5 ms·

Etude sheet music app coming to iPhone, iPad

33 points by dangrover 17y ago

replicatorblog 17y ago
This looks awesome. I love apps that go after markets that would typically be thought of as "unsexy". From the looks of it you get the game like elements of a Rockband, but a longer term benefit of learning to read music. I imagine it will be kind of lame on the phone due to size, but with an iPad or keyboard accessory it will be amazing. I'm not sure how big the market for sheet music is. However, consider the kind of people who learn to play instruments: children of well educated, affluent parents. The addressable market could be bigger than a lot of markets that seem large on PowerPoint slides, but are unaddressable because of market limitations (e.g. iLike). If you can pay for a kid's piano lesson, a few dollars for sheet music will be nothing. I'm really looking forward to this!
zzzmarcus 17y ago
There's also Tab Toolkit which is similar and very cool: http://www.agilepartners.com/apps/tabtoolkit/ http://www.agilepartners.com/apps/tabtoolkit/
- puffythefish 17y ago
  Is there anything like this for OS X?
- jdalrymple 17y ago
  Tab Toolkit is a great app.
stcredzero 17y ago
Killer app: A sheet music display app that can recognize the 2nd to last measure and turn the page for you. Would also work if a parent could stand 30 feet away in the wings and flip the pages via Wifi or bluetooth.
- apowell 17y ago
  Just initiating a page turn by tapping the right half of the screen would be a dramatic improvement over paper.
  - smokinn 17y ago
    Why flip pages at all? I like yan's suggestion of detecting the music in the app and scrolling along as the person plays.
    - warfangle 17y ago
      As someone who's played with sheet music, I can pretty confidently say that functionality would be extremely annoying. Imagine reading along with a marquee. Yeah, it's that annoying. I'd much rather it flip virtual pages than scroll along.
      - darkxanthos 17y ago
        I play music too and would like the scrolling score. Maybe it's more of an issue of it's less comfortable now but far more comfortable later.
        warfangle 17y ago
        Perhaps, but think of it this way. There's a reason typography focuses on line length in written text - it's easier to read something if you have a decent reference point [1]. A long line makes it easier for your eyes to get off track. The same thing happens in music. Dividing things into measures and lines allows our brain to "chunk" it. Part of the chunking mechanism is returning your visual focus to the beginning of the next line. Part of reading is the connection of eye movement to new information. If you no longer need to move your eye to get a new measure/phrase/note, it's patently more difficult to notice the change. That's why marquees are useful for short lists of phrases that repeat often - and not entire articles. Maybe scrolling music might be decent for karaoke or games like guitar hero - but the information encoded into one bar of classical staff is orders of magnitude greater (and one of the reasons I despise, say, piano rolls in most digital audio authoring software). Disclaimer: I have only been reading sheet music for two decades; this may or may not qualify me to comment on the benefits or detriments of an autoscrolling marquee of sheet music instead of paginated sheet music. [1]http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/ http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/
yan 17y ago
Feature brainstorming: Can it listen to the music the user is playing and figure out where in the piece the student is playing and scroll along as it's being played?
- gyeh 17y ago
  Heck, you can take this to the next level and make it a guitar hero game for real instruments. A lot of music teachers wouldn't have jobs anymore...
  - yan 17y ago
    The new GarageBand does that via a MIDI input..
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- wallflower 17y ago
  This HN thread from the founder of an automated guitar chord transcription service and the Chords! WinAmp plug--in (k0ban) hints at the state-of-the-art of real-time music detection. Summary: Even beat detection is still a work in progress. "Ask HN: Guitar Tabs Online" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033188 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033188
  - Shamiq 17y ago
    If you're interested, the Northwestern Machine Perception of Music and Audio (EECS 352) has got a ton of material online: http://music.cs.northwestern.edu/courses/eecs352/index.php http://music.cs.northwestern.edu/courses/eecs352/index.php
dwynings 17y ago
Nice work, Dan!

33 points by dangrover 17y ago

This looks awesome. I love apps that go after markets that would typically be thought of as "unsexy". From the looks of it you get the game like elements of a Rockband, but a longer term benefit of learning to read music. I imagine it will be kind of lame on the phone due to size, but with an iPad or keyboard accessory it will be amazing. I'm not sure how big the market for sheet music is. However, consider the kind of people who learn to play instruments: children of well educated, affluent parents. The addressable market could be bigger than a lot of markets that seem large on PowerPoint slides, but are unaddressable because of market limitations (e.g. iLike). If you can pay for a kid's piano lesson, a few dollars for sheet music will be nothing. I'm really looking forward to this!

zzzmarcus 17y ago

There's also Tab Toolkit which is similar and very cool: http://www.agilepartners.com/apps/tabtoolkit/ http://www.agilepartners.com/apps/tabtoolkit/

puffythefish 17y ago
Is there anything like this for OS X?
jdalrymple 17y ago
Tab Toolkit is a great app.

stcredzero 17y ago

Killer app: A sheet music display app that can recognize the 2nd to last measure and turn the page for you. Would also work if a parent could stand 30 feet away in the wings and flip the pages via Wifi or bluetooth.

apowell 17y ago
Just initiating a page turn by tapping the right half of the screen would be a dramatic improvement over paper.
- smokinn 17y ago
  Why flip pages at all? I like yan's suggestion of detecting the music in the app and scrolling along as the person plays.
  - warfangle 17y ago
    As someone who's played with sheet music, I can pretty confidently say that functionality would be extremely annoying. Imagine reading along with a marquee. Yeah, it's that annoying. I'd much rather it flip virtual pages than scroll along.
    - darkxanthos 17y ago
      I play music too and would like the scrolling score. Maybe it's more of an issue of it's less comfortable now but far more comfortable later.
      - warfangle 17y ago
        Perhaps, but think of it this way. There's a reason typography focuses on line length in written text - it's easier to read something if you have a decent reference point [1]. A long line makes it easier for your eyes to get off track. The same thing happens in music. Dividing things into measures and lines allows our brain to "chunk" it. Part of the chunking mechanism is returning your visual focus to the beginning of the next line. Part of reading is the connection of eye movement to new information. If you no longer need to move your eye to get a new measure/phrase/note, it's patently more difficult to notice the change. That's why marquees are useful for short lists of phrases that repeat often - and not entire articles. Maybe scrolling music might be decent for karaoke or games like guitar hero - but the information encoded into one bar of classical staff is orders of magnitude greater (and one of the reasons I despise, say, piano rolls in most digital audio authoring software). Disclaimer: I have only been reading sheet music for two decades; this may or may not qualify me to comment on the benefits or detriments of an autoscrolling marquee of sheet music instead of paginated sheet music. [1]http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/ http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/

yan 17y ago

Feature brainstorming: Can it listen to the music the user is playing and figure out where in the piece the student is playing and scroll along as it's being played?

gyeh 17y ago
Heck, you can take this to the next level and make it a guitar hero game for real instruments. A lot of music teachers wouldn't have jobs anymore...
- yan 17y ago
  The new GarageBand does that via a MIDI input..
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
wallflower 17y ago
This HN thread from the founder of an automated guitar chord transcription service and the Chords! WinAmp plug--in (k0ban) hints at the state-of-the-art of real-time music detection. Summary: Even beat detection is still a work in progress. "Ask HN: Guitar Tabs Online" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033188 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033188
- Shamiq 17y ago
  If you're interested, the Northwestern Machine Perception of Music and Audio (EECS 352) has got a ton of material online: http://music.cs.northwestern.edu/courses/eecs352/index.php http://music.cs.northwestern.edu/courses/eecs352/index.php

dwynings 17y ago

Nice work, Dan!