[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play p...
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Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear
Author : vunderba
Score : 354 points
Date : 2026-01-09 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lend-me-your-ears.specr.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (lend-me-your-ears.specr.net)
| HPsquared wrote:
| I suppose the thing you're learning with musical instruments is
| hand-ear coordination. The eyes are optional.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Nice! I was wondering to make something similiar for guitar. It
| is little weird that this is not widely used technique. Just
| blindly repeat the tone you hear, then move to tone sequences.
| Nice job!
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! I'd love to adapt this to support
| universal pitch detection - with the number of guitar tuner
| apps out there it's not like it should be _TREMENDOUSLY_
| difficult (famous last words).
| MattRix wrote:
| I've tried quite a few of these apps/sites, and I like the
| simplicity of this one.
| ladidahh wrote:
| It be nice if you mapped the keys to the user keyboard kinda like
| ableton, for people who dont have a midi controller handy
|
| White Keys: The keys from 'A' to 'L' on your keyboard correspond
| to the white keys on a piano, covering a full octave from C to D.
| Black Keys: The keys in between, like 'W' and 'E', correspond to
| the black keys or the sharp notes on a piano. from :
| https://www.electrikjam.com/use-your-keyboard-as-a-midi-cont...
| moosedev wrote:
| This, but (or "and") use the 4-row layout that dozens of
| tracker programs used[0], to fit over 2 octaves on the computer
| keyboard.
|
| On a US keyboard:
|
| QWERTYUIOP[] is the white keys starting at middle C. (The row
| above is the black keys; the 2 key plays C#.)
|
| ZXCVBNM,./ is the white keys starting an octave lower. (S plays
| a low C#.)
|
| The two ranges overlap; e.g. Q and , both play C in the same
| octave.
|
| Grew up composing music on a computer this way when my
| (musical) keyboard didn't have MIDI and I couldn't afford a
| better one :)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Can you name a piece of software that uses this scheme? Or,
| better still, the OG software that used it. If I steal this,
| I'd like to have something to call it. (I've seen this scheme
| before: I think it might be used by the keyboard built into
| the Squeak image that comes with Scratch 1.4.)
| smeej wrote:
| Also a possibility: An on-screen keyboard. I'd happily click
| the keys. Or even the lines on the staff for that matter.
| TZubiri wrote:
| Very nice, always wanted something like this.
|
| Liked: Sheet/No shit split
|
| Would like:
|
| - Ability to play with PC keyboard, other apps already have some
| type of interface to type with keyboard, of course it might
| change depending on keyboard layout, but it's pretty standard and
| it happens that the keys aren't usually alighned, so you can have
| one row be whites and the upper row being blacks.
|
| - Maybe the waiting times between new notes in simon says can be
| faster? The "You Win" is a bit slow and it feels like forever,
| breaking the pace of the music.
|
| - Difficulties can be increased as well, Simon Says currently
| seems like it only does very small intervals, (feels like sheet
| based is a bit different but maybe not). Maybe it can be
| configured to allow a wider range of intervals, making it more
| difficult.
|
| The other similar product that I've seen is an app called
| Yousician that did this for guitar but it was microphone based.
| This is very neat.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I would also love a button to pause so I can poke around the
| keyboard to see what it sounds like.
| hooloovoo_zoo wrote:
| Don't seem to get any sound on iPhone 16 even after clicking :(
| ta2112 wrote:
| Disable silent mode.
| crgk wrote:
| I had to turn off silent mode. I always forget that physical
| switch for games.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| This is as much a sight singing app as it is piano by ear. I did
| a lot of these kinds of drills studying for the Music Theory AP
| exam in high school. Very useful
| ipsum2 wrote:
| I have a really niche use case that this fulfills. I have perfect
| pitch, but terrible working memory (can't remember more than 4
| notes at time). This is a nice way to try to improve it.
| vunderba wrote:
| Very nice! One of my friends is the exact opposite: they have a
| pretty poor sense of pitch but a prodigious working memory.
| They can take a brief glance at a couple of pages of sheet
| music and instantly reproduce it.
|
| Hope this helps you on your musical journey~
| Ap0c wrote:
| Maybe add microphone support and listen to what people play on
| keyboard piano ?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Sounds like a category 2 situation https://xkcd.com/1425/
|
| Okay, okay, not _quite_ (FFT libraries are a thing), but
| pressing buttons on a keyboard is leagues easier than reliably
| detecting (and filtering noise from) tones coming through a
| microphone! Not a bad suggestion though
| catapart wrote:
| Just a quick compatibility issue: for some reason, my midi board
| triggers a key input both when I press it down, and when I let it
| go. I'm assuming that it might just be something wrong with my
| board, but I did want to let you know in case there might be some
| nuance you haven't considered with respect to the midi commands.
| I know my first crack at it didn't distinguish between note-on
| and note-off commands, for instance.
| ta2112 wrote:
| I can add a bit of information to what might be behind this
| bug.
|
| In MIDI, there are NOTE_ON and NOTE_OFF events, for when you
| press and release each key. The NOTE_ON has pitch and velocity
| parameters. The NOTE_OFF just has pitch parameter (maybe it has
| velocity as well I can't quite remember, it's off the point).
| So if you push middle C, it might look like this:
|
| NOTE_ON 60 (middle C) 98 (velocity), NOTE_OFF 60
|
| Some keyboards never send NOTE_OFF events, instead they send
| NOTE_ON with velocity 0. On these keyboards, pressing middle C
| looks like this:
|
| NOTE_ON 60 98, NOTE_ON 60 0
|
| Both are valid MIDI streams, and all stream processors should
| react appropriately to both. This app likely does not correctly
| map zero velocity NOTE_ON events to NOTE_OFF with the same
| pitch.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey catapart,
|
| Thanks for the feedback. Oof that's weird. Maybe I'm triggering
| some kind of odd aftertouch?
|
| _EDIT: Just saw ta2112 's note. That's super helpful I'm
| definitely only responding to standard MIDI NOTE_ON and
| NOTE_OFF messages._
|
| I'll try to get this fixed this evening.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| [flagged]
| metacritic12 wrote:
| When I go to their homepage, I get a Cloudflare SSL handshake
| failed error -- feels like a classical vibecode bug.
| derrida wrote:
| As someone that like to play piano and guitar - I could see
| this immediately as something to improve my skills and playing
| by ear
|
| For me I was thinking a thought I almost never think and is
| long forgotten "where is that old home button in my browser so
| I can set this as my homepage, or maybe I have to solve 2-3 of
| these before I can log in to my computer" xD
|
| "insubstantive" is a nice word - software that is modifiable
| _by the user_ at _run time_ - I guess like scripting "it's
| just throw away" or emacs bit of elisp and keyboard macro and
| move on "insubstantive"
|
| Embrace the insubstantive! Otherwise - enjoy when you have a
| "problem" sitting down and having to abstract more and find the
| general and solve for "N" because the time investment was high
| and the tools did not allow for this sort of sketching,
| insubstantive, throwaway type thing.
| teiferer wrote:
| I'm normally in the camp of "why flood HN with AI crap" and if
| you are not a musician then I can see why this seems
| unnecessary. But as a musician, this is a great learning tool.
| Every musician should be able to play by ear (and I had to ramp
| up the difficulty substantially to get a bit of a challenge).
| AI generated or not, this is useful.
| SoleilAbsolu wrote:
| Yeah I've been playing 40 years and did a stint in music
| school. Other than fat-fingered note entry errors my ear
| nailed all the ones I did. IMO this seems to start from a
| pretty advanced level off the bat.
| ianbutler wrote:
| There are plenty of musicians here saying this is useful for
| them or would be useful while learning.
|
| As meta commentary, those not in a subgroup sometime fail to
| see utility of a thing built for that subgroup and it's easy to
| feel a sense of superiority "oh how dumb and trivial this thing
| is", but it may be better to first have curiosity and see how
| the intended audience responds. Often it's not dumb or trivial,
| you're missing context and experience to see the value.
| dvt wrote:
| It's the typical "engineer thinking they're smarter than
| everyone else" trope. From my experience, engineers fall
| squarely in the middle of the bell curve. The AI hate is just
| used as justification, so I don't even take it that
| seriously. And fwiw, as someone that played piano when I was
| younger, this is 100% a useful tool. In fact, during
| quarantine I was learning to play guitar and used tools like
| this to learn which string is which by ear.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| I've played the piano for years. Your immediate conclusion
| that my dislike must stem from inexperience instead of a more
| nuanced place strikes me as the exact kind of thing you're
| lamenting in your comment.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > a more nuanced place
|
| Your original comment implies "it's GenAI so it must be
| bad."
| ianbutler wrote:
| As the other poster said, your comment didn't really leave
| any room for nuance, it was "ai bad". And it's also clear
| you're too egoistic/defensive to reflect on it.
|
| Other commentary is you're not owed courtesy you yourself
| didn't give.
| recursive wrote:
| I've been playing piano for 40 years, tend to hate anything
| with AI-buzzwords anywhere adjacent to it. But I generally
| think this particularly one is a good thing.
|
| Curious what you mean by no attempt to teach. We learn
| multiplication tables by rote. Are flash cards a genuine
| instrument of learning? The only way to learn intervals is to
| practice identifying them. This is how you do it. You can read
| about music theory (and should) but the only way to build your
| listening skills is to practice it starting with basic stuff.
| cgriswald wrote:
| This teaches intervals like Duolingo teaches language rules.
| You sort of pick them up because you need them to figure out
| the small melody it plays. But you don't get the concept of a
| 'fourth' or a 'fifth' and there's never a moment where the
| actual rules are explained.
|
| That said, I think it's very useful for what it is and
| highlights that whatever your view on AI, there is a niche
| here that AI can fill that people otherwise would just not
| build either because they don't think it is interesting, or
| because no one would pay enough for it.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| It's ear training, not theory training, right?
| cgriswald wrote:
| Yes, which is why it doesn't teach intervals, but is
| still useful.
| recursive wrote:
| I addressed that. You should read a book to learn the
| definition of intervals. But in addition, there's no
| substitute for ear training. Grinding on interval
| identification is just as valid as this. Once you get to a
| level where you can identify intervals on the keyboard, the
| skills are pretty transferable. But there's just no way to
| learn what a fifth sounds like by reading a book. You need
| something like this. There is probably room to add a mode
| that says "this is a fifth" after you identify a fifth. Or
| to choose a named interval or chord quality based on
| hearing it. But I don't think any of that diminishes the
| utility of what's here.
|
| FWIW I think it's probably more useful to play what you
| hear than it is to be able to name it. Although they're
| both good.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Right, and I addressed all that as well. I doubt we are
| in serious disagreement here and calls for me to "read a
| book" are frankly rude. I think you need to be more
| generous in the interpretation of others words because I
| actually disagree with the original poster for the most
| part, but you obviously have a different definition of
| "teach" than he. Flash cards don't teach. They assist
| memorization or practice. Memorizing times tables doesn't
| teach multiplication except trivially for the numbers
| you've memorized. It does assist in learning
| multiplication. Likewise this ear training can trivialize
| learning and identifying intervals later but is not
| itself "teaching intervals".
| recursive wrote:
| I'm not asking you to read a book. Sorry for being
| unclear. The reading a book stuff all started from this
| in my original comment:
|
| > You can read about music theory (and should) but the
| only way to [...]
|
| My point is just that "you" (an abstract you) can learn
| music abstractly and in practice. Some things require
| book reading. Some things require practice and listening.
| Nothing intended about the cgriswald "you".
|
| I know how to do long-hand multiplication and have
| memorized the 12x12 multiplication table. I'm not sure
| which one is more valuable, but I think they complement
| each other.
|
| I'm not sure if we actually disagree about anything,
| except maybe the relative value of knowing what an
| interval sounds like vs what it's called.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Ah, apologies for my misunderstanding. Maybe _I_ should
| be more generous in interpreting others words. I don't
| think we disagree about that either. To me it isn't about
| "What it's called" but about the concept itself.
| Intervals are "hidden" in this ear training. You get them
| for free but you don't necessarily learn that the pattern
| is there at all. I can agree that the doing ability is
| more important than the concept but it's not just about
| the name. That's just what we have to use to talk about
| it.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| The key thing is that you teach multiplication tables in a
| structured, incremental manner. Yes, it's just rote
| memorization, but the structure makes it way easier. You
| don't just dump all tables on the student at once and start
| quizzing them until they get it.
|
| Imo not being able to select a subset of intervals to train
| heavily limits how useful this is.
| gowld wrote:
| Click the "?" on the game to see the AI slop popup dialogs
| blocking other popup dialogs.
|
| The good news is that this means you can quickly make the same
| app yourself at home, and improve it to suit your needs.
| vunderba wrote:
| [flagged]
| dvt wrote:
| Hacker News has become weirdly anti-hacker in the last 5 or
| so years, so please keep building stuff and keep posting it.
| This is literally what HN is supposed to be. The "AI slop"
| tirade is just bottom of the barrel bandwaggoning for upvotes
| because it's popular to hate AI today
| minimaxir wrote:
| One of the counterintuitive aspects of the LLM boom is that
| agentic coding allows for more weird/unique projects that
| spark joy with less _risk_ due to the increased efficiency.
| Nowadays, anything that 's weird is considered AI slop and
| that's not even limited to software development.
|
| No, "LLMs can only output what's in their training data"
| hasn't been true for awhile.
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks for the support. Honestly, I probably shouldn't get
| so defensive either, it's a bad habit and a pretty poor
| "evolutionary holdover" in the internet age of anonymity
| and social media.
|
| I thought one way to help mitigate my emotional responses
| was to desensitize myself, but who really wants to expose
| themselves to the requisite sufficient threshold of
| personal attacks? That's not exactly a fun callus to
| develop.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| Pay me no heed, I'm sure you'd find many of the things I've
| made insubstantive.
| snackdex wrote:
| > With all due respect, I'll stack up anything I've ever
| created against anything of yours at any time.
|
| I love this response. for what its worth there is some
| thought here on this app.
| dang wrote:
| > With all due respect, I'll stack up anything I've ever
| created against anything of yours at any time
|
| I realize the GP comment was a provocation, but please don't
| respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines
| yourself. That only makes things worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| viccis wrote:
| I think this is much better as a relative pitch training tool
| for people with a very basic background in piano and music in
| general. I would have loved something like this back in high
| school to use for practicing over and over.
|
| I think "teach" is a high bar, but I do think it's a good
| practice tool.
|
| My one and only complaint is that sometimes the melodies it
| generates are tough to play back because they don't really
| sound like a real melody and I have to fight my brain telling
| me to play back the one that would actually sound good. Sort of
| like having to memorize a random string of words vs memorizing
| a normal sentence.
| fxwin wrote:
| This doesn't really seem 'generic' at all to me?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack on HN generally, and
| especially please not in Show HN threads. It's not what this
| site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
| sbondaryev wrote:
| Nice project! I'm not very strong at note recognition, so I see
| the "Wrong note" message quite often (which is totally fine), but
| the frequent blinking feels a bit distracting. You might consider
| making the feedback a little less visually intense.
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks! I see what you're saying - the "Blurred overlay" which
| says "Sorry Wrote Note!". I could see how that'd be physically
| jarring after a while.
|
| So you're saying I should add a klaxon? :)
|
| Seriously though - I'll look into a redesign!
| detectivestory wrote:
| I really like this idea. Simple interface, a single goal, it and
| it doesn't claim to be a full piano course. However, the user
| experience is incredibly frustrating for amateur players like
| myself. For some reason i have to hold down each previous note or
| else it fails? And often when I do play the right note I get no
| feedack to say so. Another thing is the annoying wait between
| listening to the piece and playing every time. It would be nice
| if user input immediately cut out the example piece
| vunderba wrote:
| Wait, you have to hold down each previous note? So at the end
| of a four-note sequence you are physically depressing four
| keys? Hmmm... that sounds like a bug to me.
|
| I'll look into it!
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| I'd like more tries to pick out the notes when pecking at the on-
| screen keyboard. I don't need to hear the pattern again, I need
| to learn where the note pitches are on the keyboard.
| user574275 wrote:
| Is that teaching a bad habit though? Is it one of those things
| where's importantly to be confidently wrong or right?
| aspaviento wrote:
| One of the important keys in learning is engagement. If you
| frustrate the student preventing them from progressing at
| their own rhythm they will disengage, losing interest in what
| you are teaching.
| user574275 wrote:
| Both things can be true though, right?
|
| Maybe it just needs to reset faster or maybe start more
| gradually so you can build up muscle memory of intervals.
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! I'll have to give this some thought.
| You mean something like a, "X Tries To Get the Next Note?". I
| could add it as an option.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I think this suggestion you took in an earlier subthread
| solves GP's problem as well:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46558500
| souenzzo wrote:
| Make it repeat the same exercise when I fail.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey souenzzo - it should repeat the same exercise when you fail
| in Practice Model. If you want it to mimic Simon, just set
| "Show Last Note" in the Settings.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| My problem isn't memory. It's my ear. It's tin.
| recursive wrote:
| Luckily that's a trainable skill. If you care to.
| 1qaboutecs wrote:
| Bug? It shows me the note and I just have to mash it and then it
| shows me the next note.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| I like the game up until 7 or 8 notes, but it keeps adding note.
|
| I couldn't find a setting to freeze the difficulty where it's
| comfortable and where the melody can still be construed to make
| sense.
|
| When adding more notes, it breaks the flow and turn a training
| for pitch practicing into a memory game for rain man, even more
| so when we make a mistake and must redo the melody partially.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hmm - I was hoping that the Practice Mode would cover this, but
| I think there's probably some room to add an option where you
| can freeze the difficulty level - I'll see if I can add this
| later in the evening.
|
| The "construed melody" is a harder problem. I've been playing
| around with the idea of using a markov model or even borrowing
| what CPU Bach did to try to create more coherent melodies over
| time.
|
| Thanks for the feedback!
| RyanOD wrote:
| I took several years of Suzuki piano method when I was a kid.
| Suzuki focuses initially on developing the ear.
|
| During lessons, we did this kind of stuff all the time. I would
| close my eyes and my instructor would play a series of notes and
| I would need to play them back by ear.
|
| I would also listen to whatever song I was learning before I went
| to be bed and again when I woke up in the morning, visualizing
| every note.
|
| Give me a guitar today and I can work out pretty much any song I
| hear on the radio in under a minute just by listening.
|
| EDIT: To be clear, I also played a LOT of guitar and piano. Ear
| training was in addition to the hard work of becoming a player.
| allenu wrote:
| It's really a great way to train your ear, and fun, too. I can
| play ukulele, but mostly just to strum and play songs to, but a
| few years ago I just started picking notes to try to recreate
| melodies of songs I knew or heard recently. At first it was
| slow-going with lots of searching on the fret for the right
| note, but over time I worked up the skill to mostly get the
| melody on the first few tries. It was the most amazing feeling
| to realize I could listen to a song and then reproduce it by
| ear.
|
| I found that it's also an excellent way to "feel" the structure
| of a melody as well since you're essentially building it up
| again. Of course you could read music to see the actual melody,
| but working it out this way feels a bit more intimate.
| WesleyJohnson wrote:
| My disconnect is I can't read sheet music. So I can hear it,
| then memorize where it is on the piano/keyboard... but that
| just teaches you play piano by ear. It doesn't teach you how
| to play music in the traditional sense.
|
| I guess this showing you the sheet music as you find the
| notes can help with that, but as others noted - I'd like a
| "mess around" mode, before a "test" mode.
| RyanOD wrote:
| I think it depends on your end goal.
|
| I have a great ear and am terrible at reading sheet music.
| Fine if you aspire to be a rock guitarist. Not so fine if
| you aspire to be a classical pianist.
|
| Funny, but I'm final tired of my poor sight reading and
| have set a goal for 2025 to average one hour of piano
| playing from sheet music per day.
|
| And I agree...a "mess around" mode on the app would be
| great. Feels almost punitive when I make a mistake.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey RyanOD,
|
| If you're looking to improve your sight-reading and don't
| mind playing church music, I highly recommend picking up
| a second-hand copy of an old Episcopal Church hymnal (I
| like the 1940 edition). All the pieces are four-voice and
| the rhythms are relatively simple, so you can concentrate
| on sight reading. Good luck!
|
| https://hymnary.org/hymnal/HPEC1940
| RyanOD wrote:
| Sounds like a good idea. Right now, I'm splitting my time
| between drill based content (Bartok, Gurlitt, Kunz, etc),
| beginner classical pieces, and the occasional blues.
|
| Funny, but in church, I spend more time than maybe I
| should sight reading hymns during the sermon. :)
| n-gauge wrote:
| This is great - bookmarked! I've connected my casio midi keyboard
| to it, hope it will help me with getting the right key of a song
| (I can work out a tune already, but sometimes in the wrong key)
| vunderba wrote:
| Glad you liked it! Good luck with your practice!
| recursive wrote:
| There's a question mark button right on top of the high C key.
| Otherwise, love it.
| vunderba wrote:
| Derp - that's what I get for testing mostly with my midi
| controller and not the on-screen piano. I'll update to fix
| this!
| enderdragon wrote:
| Great work!
| evanmoran wrote:
| This is great! Please consider even easier settings for kids.
| Maybe 2 notes (not 4) as the min starting point and slower ramp
| up as you succeed.
|
| Also, I think the missed the first note UI could feel a little
| nicer. Something about the popup/hiding the music takes you out
| of the flow. Possibly just a subtitle would be enough with an
| encouraging message. There is a big difference between failing to
| do the whole pattern and failing the first note so definitely
| worth refining the feedback here.
| marcusverus wrote:
| As a non-musical person, I went looking for how to set it to 1
| note!
| vunderba wrote:
| This is good feedback - I'll add it in the next version! I
| actually wrote this for my younger sister but she already has
| some musical training so it isn't as geared towards beginners.
| allenu wrote:
| It's a very cool little game! One suggestion: could you make it
| so you can noodle around on the keyboard without submitting the
| answer and then once you've worked it out, have a submission
| mode? Right now, it's frustrating that if you enter a wrong note,
| it shows a message, so you can't experiment on the keyboard to
| try to work it out.
| mattydoincode wrote:
| came here to write this comment, +1!
| bombledmonk wrote:
| another +1
| vunderba wrote:
| That's a good idea - I'll try to get that implemented this
| evening.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Having both modes could be good. Default allows pre-noodling
| and enabled gives satisfaction of being correct one-shot (or
| falls back to retry with noodle).
| malkosta wrote:
| You read my mind sir! Also, great work by OP, I really needed
| this since a long time!
| w-m wrote:
| Great technical demo, but the usability feels unpolished. So
| here's a little bit of feedback of trying this out on a piano:
| Just because my piano has 88 keys doesn't mean they are all
| useful for ear training. The very low and very high notes
| shouldn't be used, at least not by default. Also they don't even
| show up properly in the sheet.
|
| As the melodies get longer and longer with each win, this
| devolves quickly into a memory game. I'd like to keep playing ear
| training, but I struggle with remembering what sequence of notes
| came at steps 8+.
|
| This is somewhat aggravated by completely resetting the current
| level and replaying the whole melody after a single mistake. If I
| keep making a mistake in note 10, I get all the notes over and
| over again, which is a bit maddening.
| vunderba wrote:
| Good point - it's a bit of a hack and I didn't point it out but
| technically you could play the lowest/highest notes when you
| configure your midi device that you would like to practice
| with.
|
| I'll need to put in some proper limitations or possibly add 8va
| type symbols to more properly limit to a grand staff.
| polarbearballs wrote:
| As someone who practices music 2 to 3 hours a day. I love this. I
| think people are coming at it as if it were a video game or
| designed to be a "portfolio project" but as a musician, I think
| you really created something awesome and lets me practice on what
| I'm most insecure about....my ear.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey polarbearballs (I feel a bit funny writing this name),
|
| Thanks for the feedback - I'm glad you found it useful! I
| literally made it because I was thinking about the old Simon
| toy which plays a set of consonant notes (G, C, E, G) and
| thought it would be a fun way to practice playing by ear!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)
| anishgupta wrote:
| Fun app! One of the things I wish it had if it can record the
| ambient notes and match it (like one of those guitar tuner apps).
| Playing by ear is something I've done all my life and any user
| can have any instrument matching the notes
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks! Honestly I'd love to implement a proper pitch detection
| so you could play the game with an acoustic guitar.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| On iPhone, no sound.
| vunderba wrote:
| I'll look into this, is it possible that you have Silent Mode
| enabled? I tested the app on an old iPad and it worked okay but
| unfortunately I don't have any other iOS devices.
| sfblah wrote:
| The help question mark over part of the keyboard isn't great.
| seidleroni wrote:
| This is really cool! As someone who has basically no piano
| training, this is fun! Perhaps there could be some super-easy
| mode where you actually highlight the keys while you're playing
| the sounds (in simon mode) to help the super noobs train their
| ears.
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks! That's not a bad idea. So in Simon Mode, as you depress
| a key we let you see what note you pressed (A3, C4, etc)?
|
| Thanks for the feedback - that should be pretty easy to add as
| an option in the Settings. I'll see about getting it added this
| evening!
| Bewelge wrote:
| Very cool! Love the simplicity of this. Built a similar mode in
| Midiano (also a midi webapp, but focused on playing MIDI files).
| But this is much cleaner for a quick exercise. Mine never really
| got past the prototype stage though. Safe to say, I'll be coming
| back to this thread for ideas when I do get around working on it
| again :)
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks Bewelge! I took a look at Midiano - it's very polished!
| Were you inspired by Synthesia? I know it has a combination of
| falling note + sheet notation as well~
|
| https://synthesiagame.com
| Bewelge wrote:
| Definitely inspired by it - I had been using Synthesia myself
| to play piano. But it started more as a "Oh you can use MIDI
| on the web?"-realisation and grew from there
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Love this!!
|
| One improvement that would help me a lot is to control the
| playback speed. My brain needs to start a bit slower as some of
| the sequences are fairly fast for my brain right now.
|
| Thank you
| vunderba wrote:
| Derp - I didn't even think about adding a control for min/max
| tempo ranges.
|
| The defaults are currently
|
| - Simon is set to 100-120 BPM
|
| - Practice mode is set to 90-160 BPM
|
| I'll add it to the Settings later this evening. Thanks for the
| feedback!
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Great, thank you!
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| For those starting out, I recommend going into settings and only
| choosing the key of C major, which is all the white keys. Then
| advance onto more keys after that.
| samweb3 wrote:
| This is absolutely amazing! What a fantastic way to engage kids
| in particular. Big fan and will be telling anyone I can about it.
| reassess_blind wrote:
| Funny, I posted my (less cool) version of this exact idea last
| week: https://keybykey.app
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey I like yours as well! They're both different though. Your
| app is more focused on the ability to reproduce specific
| pieces.
|
| Mine's based on the old electronic toy Simon - infinite and
| progressively more difficult.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)
|
| You should definitely add midi controller support though -
| WebMidiJS makes it pretty simple.
|
| https://webmidijs.org
| lucb1e wrote:
| > come back tomorrow!
|
| I hate that I can't do a second one after finishing the first
| task... I know this is supposed to be this magic user
| engagement trick where people come back day after day because
| there's no other way to use it, but it's not for me if I can't
| choose when to play a game or practice a skill
| Obertr wrote:
| I love it. Just bought piano to my apartment in SF and always
| wished simple tool like this existed. thank you!
| ksherlock wrote:
| I keep hitting the start button -- which switches to a different
| melody -- when I want to hit the listen button -- which re-plays
| the current melody.
|
| I feel like "listen" should be the first, more prominent button
| and "start" should be moved to the end and renamed to something
| more meaningful like "ahh shit, give me a different one"
|
| other than that, cool.
| caetris24 wrote:
| Absolutely awesome. Move the help button off the keyboard. Let
| the user select whether or not the replay should always play
| after a mistake. Many issues with learning the longer sequences
| in practice mode can be difficult if the replay freezes the
| keyboard every time you hit a wrong key.
| caetris24 wrote:
| I actually spent an hour with it without pause, so in terms of
| comparing this to highly successful cutting edge AI
| announcements with playgrounds, I'm digging THIS a lot more
| today.
|
| Also the sound is very high quality. Having built various A440
| piano synths from scratch, the fidelity of the sound is superb.
| One thing I noticed was that the sound buffer has a memory
| issue at some point (after about 40 minutes of continuous
| practice) that causes the sound to start crackling. Maybe
| something to do with memory storage or something isn't getting
| flushed when the channel goes idle (no sound playing). Will
| fiddle. Nice work!
| vunderba wrote:
| Oh bizarre - thanks for letting me know about this! I'm using
| a pretty old soundfont player that is sadly no longer
| maintained so I wonder if that's causing issues.
| caetris24 wrote:
| A cool feature would be a piano key color fading transition
| when you hit the key, which will adapt someone's memory more
| quickly to being able to complete the sequence with multiple
| retries.
|
| Should be as simple as adjusting the color interpolation in an
| animation on a piano key to its gain (not sure how low the
| sound API is for this, but you should be able to track the
| key's moving average on amplitude over 10 frames and bound it
| to get a fade effect that takes the key press strength into
| consideration).
|
| Perhaps you can even use a Simon Says color theme suited to the
| app's theme to work in a nice easter egg. Lots of cool things
| with this!
| vunderba wrote:
| Okay, I kinda really dig this idea - "pianistic echoes" like
| ripples in a pond.
| vunderba wrote:
| Will do! With regard to the icon, it's my fault for doing most
| of my play testing with an actual midi keyboard.
| akhil08agrawal wrote:
| This looks great. Just started learning piano and ear training
| has been on my list and this Simon-style approach seems way more
| engaging than traditional exercises.
|
| The MIDI support is a nice touch. Haven't connected my keyboard
| yet though. Gonna try this out.
| lawls wrote:
| I read that line by Mark Antony from Julia Caesar to my 3yo
| yesterday morning. He usually shushes me by putting his hand over
| my mouth while I am speaking, but this time he did not. It felt
| good.
| mjg2 wrote:
| Clean project, well done.
|
| As a classically trained pianist, I'll say the following
| commentary regarding this thread: there are many ways to learn to
| "play the piano" and no one is going to agree on "the right way"
| because there's no true way.
|
| This project is a good way to practice basic sheet music reading
| as well as to aurally recognize notes and phrases; teaching would
| require some cultivation of understanding the context and
| nomenclature. Thanks for sharing!
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks! I definitely agree. Additionally, I always recommend
| (depending on location, cost, etc) that it's worth hiring a
| proper piano teacher, especially at the beginning.
|
| There's just no substitute for having someone there in person
| watching your hands, correcting small ergonomic issues,
| fingering, and so on. Build those fundamentals now so you don't
| have to unlearn bad habits later!
| nopurpose wrote:
| Just bought a digital piano as New Year present to myself. So far
| I am doing single-note-a-time melodies from my child's practice
| book and so far enjoying my slow progress, but I am really
| struggling. Spent 3 evenings on a single simplest song and still
| can't play it end to end reliably.
|
| I have to sign every note with a letter in a music book because
| only other way to "read" music sheet for me is count lines for
| each note, which is unbearably slow.
|
| I wonder if there is any modern (AI, bluetooth midi app, etc) way
| to get over initial hurdles easier?
| nilamo wrote:
| I've found that a colorful note guide (such as:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BC8NVW4Q) to be very helpful.
| Without it, I felt completely lost when looking at sheet music.
| vunderba wrote:
| That's good question. While I think my app might help with your
| ability to pick out notes - it's not going to assist with stuff
| like proper pianistic ergonomics, fingering, etc.
|
| I've heard some people say that the Piano Adventures Player app
| is a nice little tool because it serves as a supplement to the
| books themselves.
|
| https://pianoadventures.com/resources/piano-adventures-playe...
|
| Good luck on your journey!
| embeng4096 wrote:
| Former band kid who also just got a digital keyboard. Ime
| learning to read the staff just came from putting in the time
| on the instrument, but I'm also looking for ways to speed that
| up. I had the idea of making flashcards and even putting it
| into an SRS like Anki to see if I can make the process of
| (re-)learning the staff faster and make it stick. If you come
| across anything that would help I'm interested too!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hah, very cool! I have a variation on that in an experimental
| version of some software I wrote and found it to be really
| interesting to compare experienced pianists' performance on it
| versus newbies. And that is the main reason why it is still
| unreleased, it is very hard to design a good educational tool so
| kudos on shipping!
| vunderba wrote:
| Thanks jacquesm! I've met such a wide variety of pianists
| (jazz, pure extemporaneous players, hobbyists, strict Suzuki,
| etc.) that it would be very cool to see that kind of breakdown.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is a fascinating domain, if I can give you any tips it
| would be to research early language acquisition, there is a
| lot of gold in those studies that I think will transfer
| fairly well to music learning.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| If you could see analytics you would see I am the worst player at
| this game. But it is cool - can you actually plug in a keyboard
| to your laptop and use it? If so, what would HN recommend I get?
| As mentioned I suck at musical instruments but it could be a cool
| hobby to see if I can learn anything.
| vunderba wrote:
| Hey gardenhedge,
|
| Haha - I don't collect any telemetry so your secret is safe.
| Yeah - if you've got a USB midi keyboard plugged in - the game
| should autodetect it and just work.
|
| If you're looking for something portable that just works (and
| don't need a weighted action) - IK Multimedia makes a 37-key
| controller that is cheap and decent. It's frequently on sale
| for about $80-120 and probably could be had for cheaper
| secondhand.
|
| https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigkeys2
| whartung wrote:
| I feel like Bugs Bunny trying to play "Those Endearing Charms".
| (Mind I can't play, well, anything. I play the radio off key.)
|
| Just waiting for Yosemite Sam to run in and blow himself up.
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