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Show HN: Piano Trainer – Learn piano scales, chords and more using MIDI
- mdre 4y agoSeconded, this looks great! Didn't have time to do more just than a test to see how it works, but I think I ran into a problem in fifths mode when the second key of the interval was outside the span of my two octave keyboard, so there should be perhaps some sort of an octave limiter setting. Oh, and I don't have any sound in the app, but I use VSTs anyway. Also, would be great to have triad inversions. (larger chords aside...) I'll surely do some learning when I get some free time.
- FinalDestiny 4y agoThanks for the feedback! I'll see if there's a good way to manage the octaves. Curious why the sound isn't working, are you using MIDI & which OS do you use?
- mdre 4y agoI use Windows 10 21H2, a bass station 2 as a midi controller and I have like 5 audio output devices. Only one of them is the real one, which is my audio interface, so with no way of choosing the output there will be problems. Wondering if there is an easy way to use ASIO with js-based apps? I ended up a DAW to get midi from the keyboard and route to both a VST and to a virtual loopmidi port - which I prefer to have nice sounds.
- FinalDestiny 4y agoWow, that is big brain as it gets! I'm sure it's possible but it may have to be done on the application layer. Thank you for sharing your workaround
- asimovfan 4y agoAmazing! looking forward to the updates!
- lijogdfljk 4y agoLooks interesting, excited to give it a try! Any future ideas for expanded training features? Chord progressions, songs, etc?
- FinalDestiny 4y agoProbably not as people have mentioned in another thread how many apps can do those kinds of things! This app is unique in what it does and I'll try to keep it like that. Too many other things to build, thanks!
- FinalDestiny 4y agoJust updated this to v1.0.3 and it should fix any crashes! Very new to Rust
- cassepipe 4y agoBy someone on HN there is also pianojacq : https://pianojacq.com/ https://pianojacq.com/
- agiacalone 4y agoFollowing that link on Firefox ESR led me to the following Bugzilla issue about a 10+ year old issue with Firefox not implementing Web-MIDI which was just resolved two months ago: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836897 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836897 Needless to say, I went down the rabbit hole a bit. :) I found it weirdly interesting to see the advocacy among musicians and music apps (I dabble with synths, and MIDI is pretty important) and the dismissal of the issue by a few maintainers.
- cassepipe 4y agoOh it was resolved? Great news. That's the only reason I had chromium on my laptop.
- TT-392 4y agoThis is creepy, I just started writing a very similar app, end then I saw this appear on HN. Though mine is focused more on getting faster at sight reading sheet music, and idk if I'll ever actually release it to the public.
- turtlebits 4y agoWhat is the shortcut for getter faster at sight reading other than just trying to sight read new music?
- NonNefarious 4y agoOne thing I've been looking for is instructional software that shows the staff with notes on it and illuminates the notes you're ACTUALLY playing instead of just the ones you're supposed to be playing. I don't know why this seems to be rare; isn't it the obvious thing to do?
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, this is what I do with pianojacq.com, there is a cursor for each of your fingers.
- NonNefarious 4y agoThanks. But it doesn't work with Safari, and I really don't want a Web-based thing anyway. I sympathize with your complaint about Firefox, though. But check this out: https://blog.karimratib.me/2022/04/23/firefox-webmidi.html https://blog.karimratib.me/2022/04/23/firefox-webmidi.html Ugh, now that I've skimmed that, it looks like it's still a major pain in the ass. With Firefox fading fast, you'd think they'd be a little smarter about enabling features that make it competitive. Aaand now that I've tried your page and another WebMIDI test page mentioned in a Firefox issue with Firefox 101, it still isn't working. So I don't know where that article is getting all that.
- TT-392 4y agoIdk if it is actually gonna work, I'll only know that after I try it. But right now, I notice that one of my biggest bottlenecks in reading music, is that, whenever there is a note that is quite a bit away from the clef, or other notes I played before, it takes me some time to recognize what note it is. Right now I am planning to make an app that shows me notes, I'll have to press that key as quickly as possible, and then the next note pops up. I then plan to have a bit of an anki type thing going on, where, if you get a note or chord right, and within a short amount of time, it takes longer for that same note or chord to show up again. I am not expecting this to be a silver bullet for sightreading. There is still gonna have to be a lot of actual music reading involved, but it is the goal for this to eliminate a bottleneck and give me a bit of a head start. I just want to do more playing and less searching for now.
- _def 4y agoYesss! Another open source project based on the same idea I sometime did a prototype of but never made it. I love it when this happens :)
- FinalDestiny 4y agoI've been sitting on the idea for nearly a year just waiting for someone else to do it! Glad I'm not alone
- d23 4y agoIs there a help page anywhere? Quiz mode seems self explanatory, but I can't figure out what to "do" in the other mode. For example, in "Chords" mode it just shows me the 1st chord. Pressing notes on my keyboard plays the sounds of the keys being pressed, but the UI never does anything different.
- FinalDestiny 4y agoGood catch! I didn't think of that. Chords/fifths will only work with MIDI input for now. I'll see if I can come up with a fix for keyboard support
- d23 4y agoSorry, I meant MIDI keyboard. It doesn't seem to be doing anything with my MIDI keyboard either, other than playing the notes.
- FinalDestiny 4y agoLet's create an issue on GitHub so we can track this a bit better I'm testing on my end with 2 MIDI keyboards and it should step to the next set of fifths/chords in the scale https://github.com/ZaneH/piano-trainer/issues/4 https://github.com/ZaneH/piano-trainer/issues/4
- gavinray 4y agoJust out of curiosity -- why build an entire native Rust wrapper app to embed a React app in a webview just for MIDI connectivity, when there's a Web MIDI API? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MIDIAccess#examples https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MIDIAccess#...
- FinalDestiny 4y agoI started the project knowing it'd be built in Tauri (which uses Rust on the backend) I also really like using React, styled-components, and TypeScript so I stuck with it For the Web MIDI API, I based the project on ruohki/tauri-midi-example which already used midir (Rust MIDI) so I just left it as-is
- DenisM 4y agoWould be nice to have a binary download (for Mac in my case).
- NonNefarious 4y agoThere is: https://zaneh.itch.io/piano-trainer https://zaneh.itch.io/piano-trainer I installed and ran it (albeit with no MIDI devices hooked up).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- garrypettet 4y agoThis looks great - well done. As a self taught pianist I’d like to give a shout out to Simply Piano (1). It’s an iPad app that can take you from absolute beginner to a fairly advanced level. Connects via midi or uses the microphone. I went from not being able to play any instrument to sheet reading Fur Elise in about a year of playing 15/20 minutes per day. New music drops every week covering classical, pop, movies, jazz, etc. A very happy customer. 1. https://www.joytunes.com/simply-piano https://www.joytunes.com/simply-piano
- FinalDestiny 4y agoThanks! I'll need to Simply Piano a try. Looks like they support Android too
- tzs 4y ago> I went from not being able to play any instrument to sheet reading Fur Elise in about a year of playing 15/20 minutes per day. Apps can clearly be very helpful, by doing such things as telling you how well you are playing the pieces, grading exercises, perhaps adjusting the pacing and sequence of the material based on your progress, and more. When learning from non-interactive methods those can be problems. But don't give too much credit to the app. Most of the credit for getting to where you did in a year I think goes to you for putting in 15/20 minutes of daily practice. There's a good chance you would have reached a similar position if you had instead used something more old fashioned, like the first couple of books from Alfred's All-in-one Adult Piano Course or Adult Piano Adventures All-in-one Course and put in 15/20 minutes daily. An app may make it more likely you will stick with it, say by gamification or by reducing some of the aforementioned problems which might otherwise have discouraged you, so it deserves some credit, but much less than the amount you deserve.
- kwertyops 4y agoMay I ask - when you say you're "sheet reading" Fur Elise, do you mean sight reading (i.e. able to play on sight without memorization)? And is that the whole song, or just the main melody (the part mostly without chords)?
- wexq 4y agoMan, this looks great! A fortuitous thing for me as well, as I've been starting to look for a trainer like this just know? Been playing the guitar for a long time for now and I know my basic theory... but give me a keyboard I takes me a while to figure out my scales, chords, progressions and so on. Now that I've some time to get back to music... and sitting in front of a DAW oftentimes a keyboard is what I got. So it was an instabuy for me (via itch.io), thank you and I'll follow the github repo as well to keep me up to date.
- samspenc 4y agoHaven't seen anyone else mention this in the comments, but Synthesia is something I used in the past https://synthesiagame.com/ https://synthesiagame.com/ There's a free trial, but the $29-39 for the full-featured paid edition is well worth it. I was able to connect a 88 key electronic keyboard, load my favorite custom MIDI files (when I could find them) and try to play along with it. Not knocking anything you've done here OP :) just pointing out another one you can check out for features etc, and also if anyone else is looking for something similar.
- FinalDestiny 4y agoI was wondering who that may have been! Thank you very much There'll be an update coming later today