Songs pauses for you to press it and then go on.

[tommai78101]

I mean:

A song starts to play. Then once it gets to the first note, it pauses. The user (or called "gamer", technically) inputs the correct note, and the song continues to the next note, and so on....

A slow, yet steady learning experience targeted for younger kids to play.

[Shiroha]

I'm also very much in support of this idea. I know how useful this function would prove because of my old Yamaha keyboard's "wait" learning function.

Being the useless novice pianist that I am, I'm having trouble (more like finding it impossible) to keep up with the more difficult unfamiliar pieces I've been trying out through Synthesia.

This is in part because of how I find it hard to figure out exactly where on the keyboard each note is going to land before it's too late, but that's prolly just me.***

It'd be awesome if the game paused to allow you to eventually build up a feel of the song and how it's played over time, so you can eventually play it without the aid of pauses.

In any case, keep up the great work, the software's brilliant.

*** Not really worth it's own thread but I just had the idea of somehow lowering the "bar" (where each falling note terminates) to somewhere halfway down the displayed piano keys. This would make it much easier to identify the correct key, as the note would be on top of the actual key before it's due to be played. Keyboardmania and DoremiMania had a similar display method which I think works quite well.

Similarly you could add some sort of light or mark on the immediate next set of keys to be played, further adding to the visual aid for discerning the correct keys. For example: The first note in a piece is C, and as it begins to fall the corresponding C key at the bottom could light up, letting the player know which key it is at a glance. Then if directly after C the next notes are the chord CEG, the keys CEG will light up until the notes reach them etc.

Of course ideally it would be most useful when many notes are falling at once and as a result it is hard to determine the corresponding keys at a glance.

[Nicholas]

So, carefully controlling the song speed can poorly simulate what you guys are suggesting.

But, you're both right. It's a great feature request that I've received in email several times as well. Let me push it's priority up on my list. It'll definitely be in one of the 0.6.x releases.

[Shiroha]

That sure was an impressively quick response

I'm think I'm gonna drop you my first donation early

[tommai78101]

You're idea is very similar to mine.

Mine: Note pausing
Yours: Pressing ahead of the song at a glance.

Hope we get to help out other younger kids, like my little brother.

[Nicholas]

Similarly you could add some sort of light or mark on the immediate next set of keys to be played, further adding to the visual aid for discerning the correct keys. For example: The first note in a piece is C, and as it begins to fall the corresponding C key at the bottom could light up, letting the player know which key it is at a glance. Then if directly after C the next notes are the chord CEG, the keys CEG will light up until the notes reach them etc.

I had thought of something similar before, but not quite the same. Instead of lighting up the key (where color changes are already significant and have other meanings) I was thinking about changing the color of the strip of background between the note and the key. That way your eye could track straight down to the key. The key and note would become visually linked.

Of course ideally it would be most useful when many notes are falling at once and as a result it is hard to determine the corresponding keys at a glance.

This can be combated in either of our ideas by enhancing the effect the closer the note gets. The closest notes might result in the most lit-up keys.

[tommai78101]

Or use numbers counting down to replace the brightly-lit colors of the keys.

That fixes something.