jazz performers couldn 't read
| music. https://www.reddit.com/r/Jazz/comments/2hpzzp/who_are_
| some_o...
|
| This is not to say the ability to read music somehow hurts
| your musical abilities. Sometimes thing are simply not that
| correlated. E.g. having an absolute pitch - does it help to
| become a great musician/composer? No one knows.
| yesenadam wrote:
| From that page: "do you even really need to read music to
| become a good jazz musician? It seems like everyone tells
| you to NOT rely on it anyways if you're just starting
| out,and to transcribe every sound you've ever heard in your
| life."
|
| (Jazz musician here) I found the OP's "I've never learned
| to play sheet music, and have no interest in it" strange -
| because for me, being able to write music is far more
| useful than just to be able to read it. (Although reading
| is super-useful also, whatever the genre.) I hear something
| I like in the street, or in my head, or on a recording - I
| write it down! the notes, rhythms, harmonies. How do you do
| that if you can't "read music"?
|
| Not to mention transcribing, i.e. writing out tunes and
| improvisations. When they're more than a certain speed,
| learning from just playing along with it becomes
| impossible, and you really have to write it down first
| before you start to play it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > speak and write
|
| Read and write.
| askvictor wrote:
| Here's a somewhere-in-the-middle perspective. I've recently
| been learning the mandolin, as part of a community orchestra.
| I can kind of read sheet music (for the piano at least)
| having learnt a little piano in high school. So give me some
| sheet music and I can work it out after a couple of tries. I
| can also mostly work out a song by ear (perhaps after being
| given a few notes). Both are really important, and use
| different neural pathways and feedback mechanisms (eyes ->
| hands vs ears -> hands).
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Learning to read music just gives you some formal and
| consistent tools with which to learn and share music. If you
| are only playing by ear and always independently creating the
| music, you definitely don't need to learn how to read sheet
| music. I think this probably matches well with the big shift in
| general learning from textbooks to resources like YouTube. It
| is limited though; could you imagine a symphony orchestra
| working with a composer if no one knew how to read music?
|
| I'm not sure why you equate the more formal techniques of music
| with a lack of joy. This seems a false distinction like ranking
| oral storytelling traditions over the written word. Sometimes
| the most passionate lovers of a topic seek to understand how it
| works, which typically requires deep mastery of the theory and
| foundational concepts. You're welcome to improvise but that's a
| very different approach. Ironically the best improvisors often
| have the deepest technical competence; art still has rules and
| some things work better than others.
| thsowers wrote:
| Fellow pianist here who also feels like sometimes too much
| emphasis is placed on score reading!
|
| One interesting counterpoint that was brought up to me by my
| teacher in uni was that for certain pieces, mainly old old ones
| (think way before recording), is that sometimes the score is
| the _only_ thing that we have left from the composer to base
| our interpretation on!
|
| I hadn't really considered this before, and it did make me
| appreciate score reading more (altho I still mostly improvise
| these days :D)
| analog31 wrote:
| I took classical lessons on cello and played in a community
| orchestra while also learning to play jazz on the bass. Today
| I'm mostly a jazz bassist but I also play with folk musicians
| due to my family's musical interests. Among folk musicians, the
| one thing more offensive than playing the bass is playing the
| bass and not actually bringing it. So I bring my bass. ;-)
|
| So I live in both the "reading" and "ear" worlds, and in fact
| my jazz band requires both, since we're a 19 piece "big band"
| and play from written charts. The bass parts in those
| arrangements range from being written note-for-note, to being
| fully improvised.
|
| In my view the main reason for learning to read is if you're
| interested in one or more of the musical genres that revolve
| around written repertoire. That's going to be "classical"
| (which extends beyond the classical era in both directions) and
| some jazz. You can get lost in that repertoire, and it's a
| blast to play, by yourself or with friends. There's so much of
| it that you will never run out of "new" material. Even with
| "ear" music such as much of jazz, reading helps you function in
| a band if you happen to know some but not all of the tunes
| being called.
|
| And you're never completely removed from playing by ear. If
| anything, written material forces you to improve your ear
| because in most cases the notes are coming at you too fast to
| play without some mental processing that involves hearing it in
| your head.
|
| There are two secondary reasons:
|
| 1. Access to material that stretches your physical technique
| and ear by design (etudes etc) or just due to being difficult.
| It's hard for improvisers and ear players to get beyond the
| plateau of playing what their hands and ears are already
| accustomed to.
|
| 2. Commercial work. But even there, reading puts you into a
| category of employable musicians, that is already overcrowded
| with musicians.
|
| But if it doesn't interest you, or is an insurmountable
| obstacle, then leave it behind and don't look back.
| loceng wrote:
| Would there be a way to grade or allow someone to orient
| themselves on multiple spectrums for different skills related
| to the instrument or music in general? Grading inherently isn't
| bad, it's the gradient on a spectrum - however the way the word
| has been used as all-or-nothing pass-fail with the perception
| that your future access to education riding on it is of course
| terrible. But I would like to be able to orient myself somehow
| and I can imagine some insights and direction could be gained
| by being able to input the output of your music/sound generated
| into a system could be useful, so long as the output isn't
| presented in a harmful way.
| unix_fan wrote:
| I am a blind piano player. Would this be useful in anyway?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hm, that's a setup that I never even considered, but it poses
| interesting problems, how could I help to make the program work
| for you? The 'labels' could be turned into speech probably, but
| the visuals would be a lot harder.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| I'm using Brave Browser (which may not support WebMidi), but I
| get sent to the /Firefox page which tells me about Firefox.
| Should all chromium derivatives support webmidi?
| criddell wrote:
| That's a bummer about Firefox. I've started using Edge and it
| feels so much faster that I'm starting to wonder if it isn't
| time to re-evaluate my browser again.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yours apparently doesn't, or the test is buggy. Chromium itself
| works fine. Maybe something you need to enable separately?
|
| Can you try https://sightreading.training/
|
| see if that one works, if it does the problem is on my end.
| kjhughes wrote:
| Reminds me of the Miracle Piano Teaching System for Mac, PC,
| Amiga, Nintendo Entertainment System, and other platforms in the
| early 1990s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Piano_Teaching_System
| jacquesm wrote:
| Interesting, I never even heard of it.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Is there a sync issue on your YT video? It seems like the audio
| and yellow line are not moving together. I'd also consider
| cropping the videos beginning, better lighting, and better audio
| quality.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The cursor is moving at indicated tempo, I'm a bit ahead of
| that but whenever I hesitate it - rapidly - catches up with me.
| Having the cursor advance at speeds higher than indicated tempo
| is re-inforcing bad behavior so I have so far not implemented
| that, though technically it is possible.
|
| Better lighting and better audio are noted, this was just a
| quick & dirty demo of the program in action with the tools at
| hand.
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| Is this like Synthesia? https://synthesiagame.com/
| mrbonner wrote:
| I have synthesia and no, it's not the same. This one requires
| you to know sheet music, a must have skill I you want to learn
| a piece quicker than rote memorization in synthesia. I used to
| refuse reading sheet music. But, thank goodnesses, I knew I was
| mistaking and since then was able to learn more complicated
| pieces like the Aria in Goldberg or couple of preludes in the
| WTC.
| Andrex wrote:
| This seems more like Flowkey.
|
| https://www.flowkey.com
| jacquesm wrote:
| This has a pretty powerful 'auto' mode where it grades your
| practice and steers you towards practicing the bits that you
| have problems with, it doesn't require you to subscribe to any
| service or pay (the data is yours and it stays on your
| computer).
|
| It tracks your progress in a very detailed way and remembers
| how you played a piece before to help you play it better in the
| future. It aims at making you independent of the program and to
| teach you to play well. It still is no substitute for a
| teacher, but it is certainly better than nothing at all. I have
| some plans to incorporate all of the Mayron Cole course into it
| but that will take a long time (and I currently do not have a
| whole lot of time, but that will change soon).
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| I really like this but I can't seem to get my Nanokey2 to
| work with it.
|
| Edit: Never mind, it was the settings, it set the output to
| the nanokey, but didn't set the input.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > the data is yours and it stays on your computer
|
| Music to my ears! I hope more developers go this route and
| prioritize making quality software over squeezing every
| available drop of data from users.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I tried the webpage, and I got
|
| > _WebMIDI is supported in this browser_
|
| Do I need a MIDI wire to connect the piano or the page can heard
| the sound? (Sound recognitions looks very difficult.)
|
| It would be nice to add some example with a graphic in the
| paragraph about labeling the scores for non musicians. (My wife
| plays the piano and guitar, but not professionally. I understand
| the that D is somewhat equivalent to C# in a piano, but using the
| wrong one in a score is as bad as an unmatched parenthesis. But
| don't ask me the details.
|
| I was going to ask if you support DoReMiFaSolLaSi, but it looks
| like another rabbit hole
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_note#12-tone_chromatic...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Unfortunately, yes, you - still - need to have a midi out on
| your piano, so any electronic piano or pianos with a silent
| option can be used, ditto with almost every synth made after
| the 1980's.
|
| That score labeling is actually in there, you'll find it at the
| top and bottom of the score for right hand and left hand
| respectively.
|
| The DoRe-etc was considered but that's not so simple.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I was suggesting to add to the blog post an screenshot of the
| problem and the fixed version.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Okay, done!
|
| Scroll all the way to the bottom after pressing F5 and it
| should appear. You can clearly make out the labels.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Outstanding, do you know this would work with an Android tablet.
| I've been able to get midi input via a USB C hub, but it always
| felt a bit off.
|
| I could always buy a used Surface tablet
| jacquesm wrote:
| I do not know, no Android tablet here. Let me know if it
| does/doesn't though, assuming the Chrome implementation on
| Android is close to the regular browser on non-mobile OS's I
| see no reason why it would not work.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Your listening for Web midi events right ?
|
| I really wanted to create a full midi instrument in the
| browser , as in I capture camera input and then translate
| that to midi output. Appears this isn't possible in chrome
| unless you install software to allow act as a sort of bridge.
|
| Was a real bummer to run into this limitation
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, exactly, WebMidi event stream is what drives it, it
| also generates Midi output to drive the notes that the
| student isn't playing.
| benkaiser wrote:
| When I tested out my web MIDI piano software it worked on a
| Samsung tablet I tested. Just needed a USB OTG cable to connect
| it.
|
| https://benkaiser.github.io/learn-piano/
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