Oh the weekend, how readily over you are.
This semester I’ve been trying well hard to avoid doing any work on Saturdays, and it’s glorious. Yesterday it was 28C (82F, for the Imperialists) so everyone gravitated toward the rather well holding up grill (it was the cheapest, cheerfullest model in the store five upstate-NY winters ago, and still going strong) for steak, spicy sausages, sangria and possibly other pieces of provender that start with “s.” Bocce-ball also sneaked/snuck out of it’s carrying-case.
After the sunset made the sun set, we all went to play one of the biggest computerized timesinks of the last couple of months: Karaoke Revolution. It’s like regular karaoke, except that your voice is getting analyzed in real-time, and the game indicates whether you are on or off pitch, and awards points accordingly. It is rather surprisingly fun, even for a someone who sucks at singing. Like me.
Unlike guitar hero (in which you “play” along to pieces using a glorified Fisher Price instrument with five buttons) this game actually encourages you to develop a real skill (and also makes you way less self-conscious about belting out a song in front of a group of people) albeit only somewhat, and not in a very organized sense.
This unorganization made us wonder whether there are any similar things in existence for learning a real instrument. Obviously not as a replacement for lessons, but as a supplement: software which presents sheet music and awards you points if you hit the right notes. It would be a like a beginner’s practice aid instead of a real tutor.
Since I haven’t had any lessons on an instrument for at least 13 years, I have no idea if computers have manged to weasel their way into the tutoring process like this. Has anybody come across something similar? If they don’t already exist, I can’t imagine it’ll be too long until something like this is created and sold, given the popularity of all these games at the moment.
(Comic from xkcd)
Tags:
guitar hero,
karaoke revolution,
music lessons 