Learning purely with Synthesia - is this your experience?

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JustSynthesia
Posts: 1

Post by JustSynthesia »

Hey I've been using this program for about 2 years now learning entirely with this program and wondering if anyone else has done the same and agrees with the following statement?

Having Synthesia scroll at all is completely useless and detrimental to performing moderate to difficult pieces with both hands at any more than 50% speed.

It works great when playing with one hand (at any speed) or initially learning but after actually learning how to read synthesia displayed music and play proficiently it is far easier to read still 'pages' of music correctly at full speed with both hands. It also sounds more musical and less robotic when notes are read still rather than scrolled
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Are you referring to the "piano roll" display or the sheet music display.

If the piano roll, then I disagree with your statements.

I hardly use sheet music display, so I can't comment if that is what you are referring to.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
draco2023a
Posts: 27

Post by draco2023a »

Sounds like your talking about the sheet music display and I agree 100%, but that is going to change when they add XML support.

I did not use Synthesia to learn to play though. Been playing for years.
miek
Posts: 37

Post by miek »

I think the scrolling piano roll helps learn the tunes, but it doesn't help me to learn reading and playing at the same time. I now am trying to learn to play the actual sheet music instead and at first I am much slower playing from the sheet music than the piano role, but that is probably because I have not practiced the sheet music as well as I practiced on piano role.

At least the sheet music tells you where you are up to though. I am also looking forward to the music XML feature...
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

If you really want to learn to play from paper sheet music, like to be able to do a performance where you will use the paper sheet music, you can use Synthesia to grade your performance while you play from the paper sheet music. I think there is an option to hide display of the notes on the screen if you don't trust yourself not to look at the screen. Playing from paper sheet music is different than playing from a computer screen no matter how the computer screen is displayed.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

jimhenry wrote:I think there is an option to hide display of the [falling] notes...
Yep, hit F5 (or bind the "Toggle All Notes Hidden" shortcut to something convenient).
RickyPianoMan
Posts: 1

Post by RickyPianoMan »

Hey awesome thank you for the tip. This will help me learn to read sheet music. I have turned off the falling notes and now can play using the sheet music
miek
Posts: 37

Post by miek »

I am trying to learn one of the Elton John songs, and in melody mode I manage about 15% speed overall, but I set up a loop on the difficult bits that slow me down and I try to practice those 4-5 bars over and over until the errors go down and the speed goes up.

I notice with my song scores (in melody mode using the loop scores) is there is a gradual increase in my speed (less time lag) and a decrease in my errors as the number of practices goes up ( I set it at something like 4-8 bars long and maybe 10 or so practices). But then the errors then go up and the practice stops being effective. I look at the loop scores a lot and see the latest score with the last few and then think: "Its time to do something different now". When I return after a break, the scores are a bit better than they ended last time.

If there was a graph in loop mode showing errors and time vs practice number this would be great. Maybe it would show you haw you can get on with 10 loops at a time and then a break, or maybe 5 loops and then a break would be more effective? [feature request?]

Also, I know it is said else where, but it would be good if the loop scores and time spent would be recorded - as sometimes I spend a lot of time there.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

miek wrote:Maybe it would show you haw you can get on with 10 loops at a time and then a break, or maybe 5 loops and then a break would be more effective?
Over the last couple years, I've been having a lot of success (elsewhere, on other topics) using a technique called spaced repetition. It has been such a potent technique that it feels like the kind of thing that would be right at home in Synthesia. Spaced repetition tools essentially automate the process of choosing when you need to review something to make the strongest impact. Not so far apart that you begin to grow rusty. Not so close that you waste your time with over-practicing. It is very impressive how well your brain retain things with only a little repetition here-and-there.
miek wrote:... it would be good if the loop scores and time spent would be recorded...
The song progress revamp coming in Synthesia 12 will take practice inside of loops into account.
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