Rainbow-colored falling notes?

[Irbis]

Hello! Well, i'm using synthesia for a while, and it's definetly great way to start with piano. But recently i found one interesting (in my opinion) thing called Color Piano Theory. It's sort of web-app, and it works nowhere near synthesia (can't really play on it tbh), but as i see it, the thing with colored falling notes and same marks on keys does actually work.

You see, i have one little fellow here, he's 6 years old and literally taking his first touch on piano. I've linked his mom both synthesia and this color thing, and as it seems synthesia doesn't work for him all that well yet (he can't find what key to press according to falling thing), but thanks to color thing he can remeber notes and even play some easy melodies just by looking on that app and searching for proper colored key. Probably without understanding well enough what he's doing, but anyway he seems to enjoy it.

My point is: could there be an option to color falling notes instead of coloring different parts of midi file? It might be confusing for complicated melodies for both hands, but still would be nice to have that option for starters. Or maybe there is already, but i'm dumb enough to not find it? I can see the colored letters on the keys, but it's not the same by far.

Btw, there's probably a way to make simple midi work this way without any corrections to programm itself, but it's a lame one: just split every unique note into separate track and set proper color to each of them. Too lazy to actually try it thought. ^^

[Hexgame]

This is interesting, because my friend has mentioned that his piano teacher used colored stickers on their piano and matched the chords up with colored sheet music when he was little, it was the only way he could remember the chords and it taught him how to read sheet music (kinda) to boot.

You should also have a read on synesthesia (Which is how I'm assuming Sythesia got it's name.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia


Honestly, I'm all for adding in new ways for players to learn piano easier, I believe there is a fair amount of people who will find it easier to use colors than chords.

[Lemo]

Hey that's a good idea, could be interesting to try these colors out indeed

That link you listed is also quite amazing actually
While that "color piano" app can reproduce midi output only, if you follow several links from page to page, you get to see this thing:
http://abumarkub.net/midibridge/js1/
I can't test it right now with my keyboard, but you apparently get full Input/Output support

Now IMO, if that's technically possible, it could be more interesting to develop an HTML5 version of synthesia, that you could use on any device,
rather than one for every model/tablet

[Nicholas]

... it could be more interesting to develop an HTML5 version of synthesia, that you could use on any device, rather than one for every model/tablet

Drag a reasonably complex MIDI into that app and listen to how the audio chokes. That is with a single instrument only and it's doing so much less drawing than Synthesia already. There isn't even a contest between lowest-common-denominator HTML5 (or even Flash) and native code running DirectX/OpenGL. I picked my solution for a reason.

... which is how I'm assuming Sythesia got it's name.

Yeah, it's a portmanteau of synthesizer and synaesthesia.

... could there be an option to color falling notes instead of coloring different parts of midi file?

I suppose. Actually, the "Display Style Editor" item on the feature voting page would even be able to take care of it, though you'd have to enter the colors yourself. It wouldn't have some nice historic list of suggested schemes out of the box that way.

Still, it's something to consider. Hearing one anecdote about the colors assisting a young player is a good start. Though I'd love to see more research on the effectiveness of the method. Something I'm actually kind of loathe to give up is the color difference between separate tracks. That is a useful distinction by itself. I am curious how a song in varied color would work in something like melody practice where only half (or so) of the notes were actually required to be hit by you before continuing. Without a way to also tell tracks apart, that would be trickier. Maybe a different falling note block shape for the notes you are to be responsible for? That might work...

[Irbis]

Actually, the "Display Style Editor" item on the feature voting page would even be able to take care of it, though you'd have to enter the colors yourself. It wouldn't have some nice historic list of suggested schemes out of the box that way.

Yes, that should do exactly this, or at least give the way to tinker it for those who has a need to. Although some build-in presets with standart color schemes (and maybe some other common things) could be extremely useful, since i doubt many will come to this idea by themself. Not sure tho, there might be copyright problems with those guys on color piano theory, or those who made the actual color sets (in that app's options you can find drop list with 10+ schemes and their authors, or whatever it is).

Something I'm actually kind of loathe to give up is the color difference between separate tracks. That is a useful distinction by itself. I am curious how a song in varied color would work in something like melody practice where only half (or so) of the notes were actually required to be hit by you before continuing. Without a way to also tell tracks apart, that would be trickier. Maybe a different falling note block shape for the notes you are to be responsible for? That might work...

Not sure how it works for the rest, but in my opinion different tracks in most playable melodies aren't that hard to tell apart. Unless they overlap a lot (which is usually unplayable anyway and requires to turn off extra tracks), for well-editted for 2-hand play melody it might be enough to see different shape, border lines or even transparency. For example, i'm quite sure to be able to play fulling rainbow-colored thing with left hand set to have rounded shape, black borders and 70% transparency. And if there's powerful enough tool to change the style, everyone can find what works best for them individually.

Anyway, i think it'd be great to see this feature some day in synthesia in one way or another. ^^

[Nicholas]

... there might be copyright problems with those guys on color piano theory, or those who made the actual color sets (in that app's options you can find drop list with 10+ schemes and their authors, or whatever it is).

I'm not so worried about that. I would have to check out each of the references listed on the source page for his color scales. If they did turn out to be as old as reported there, any of the books published before 1923 have fallen into the public domain and can be used outright with no rights issues at all. That's at least 9 of the 13 scales listed there. And the most recent four are all pretty close to at least one of the older ones.

... for well-edited for 2-hand play melody it might be enough to see different shape, border lines or even transparency.

I was thinking about this more after I posted. Hiding the other tracks felt a little sub-optimal (there are some nice visual cues for the tracks you are playing). Though a solution that lets you keep everything visible, have pitched-based coloring, and still allows you to discern between other tracks (even better than you can today!) might be to only pitch-based color notes in the "Played by You" tracks. That would just leave the other tracks their usual color. That would be a nice, big distinction.

[Irbis]

Though a solution that lets you keep everything visible, have pitched-based coloring, and still allows you to discern between other tracks (even better than you can today!) might be to only pitch-based color notes in the "Played by You" tracks. That would just leave the other tracks their usual color. That would be a nice, big distinction.

I think that could be the most optimal and possibly easiest to implement way to handle it. As long as there's a way to set different color (and different enough from any of used pitch colors) to auto-played tracks, there should be no problems with the rest. Unless there are 2 'played by you' tracks at same time (not sure if there's often a reason to set 3 or more, unless for lame, buggy, fragmented .mid), which may confuse a bit. But what if there was universal way to assign track as played by right or left hand? It'd change something visually, like shape of played by right/left hand tracks while lowering alpha on autoplayed tracks, leaving them default or whatever.

[vicentefer31]

Look at this video

[Nicholas]

But what if there was universal way to assign track as played by right or left hand?

You can do this on the advanced version of the track settings screen. There is a little hand icon next to the instrument icon. Clicking that lets you tell Synthesia which hand the track is for. There is a technical limitation: you can only have one left/right hand track, so combining the lame fragmented MIDI tracks you mentioned wouldn't work.

Right now the reason to set the hands is to enable using the "simple" track settings view (which is about to become substantially more useful in the next release). Though I could see that type of thing driving display changes like you suggested some day. That would be cool.

[Link]

Look at this video

Fantastic! Do you have anymore learning material on this?

I'll have to search the forum to see if we have a requests for both an absolute pitch colored staff notes as well as relative pitch coloured staff notes like this Brainin thing especially as it's a synesthesia 'colour' game .

If you can do this on the staff, you've also got a sight-reading and inner hear/ear training thing harping. True it's already there in the falling notes, but to have it on the staff, well that would just be huge!

That's for posting the link

[Gy273]

I think the idea would be an interesting idea. http://mudcu.be/piano/ That link shows what it would look like. I know it is in another link but regardless, it would at least give an idea of what it may look like. You can mess around with it though, not sure if it is midi keyboard compatible.