[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/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-28 23:00 UTC)