5 ms·

Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

51 points by dangrover 15y ago

zach 15y ago
Congrats, Dan! What a great write-up. So glad to see how far this has come. Leaving aside the practical matters native to the iPad, I think not having an extensive classical selection is one of the best ways you could be dinged. It speaks the app's value and a desire to use the app more. And it leaves the door open for a followup story.
- Bud 15y ago
  It's not the place of any app to solve the problem of needing a full classical library. Various websites, from Art Song Central to IMSLP to Choral Public Domain Library have already attacked this need with vigor. There are a LOT of good PDFs out there already that can be used right now in forScore without any need to pay Steinway or anyone else for things that are in the public domain already. http://imslp.org/ http://imslp.org/ http://www.choralwiki.org/wiki/ http://www.choralwiki.org/wiki/ http://artsongcentral.com/ http://artsongcentral.com/
  - dangrover 15y ago
    If all you need are PDFs, you can use any PDF reader. This app does a great deal more than that.
dwynings 15y ago
Congrats on the acquisition Dan! It's awesome to see how old school companies are making the transition to compete in the digital era.
DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Interseting how many startups tackling music business. I was quite interested in a similar startup named Tonara, which debuted on Techcrunch Disrupt[1] earlier this week. [1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20105113-250/tonara-puts-sheet-music-on-ipad-listens-to-musicians-play/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20105113-250/tonara-puts-s...
bengl3rt 15y ago
Original story: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3001020 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3001020
danteembermage 15y ago
I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human" is a huge pain point for performing pianists.
- yalimgerger 15y ago
  Tonara does this.
  - dangrover 15y ago
    I'm excited about Tonara, but the app itself seems like a tech demo for that specific technology. They have yet to experience the pain of a thousand cuts that (that my team and I have gone through) that is working with the music publishing industry. The thing with these apps is that people who don't really understand them group them all together. "Oh, another music-y app for fancy music people!" While their app now is not remotely a competitor, if they actually get some real funding, they could pivot in a number of ways to compete against apps like mine, because they've been able to position themselves well in the "music app startup" slot by presenting at TC.
- zach 15y ago
  The hurdle for this is that to do it well, you need polyphonic pitch detection, which you could say is a little tricky. However, I worked on the prototype for a music app that does polyphonic pitch detection for a greater effect than page turning. It listens and follows along note by note as you play your (real) guitar and, as you hit the notes properly, actually uses the master tracks of rock songs to give you a very cool sensation of playing the real song. It's called Rock Prodigy: Guitar and is free with per-song IAPs if you want to try it out.
  - waqf 15y ago
    Following an existing score should be a lot easier than de novo polyphonic transcription. For example, you could almost just track the beat while ignoring all the pitches.
stygianguest 15y ago
The main problem with sheet music is copyright law. Its differences across Europe will make anyone's head hurt. If that weren't enough, the established publishing industry is extremely conservative. In my experience the musicians --that is users-- would be the last and least hurdle.
- dangrover 15y ago
  This times a million.
  - jambo 15y ago
    Just for some context, Dan is the guy who built Etude.
cperciva 15y ago
As an orchestral violinist, my biggest pain point is that I can't mark bowings into one part and have them appear in the parts for everybody else in the section.
WalterSear 15y ago
If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.
- mattgreenrocks 15y ago
  What would you change? I'm curious.
  - mutagen 15y ago
    That musicnotation.org site outlines the major issues with traditional music notation. Traditional notation is very piano-centric, making learning to read it on a chromatic instrument more difficult than it needs to be. Nearly all stringed instruments have no distinction between sharp, flat and natural notes. That being said, there are hundreds of years of tradition behind current notation and that kind of momentum is unlikely to change. Guitar players came up with tablature, which is great except for the lack of rhythmic information in the notation.
    - stdbrouw 15y ago
      I fear it's always going to be something-centric though. I play the clarinet and there's simply no easy way to indicate which fingerings to play short of sketching a clarinet and drawing it out (which is what happens, very schematically). That said, it is remarkable how easy it is for a pianist to play on sight, whereas for classical guitarists that's usually only a skill you can hope to attain if you major in music. Banjo and ukulele are even harder, because of the re-entrant tunings where your highest note is the topmost one instead of the bottom one, destroying what little correlation there was left between sheet notation and hand/finger position.
- jayanderson 15y ago
  I agree. The janko keyboard layout for the piano appeals to me because no key is different from another. For instance if you learn one major scale on the janko keyboard you now know them all. Doing something similar for music notation is hard, but would be incredibly useful if done well. See http://musicnotation.org/ http://musicnotation.org/ for some attempts.
mkuhn 15y ago
A company that launched at TC Disrupt does this: http://tonara.com/ http://tonara.com/ "Think of it as sheet music for the iPad generation. Tonara is an iPad app that can map your keyboard pounding to the right place on the sheet music, and then magically flip the page at the right point. Married to a store selling sheet music, it’s pretty clear that something interactive like this will do to sheet music what Kindle did to hardback books. TechCrunch’s panel of judges were dubious of the size of the market, but our guess is this company will be quietly have its tip jar filled high as it plays a requiem for sheet music anthologies." - http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/startups-techcrunch-disrupt/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/startups-techcrunch-d... They also have a nice video showing it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXJZKTOcpw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXJZKTOcpw
Bud 15y ago
Most of the things people are hoping and wishing for in this thread have already been solved in the excellent app forScore: www.forescoreapp.com I'm a professional classical singer and have used forScore in performance.
binarray2000 15y ago
Synthesia does a very similar thing with Guitar Hero-like scrolling but uses MIDI (so, no sound recognition, you need a MIDI keyboard). http://synthesiagame.com/ http://synthesiagame.com/ (no affiliation; happy user)

51 points by dangrover 15y ago

zach 15y ago

Congrats, Dan! What a great write-up. So glad to see how far this has come. Leaving aside the practical matters native to the iPad, I think not having an extensive classical selection is one of the best ways you could be dinged. It speaks the app's value and a desire to use the app more. And it leaves the door open for a followup story.

Bud 15y ago
It's not the place of any app to solve the problem of needing a full classical library. Various websites, from Art Song Central to IMSLP to Choral Public Domain Library have already attacked this need with vigor. There are a LOT of good PDFs out there already that can be used right now in forScore without any need to pay Steinway or anyone else for things that are in the public domain already. http://imslp.org/ http://imslp.org/ http://www.choralwiki.org/wiki/ http://www.choralwiki.org/wiki/ http://artsongcentral.com/ http://artsongcentral.com/
- dangrover 15y ago
  If all you need are PDFs, you can use any PDF reader. This app does a great deal more than that.

dwynings 15y ago

Congrats on the acquisition Dan! It's awesome to see how old school companies are making the transition to compete in the digital era.

DanielRibeiro 15y ago

Interseting how many startups tackling music business. I was quite interested in a similar startup named Tonara, which debuted on Techcrunch Disrupt[1] earlier this week. [1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20105113-250/tonara-puts-sheet-music-on-ipad-listens-to-musicians-play/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20105113-250/tonara-puts-s...

bengl3rt 15y ago

Original story: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3001020 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3001020

danteembermage 15y ago

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human" is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

yalimgerger 15y ago
Tonara does this.
- dangrover 15y ago
  I'm excited about Tonara, but the app itself seems like a tech demo for that specific technology. They have yet to experience the pain of a thousand cuts that (that my team and I have gone through) that is working with the music publishing industry. The thing with these apps is that people who don't really understand them group them all together. "Oh, another music-y app for fancy music people!" While their app now is not remotely a competitor, if they actually get some real funding, they could pivot in a number of ways to compete against apps like mine, because they've been able to position themselves well in the "music app startup" slot by presenting at TC.
zach 15y ago
The hurdle for this is that to do it well, you need polyphonic pitch detection, which you could say is a little tricky. However, I worked on the prototype for a music app that does polyphonic pitch detection for a greater effect than page turning. It listens and follows along note by note as you play your (real) guitar and, as you hit the notes properly, actually uses the master tracks of rock songs to give you a very cool sensation of playing the real song. It's called Rock Prodigy: Guitar and is free with per-song IAPs if you want to try it out.
- waqf 15y ago
  Following an existing score should be a lot easier than de novo polyphonic transcription. For example, you could almost just track the beat while ignoring all the pitches.

stygianguest 15y ago

The main problem with sheet music is copyright law. Its differences across Europe will make anyone's head hurt. If that weren't enough, the established publishing industry is extremely conservative. In my experience the musicians --that is users-- would be the last and least hurdle.

dangrover 15y ago
This times a million.
- jambo 15y ago
  Just for some context, Dan is the guy who built Etude.

cperciva 15y ago

As an orchestral violinist, my biggest pain point is that I can't mark bowings into one part and have them appear in the parts for everybody else in the section.

WalterSear 15y ago

If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago
What would you change? I'm curious.
- mutagen 15y ago
  That musicnotation.org site outlines the major issues with traditional music notation. Traditional notation is very piano-centric, making learning to read it on a chromatic instrument more difficult than it needs to be. Nearly all stringed instruments have no distinction between sharp, flat and natural notes. That being said, there are hundreds of years of tradition behind current notation and that kind of momentum is unlikely to change. Guitar players came up with tablature, which is great except for the lack of rhythmic information in the notation.
  - stdbrouw 15y ago
    I fear it's always going to be something-centric though. I play the clarinet and there's simply no easy way to indicate which fingerings to play short of sketching a clarinet and drawing it out (which is what happens, very schematically). That said, it is remarkable how easy it is for a pianist to play on sight, whereas for classical guitarists that's usually only a skill you can hope to attain if you major in music. Banjo and ukulele are even harder, because of the re-entrant tunings where your highest note is the topmost one instead of the bottom one, destroying what little correlation there was left between sheet notation and hand/finger position.
jayanderson 15y ago
I agree. The janko keyboard layout for the piano appeals to me because no key is different from another. For instance if you learn one major scale on the janko keyboard you now know them all. Doing something similar for music notation is hard, but would be incredibly useful if done well. See http://musicnotation.org/ http://musicnotation.org/ for some attempts.

mkuhn 15y ago

A company that launched at TC Disrupt does this: http://tonara.com/ http://tonara.com/ "Think of it as sheet music for the iPad generation. Tonara is an iPad app that can map your keyboard pounding to the right place on the sheet music, and then magically flip the page at the right point. Married to a store selling sheet music, it’s pretty clear that something interactive like this will do to sheet music what Kindle did to hardback books. TechCrunch’s panel of judges were dubious of the size of the market, but our guess is this company will be quietly have its tip jar filled high as it plays a requiem for sheet music anthologies." - http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/startups-techcrunch-disrupt/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/startups-techcrunch-d... They also have a nice video showing it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXJZKTOcpw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXJZKTOcpw

Bud 15y ago

Most of the things people are hoping and wishing for in this thread have already been solved in the excellent app forScore: www.forescoreapp.com I'm a professional classical singer and have used forScore in performance.

binarray2000 15y ago

Synthesia does a very similar thing with Guitar Hero-like scrolling but uses MIDI (so, no sound recognition, you need a MIDI keyboard). http://synthesiagame.com/ http://synthesiagame.com/ (no affiliation; happy user)