Please include this in Synthesia's scale exercises.

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trickybilly
Posts: 12

Post by trickybilly »

Not sure how this type of scale exercise is called:
https://ibb.co/jLD0mch
BUT it would be great to include it in Synthesia.
P.S.: I wish you a very happy and successful New Year :)
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

The scale used in that exercise is the harmonic minor scale. You can read about minor scales here if you want to try to understand the theory of them.

I am not sure of the value of practicing the harmonic minor scale, particularly in the contrary motion form in your example. I think it is at best a rather esoteric exercise. But perhaps I just have not been exposed to type of music where that would be useful.

It is easy to create a MIDI or MusicXML file for an exercise of that type using a tool like MuseScore. I encourage you to learn to create your own files for use in Synthesia because it allows you to use Synthesia as a practice tool for whatever literature you want rather than being tied to what others have created.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I hadn't had a chance to identify the scale yet. (Thanks jimhenry!) It looks like the "Scale Exercises" that Electrode provided so many years ago actually include a set of Minor Harmonic scales across anything from 1 to 4 octaves.

So if you'd like, they're built right in to the app! Just check the Scale Exercises --> Minor Harmonic Scales section in the song list. :D
proxima
Posts: 11

Post by proxima »

The 2-octave scale exercises are very nice, but it'd be especially nice to have the natural minor keys for scales and arpeggios.

I tried synthesia's musicxml import to load in Hanon 39 (https://musescore.com/ostinato/ejercici ... a-virtuoso), but it didn't take the finger hinting. Apologies if this is answered elsewhere (I searched briefly), but what's missing to have the finger hints in that musicxml file show up in Synthesia? I know MusicXML support is new, so maybe it's coming?

In any case, keep up the great work as always - I've introduced my brother and his family to the app this past year.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

proxima wrote: 01-09-22 9:29 pmI know MusicXML support is new, so maybe it's coming?
That is correct. This very first version with bare-bones MusicXML loading doesn't do much more than treat the file as a different way of loading MIDI data. All of the lovely, extra musical information is simply discarded at the moment. That was the first step to getting something up and running in the app.

Now, over the next few releases the plan is to tackle the last few missing technology bits (drawing slurs/ties, beaming across more than two notes, and probably a couple others) before we switch over to trusting that extra information verbatim and simply drawing what's specified in the file instead of performing the rough conversion/interpretation/guessing that Synthesia does for MIDI files.
proxima
Posts: 11

Post by proxima »

Fantastic! I appreciate the quick response and look forward to what's in store for the future. I will also say I'd be absolutely happy to pay for well-crafted practice "songs" in the store.
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