Violin Hero?
April 20th, 2008 Posted in classical music
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)
April 20th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I’ve never used SmartMusic, but it definitely purports to do what you’re suggesting. My understanding is that lots of school music programs already use this to help their kids practice at home, and I’ve heard good things from some parents. Speaking as a totally biased professional collaborative pianist, it’s also kind of depressing to know that software is out there accompanying, following tempi, correcting wrong notes, etc. Oh well.
April 20th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
There is this on the piano front (but it’s pricey):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/technology/personaltech/17pogue.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
April 21st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Helping students hit the right notes might be helpful for very beginning students, but of course performing music is about a whole lot more than just hitting the right notes, so I don’t think that this kind of software will be putting music teachers out of business any time soon. Just as “computer-aided translation” software is not putting translators out of business.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Yvonne: I love how that piano “teaches” you to play by wiggling the key you are supposed to hit next, it’s a perfect blend of awesome and creepy as hell.
Michael + Jon: So it seems like something similar does exist (and has for a while, if their version numbering system is logical and not just copying OSX). It’s definitely not a teacher replacement, and I doubt that’ll ever really happen as there are way too many subtleties involved (exactly like translating, as you point out) but it seems perfect to ease the pain of repetitive lonesome practice.
To totally kick arse and entice everyone in it really needs to be cast as a competitive game and not a practice aid, but I don’t know how practical that would be, as it would probably involve “just playing the notes” as opposed to learning technique. Although, that might not be a terrible approach, especially for people like me who wouldn’t have been playing otherwise anyway.