7 ms·

I can play piano, trumpet, and trombone, but hardly ever do anymore. I have been able to read sheet music since I was 8. If the whole concept of this confuses

by vcg3rd 3y ago

I can play piano, trumpet, and trombone, but hardly ever do anymore. I have been able to read sheet music since I was 8. If the whole concept of this confuses me, and it does, it may confuse people who are eager to learn and get playing (without doing endless scales) and don't read sheet music. I have no idea what tabs means in this context, though I am vaguely familiar, I think, with it as a guitar term (which you or a commenter came from). Looking at the graphics on the site (I don't use Apple) gives me no clue how the notes for each hand are displayed "according to how they look on a keyboard." What am I missing? Will someone who uses Apple, can't read sheet music, has never played any instrument and wants to learn how to play piano be able to figure it out within app tutorials?

solardev 3y ago
Looking at the screenshots, it reminds me of Guitar Hero / ROCK Band on like ultra hard mode, maybe?
karmakaze 3y ago
The layout is a rotated & mirrored version of that commonly used on DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) so it certainly makes sense to professionals.
- wizofaus 3y ago
  It's just a vertical piano roll (in fact that's the typical orientation of physical piano rolls - DAWs typically rotate them 90 deg as we're accustomed to the concept of time being the horizontal axis).
colonCapitalDee 3y ago
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2YF34XlfzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2YF34XlfzU
singleshot_ 3y ago
If someone described to you how to play d above middle c on a trumpet by saying “1 & 3” that would be pretty close to guitar tablature. Instead of reading a score, they show you what frets to hit.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  And thats it though. No information on things like how you should hit the notes or for how long.
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    Depends. You could be looking at the worst tab on earth, which is just lines representing strings and numbers representing frets, which pretty much require that you be listening to the song and reading the tab for it to make any sense.or you could be looking at tablature alongside sheet music, which is much more enlightening. Some folks even have MIDI enabled tablature with sheet music, which is awesome [0], but is not merely tab. [0]: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/metallica-one-tab-s444 https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/metallica-one-tab-s444
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Yeah power tabs and guitar pro often have this coupled. I’d guess though most people viewing tabs are looking at the plain texts on ultimate guitar though. It doesn’t help that for a lot of music there is no official tab, only what the community has been able to make for the good of the community. Sometimes also those ‘official’ tab books are not correct to the recording.
ShamelessC 3y ago
> I have been able to read sheet music since I was 8. If the whole concept of this confuses me, and it does It’s been my experience that most people who are fond of sheet music learned it at a very young age. Or perhaps I’m just stupid? I’ve tried several times to learn sheet music in my 20’s and it is brutally difficult. Guitar tabs? Easy. Chord charts? No problem. Sheet music? Go fuck yourself! What is it with the musicians in the comments here having _zero_ awareness? Sheet music is probably great! Sure, fine. But to claim that OP’s idea or even YouTube tutorials are outright not a good idea is laughable and tone deaf. Not everyone’s folks bought them a Steinway and piano lessons at age 5-13 (the age when humans can magically pick up on absurdly difficult concepts with relatively little effort).
- vcg3rd 3y ago
  It feels like most of that frustration is (or should be) directed at other commentors. I tried to frame my questions in a way that someone who does not read sheet music and is also unfamiliar with tabs might frame them. I saw the developer had been replying to comments or I wouldn't have bothered. I was hoping he might elaborate for potential users of his app. I certainly didn't claim it wasn't a good idea, merely that my frame-of-reference gave me no indication of how it worked for piano. My parents never bought us a piano. My grandmother passed her decidely-not-Steinway down to us, and also paid for lessons with a school music teacher. I joined the band in 5th grade and played a school-issue trumpet until my parents could afford a used one. After my 10th grade the band teacher lost almost all his trombone players to graduation, so he taught me over the summer before I started my junior year and gave me an old trombone with lots of dings, which I used through my freshman year in college, after which I dropped band because it was a 1 hr credit and took about 25–30 hours a week (practice with band, practice on own, perform at games), and I wasn't a music major.
- balfirevic 3y ago
  > I’ve tried several times to learn sheet music in my 20’s and it is brutally difficult. What do you mean by "learn it"? Just being able to decode what notes are supposed to be played and how long they should last from sheet music, given no time limit? Or doing it in near real-time?

by vcg3rd 3y ago

solardev 3y ago

Looking at the screenshots, it reminds me of Guitar Hero / ROCK Band on like ultra hard mode, maybe?

karmakaze 3y ago

The layout is a rotated & mirrored version of that commonly used on DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) so it certainly makes sense to professionals.

wizofaus 3y ago
It's just a vertical piano roll (in fact that's the typical orientation of physical piano rolls - DAWs typically rotate them 90 deg as we're accustomed to the concept of time being the horizontal axis).

colonCapitalDee 3y ago

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2YF34XlfzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2YF34XlfzU

singleshot_ 3y ago

If someone described to you how to play d above middle c on a trumpet by saying “1 & 3” that would be pretty close to guitar tablature. Instead of reading a score, they show you what frets to hit.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
And thats it though. No information on things like how you should hit the notes or for how long.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  Depends. You could be looking at the worst tab on earth, which is just lines representing strings and numbers representing frets, which pretty much require that you be listening to the song and reading the tab for it to make any sense.or you could be looking at tablature alongside sheet music, which is much more enlightening. Some folks even have MIDI enabled tablature with sheet music, which is awesome [0], but is not merely tab. [0]: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/metallica-one-tab-s444 https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/metallica-one-tab-s444
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Yeah power tabs and guitar pro often have this coupled. I’d guess though most people viewing tabs are looking at the plain texts on ultimate guitar though. It doesn’t help that for a lot of music there is no official tab, only what the community has been able to make for the good of the community. Sometimes also those ‘official’ tab books are not correct to the recording.

ShamelessC 3y ago

> I have been able to read sheet music since I was 8. If the whole concept of this confuses me, and it does It’s been my experience that most people who are fond of sheet music learned it at a very young age. Or perhaps I’m just stupid? I’ve tried several times to learn sheet music in my 20’s and it is brutally difficult. Guitar tabs? Easy. Chord charts? No problem. Sheet music? Go fuck yourself! What is it with the musicians in the comments here having _zero_ awareness? Sheet music is probably great! Sure, fine. But to claim that OP’s idea or even YouTube tutorials are outright not a good idea is laughable and tone deaf. Not everyone’s folks bought them a Steinway and piano lessons at age 5-13 (the age when humans can magically pick up on absurdly difficult concepts with relatively little effort).

vcg3rd 3y ago
It feels like most of that frustration is (or should be) directed at other commentors. I tried to frame my questions in a way that someone who does not read sheet music and is also unfamiliar with tabs might frame them. I saw the developer had been replying to comments or I wouldn't have bothered. I was hoping he might elaborate for potential users of his app. I certainly didn't claim it wasn't a good idea, merely that my frame-of-reference gave me no indication of how it worked for piano. My parents never bought us a piano. My grandmother passed her decidely-not-Steinway down to us, and also paid for lessons with a school music teacher. I joined the band in 5th grade and played a school-issue trumpet until my parents could afford a used one. After my 10th grade the band teacher lost almost all his trombone players to graduation, so he taught me over the summer before I started my junior year and gave me an old trombone with lots of dings, which I used through my freshman year in college, after which I dropped band because it was a 1 hr credit and took about 25–30 hours a week (practice with band, practice on own, perform at games), and I wasn't a music major.
balfirevic 3y ago
> I’ve tried several times to learn sheet music in my 20’s and it is brutally difficult. What do you mean by "learn it"? Just being able to decode what notes are supposed to be played and how long they should last from sheet music, given no time limit? Or doing it in near real-time?