[HN Gopher] Show HN: Piano Trainer - Learn piano scales, chords ...
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Show HN: Piano Trainer - Learn piano scales, chords and more using
MIDI
Author : FinalDestiny
Score : 180 points
Date : 2025-07-04 20:58 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| hofrogs wrote:
| This is cool. I am wondering if anyone knows if there is a game
| like Guitar Hero (old playstation game with a custom controller),
| but for piano and with MIDI input support, something to practice
| the mechanical skills, preferably with a library of beginner-
| friendly charts?
| blensor wrote:
| Not really that much of a game but falling notes and with
| standard MIDI support is Synthesia.
|
| https://synthesiagame.com/
| mushishi wrote:
| Yousician http://yousician.com/
|
| It has different kinds of notes presentation modes.
| brightmood wrote:
| It's something most piano teachers advise AGAINST. But I am of
| the opinion that anything that makes you play the instrument
| works.
| bzzzt wrote:
| The problem is it's hard to unlearn bad technique. If you
| play scales wrong you can get stuck progressing and have to
| start over while suppressing the urge to just play like you
| always did.
| throwaway0665 wrote:
| I think learning how to unlearn is part of it. You'll often
| encounter music that is fingered unintuitively when
| learning increasingly difficult pieces. Plus if you're able
| to play legato at 100% speed guitar hero style you've
| probably discovered a mostly correct fingering anyway.
| williamdclt wrote:
| You're right for "serious" learning. But for most people,
| the alternative is not learning anything at all! The best
| technique is the one that'll actually make you play the
| piano
| cardanome wrote:
| Bad technique on unserious learning can still lead to
| serious injuries like RSI.
|
| Proper technique is also important so that playing is
| actually fun and not painful. Even just a few lessons on
| how to properly sit, how to avoid tension in your hands
| and so on can go a long way. There are video lessons that
| explain that stuff as well but you need to be very
| disciplined and really repeat these lessons over and
| over.
|
| You can absolutely self-learn the piano. People that
| genuinely don't have the money for a teacher shouldn't
| let that stop them but it absolutely is harder. Set
| yourself up for success if you can.
| rs186 wrote:
| There is no such thing as serious/non-serious learning.
|
| I take weekly music lessons and have been doing that for
| a decade. After every lesson -- since the very first one
| -- I am amazed by how many simple things that I get
| wrong, and how many different areas where I could
| improve. The teacher just sees/hears that immediately,
| when you have no idea what you did wrong. And the music
| just _sounds_ different.
|
| Not only that, the teacher discusses the piece with you,
| tells you the efficient way to practice (a specific piece
| or specific passage) etc.
|
| You would probably sound ok to a random stranger, but you
| quickly hit a bottleneck. You spend a lot of time doing
| incorrect/inefficient things without knowing it.
|
| $100/hr is expensive, but well worth it.
| viccis wrote:
| For good reason. Learning fluency reading sheet music is
| critical. Rocksmith is great, with caveats, but the fact that
| they, by default, invert the strings compared to tablature
| conventions on guitar should be proof enough that they are
| pedagogically terrible without some guidance.
|
| The other problem is that their learning technique, in which
| you start with fewer notes and add in all the notes over
| time, is not good at ALL. It masks certain things from you
| and even makes some things harder at lower difficulties when
| it's playing some scale and you don't know that so you're
| just playing random notes in it. Knowing that it was just a
| pentatonic scale or something would make it much simpler.
| Instead, you're taught to just play isolated notes instead of
| learning how to understand what that scale was, how to play
| it, and how to apply that to other songs. It's almost
| outright hostile towards a big picture music theory based
| approach on teaching how to play and instead focuses on
| memorizing the specific notes for each section of each song.
|
| Anyway, piano scales and chords are not challenging to learn
| compared to most piano technique. If you don't have a teacher
| then buy Hanon, get a decent music theory book, and look up
| Youtube videos. Any of these training wheels based learning
| approaches seem to just assume that once you do it enough
| you'll pick up the theory. No. If you can't afford lessons
| (which I stress are very important) then you should at least
| make use of simple music theory books and videos on Youtube.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Yes - the usual comment with these things is that you're
| not learning notes, you're learning _movements._
|
| Scales have specific fingerings and hand movements,
| including thumb over/under movements at specific locations.
|
| They're not optional extras. They're essential for fluid
| playing.
|
| More subtly there's also basic finger/hand positioning,
| which has to be a difficult combination of as-relaxed-as-
| possible but also firm and precise, so you get fine control
| over dynamics and timing.
|
| If you don't learn the vocabulary of physical movements,
| you won't have the physical foundation you need to play
| notated music properly beyond the very basics.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| Upvoted. As a beginner guitarist, I find that Rocksmith's
| approach doesn't work well for learning songs. I prefer to
| turn up the difficulty to 100% and turn the tempo down to
| something I can play comfortably and then gradually
| increase the tempo. This has the drawback that the song
| sounds very different when played at 25%. It'd be nicer if
| they were more judicious in their choice of notes to play
| for their lower difficulty levels.
|
| At the moment, I'm focussing on working on my timing by
| playing rhythm instead of lead guitar.
| viccis wrote:
| That's 100% the right way to do it and how traditional
| learning works (you just use a metronome and slowly work
| up to full tempo)
|
| If you haven't already, please PLEASE choose the "invert"
| option for the string order. Your low pitched E string
| (the red one) should be on the bottom of the strings. It
| will mean that all your work will transfer immediately to
| both guitar tabs as well as conventional chord charts.
| The fact that Rocksmith is teaching people to train their
| muscle memory on upside down chord charts is so insane to
| me.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Honestly reddit is so fucking tiring. If you don't have a
| piano teacher 3x a week you'll never learn? Huh? Most famous
| pop piano players learned by themselves just noodling, and
| they have bad technique, but they still amaze. Same with
| guitar. Anyone who's super good at an instrument is going to
| get there however.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| First of all: they noodled by themselves, i.e. they gained
| their own intimacy with the instrument, which is something
| you cannot teach but only explore on your own. Secondly,
| you don't know if they didn't have any teachers or mentors
| or players they asked questions to or learned from. "self
| made" is not really a thing
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You'd be surprised how many famous pop piano players didn't
| just have lessons, they had advanced training.
|
| Elton John studied at the Royal Academy of Music. Alicia
| Keys is classically trained. Lady Gaga had lessons from the
| age of 4.
|
| Even someone like Vangelis - nominally self-taught, and not
| a reader or writer - had lessons when he was starting out.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are many many examples on both sides. That you can
| cite many who have had a lot of classical training
| doesn't disprove the point that many others have had
| minimal training.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Right, I'd argue that the people _without_ training are
| going to be way more surprising.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I want to know which professional learned piano as a first
| instrument with just noodling. Maybe a handful of geniuses,
| but nothing more.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most people get lessons so saying it is a handful is
| likely right. However I know a few who play for fun that
| never had lessons, and they sound good.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Honestly, no, you won't. It's very difficult and requires
| training. Those famous players made music their entire
| lifes work. Thinking that means you can just teach yourself
| at 35 with no musical training is idiotic.
| djmips wrote:
| One version of Rock Band came with a real 25 key piano midi
| controller that you used in the game.
| bluGill wrote:
| I still have and use that keyboard. It is a nice little midi
| controller that works just as well as any other midi keyboard
| I have (within the limits of 25 keys of course)
| willhslade wrote:
| Rock Band 3 pro mode.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Melodics[1] got a few gamey features, but in the larger scope
| such tools are pretty orthogonal to actually learning to play
| piano - I wouldn't say they hurt, like some teachers suggest
| (they'd say the same about hanon warmups) but they help you
| becoming a better musician the same way writing the alphabet
| everyday would make you a better writer.
|
| [1]https://melodics.com/
| djtango wrote:
| YMMV, I'm now at a stage where I am limited by my ability to
| play arpeggios and scales fast and accurately enough and tbh
| I think it's probably more productive to just practise scales
| and arpeggios than to practise the passage in question.
|
| Scales and Arpeggios also bed the keys into your muscle
| memory which I've found it has made learning harmony a lot
| quicker as I can take a progression and experiment with it in
| the various keys and also experiment with different voice
| leadings by messing with the inversions.
|
| But if the pressing concern is staying motivated and/or
| enjoying the instrument through playing then I agree that an
| excessive focus on fundamentals is going to be a slog
| tofflos wrote:
| Rocksmith+ recently got a piano mode. The default interface is
| similar to Guitar Hero but you can also toggle to a sheet music
| view. I haven't tried it.
|
| I have tried Playground Sessions and recommend it.
| dherikb wrote:
| I totally support that. I know that this can create bad habits,
| but not everyone wants to become a great piano player; some of
| us just want to have some fun playing.
| tbbfjotllf wrote:
| Synthesia[1] is what you're looking for.
|
| [1] https://synthesiagame.com/
| ganonm wrote:
| It's probably not got the entertainment factor of Guitar Hero,
| but I'm working on an Android app that connects via
| Bluetooth/USB MIDI and teaches you sight reading. It starts
| with individual notes, then progresses to intervals, triads and
| more complex chords. All of these are exercise based, so you
| can pick and choose areas to focus on.
|
| The notes are all rendered according to conventional music
| notation standards as per Elaine Gould's book "Behind Bars".
| Writing this code was not straightforward, but worth the effort
| as it's very flexible.
|
| Progress is tracked intelligently, i.e. accuracy and response
| times are recorded per note, and exercises can be directed
| towards improving weak spots. This was all borne out of a
| frustration I had with how long it takes, and how much material
| is needed to make progress with sight reading skills.
|
| I'm hoping to release it soon (next few months - it's mostly
| finished), but slightly concerned it's too niche. I guess it
| will mostly appeal to serious but beginner/intermediate
| pianists who want to put in the hard yards to develop sight
| reading abilities to an advanced level.
| yourqiwi wrote:
| Very interested in your app. I have had great success
| learning languages with flashcards / SRS, and I want a
| "smart" way to learn sight reading when I start learning
| piano.
| vunderba wrote:
| I don't think it's that niche, Sight Reading Factory (the
| site, iOS app, etc.) has been around for years and is pretty
| popular as a means of learning sight reading for various
| instruments.
|
| https://www.sightreadingfactory.com
| memorydial wrote:
| Do you have a github repo, link, or a signup page so I can
| get a notification when its launched?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| There's an app called Skoove that seems to do a lot of that.
| Not really a game, but you put your tablet on your piano and it
| shows you which keys to hit at the right time and makes sure
| you do it right. That's pretty much the same thing almost.
| khaki54 wrote:
| Simply Piano and Yousician are pretty close to Rocksmith. A
| little more focused on teaching though. You can plug in midi or
| USB to your keyboard or it can use a mic to do note tracking
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Check out Synthesia (has MIDI support and a large library of
| songs with difficulty ratings) and Pianote (more structured
| learning but with game elements). Both have beginner-friendly
| content and visual feedback similar to Guitar Hero.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Very neat!
| bfm wrote:
| This is awesome! Thank you for building it!
|
| Another open source app that I've been using to practice is
| https://github.com/sightread/sightread
| 3shv wrote:
| On a tangential note, how good/bad is learning piano on Occulus?
| ta1243 wrote:
| This sounds great in theory. I don't have a midi interface, but
| using the home row is a great idea.
|
| If I install the hosted .deb and run it though, then press a, s,
| d with a 5 second wait it's fine. If I push them after half a
| second, so while the previous note is playing, it goes very
| wrong. Is that supposed to happen?
|
| a (C plays, wait 1 second, C still plays), s (after C finishes D
| plays, a long time later).
|
| press a,s,d and it's C for about 3 seconds, then D and E
| together.
|
| Is this just a bug with my desktop environment?
| FinalDestiny wrote:
| It's a known bug on Linux, thanks for confirming it. I created
| an issue in the repo to track this just now.
| ponta17 wrote:
| I like it!
| nerflad wrote:
| This looks good for introductory theory. see also GNU Solfege
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/solfege/
| catapart wrote:
| Awesome! I don't know how to play the piano, so I built a little
| midi piano app[0] and then realized I didn't know how to make the
| app teach me how to play. I've been looking through other "how to
| play" apps, and got some interesting ideas, but I love how
| straightforward your approach is. I'm definitely at the level
| where simply practicing and reinforcing scales would help a lot,
| so I'd love to add a similar type of functionality to my app.
| Thanks for putting this together!
|
| [0] https://midi-speaker.com/
| cdong wrote:
| Fantastic project overall. I bought this a while ago and kick-
| started my piano learnings
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I'm appreciative of people attempting to help others learn music,
| so first of all thanks!
|
| I'd suggest people really focus on their ear training though over
| visual feedback. Just play your scales through the circle of
| fifths -- set a metronome at 60, go for both hands, two octaves,
| parallel and contrary motion. Start with major and then move on
| to the three types of minor. The thing you're developing is
| internalizing the sound of the scales. Just picking out an F
| harmonic minor scale and getting a visualization I think is less
| fruitful for the long term.
|
| Also, for triads, while it is super important to know what the
| quality of the chords are inside a scale (so that you can pick up
| your forms like a ii-V-I in any key), I think it's more important
| to practice the chords themselves. When I was taught, my teacher
| just had me pick a few keys every morning, and then practice the
| major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads, with their
| inversions. Within a week you'll have practiced all of them. Once
| he could call out any key and I could play them up and down with
| the metronome at a decent clip, we moved onto the 10 four part
| chords and did the same. And then did it again in open position.
| And then... there's always more!
|
| For learning how the triads sit inside a key, I'd suggest playing
| the triad in the left hand and then playing up and down the scale
| so that you can start hearing the chord with the mode. So, Cmaj
| triad, play the C scale up/down, Dmin triad, play D dorian
| up/down, etc. At least that's how I was taught.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| I have a decent grasp of theory and have seen the value of
| grinding scales on other instruments. With piano, I'm never
| sure which fingers I'm supposed to be using or when to move my
| fingers up the keys. Do you have any guidance?
| mtalantikite wrote:
| You know, I can't totally remember how my first teacher
| taught it (I was 7), but I do know that a lot of the
| fingering was outlined by CPE Bach back in the 18th century
| [1]. Just glancing on the Internet (and quickly playing
| through my scales just now), it seems like I tend to play
| them closely to this outline:
| https://pianoguidelessons.com/fingering-scales-on-the-piano/
|
| But, as my current teacher likes to point out, there's no
| "true" way. He's a bassist, and has mentioned to me a few
| times some old survey asking pro players to write out their
| fingerings for some famous passages -- the results were all
| over the place, as everyone brings their own approach.
|
| [1] https://archive.org/details/BACHCarlPhilippeEmanuel.Essay
| OnT...
| endoblast wrote:
| Thumb on white notes. 4th finger on black because it is
| weaker than 2,3. But these are rules of thumb(!)
| Hunpeter wrote:
| Hi, when you say you don't know which fingers to move do you
| mean within the context of a piece of music, or just the
| scales themselves? For the latter, I can give you some advice
| (though if you search something like "piano scale fingerings"
| on Google images, you can probably get some fairly standard
| fingerings for both hands).
|
| Each diatonic (major, minor or modal) scale consists of 7
| distinct notes, and the fingering is always 1-2-3 1-2-3-4 in
| one direction, and the reverse in the other direction,
| however, you need to find where this sequence starts within
| the scale. The more black keys there are in a scale, the
| fewer the possible comfortable positions. Always put your
| thumb on a white key, and prefer putting your 3rd and
| especially your 4th fingers on black keys, if possible. (Fun
| fact: for the major scales, once you have your right hand's
| fingering, you can imagine mirroring the keyboard and your
| hand around the D or G# key and you get another major scale
| with a good fingering for the left hand).
|
| DO NOT start with C major if it's your first time learning
| scales. Maybe start with E major (4 sharps) as it is
| comfortable and you can use the mirrored fingering in the
| other hand.
| fasterik wrote:
| It's worth picking up a book like Alfred's "The Complete Book
| of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios & Cadences". It has exercises in
| every major and minor key, with fingerings.
|
| Knowing the fingerings is a good start, but you need to learn
| to do these exercises without tension and with proper posture
| and hand movements. This is something where it's best to have
| in-person instruction from an expert who can show you the
| technique and correct your mistakes. But if you can't do
| that, maybe the next best thing would be to watch some
| YouTube videos and record yourself playing.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Nitpick: The perfect fifth of G is E but the video says A:
| https://vimeo.com/730642802
| bpicolo wrote:
| Isn't it D? The video also seems to show D, unless there's
| another spot I'm missing.
| maCDzP wrote:
| This is neat, do I have to hook up an keyboard to my computer. If
| so, any suggestions?
| BaNzounet wrote:
| When I was starting piano and wanted to get better at sight
| reading, I made a small quiz app that shows a note on a staff and
| takes MIDI input. Not sure if it still works, but might help
| someone: https://github.com/AlexGaspar/piano-playground.
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