
Show HN: Dodeka Music – piano keyboard and easy-to-read sheet music in one app - j_rcht
http://www.dodeka.info/Products/dodeka-app/
======
whiddershins
Congrats on your launch.

I love innovation and experimentation in this space.

I am confused about why you feel it is easier to read the "sheet music" in
your app than traditional notation. I feel the tight spacing of the note
indicators does overtly show rhythmic values, but at the expense of easy
readability.

They are also misleading unless they show how varied an actual note duration
can be. Do you show staccato notes as short? How short? These are
determinations left to the player.

The lack of stems makes the use of the term "sheet music" rather
misleading/confusing, in my opinion.

Having a chromatic keyboard that gives equal space to all twelve tones is a
cool idea, but as someone who plays such keyboards primarily, as well as
"normal" piano, I can assure you it is not necessarily easier to learn or to
play traditional music, including modern pop music, on such a keyboard.

I am genuinely curious whether you have tested any of the assumptions behind
your reworking of these conventions, many of which probably exist for reasons
that go beyond just inertia.

I feel like I keep seeing products that try to do away with what's "hard"
about reading sheet music, but that is solving one of the smallest hurdles
confronting people trying to learn music. Sure, it looks like hieroglyphs to
the uninitiated, but once you learn the basics it's actually pretty easy to
work with. Do you have a plan in place for gradually introducing the learner
to stems and rests and other sheet music notation, or ... how does the learner
move on from this?

Regardless, would love to hear about how things go and how people respond to
your ideas.

~~~
j_rcht
Hi whiddershins, Thanks for your comment,

To answer your questions about additional notation marks, please feel free to
check our documentation here
[http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Presentation/](http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Presentation/)
and
[http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Resources/](http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Resources/).
These will show you how we notate rests, staccato, and other notational marks.

As for the advantage dodeka brings, it's really about the synergy there is
between the keyboard and the sheets. There's only one way to write one piece,
which means that players can easily learn how to play a song in every tone.
Our tests showed that people usually take between 1 to 3 minutes to read and
play an easy piece in all different tones. This is fast right? :)

For rhythms - we believe it's easier for one's mind to see the value rather
that to compute it.

Also, we are not targeting musicians, but rather beginners and people who'd
like to learn/play music in an easy way.

Finally, I'm not sure that I understood what you meant with the stems and
sheet music.

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mmcconnell1618
Suggestion: I don't know if it's just Safari on the Mac or not but I didn't
get any sound from the three videos on the page. It was strange for a music
app to not have sound in the videos. Maybe a technical glitch on my machine?

~~~
blauditore
Same here on FF & Ubuntu, pretty sure the videos are silent (even though they
contain an audio track).

~~~
j_rcht
it's a bug - will change that asap.

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hashkb
These guitar hero style alternative notations are a major problem IMO. It's
extra problematic to advertise it as "learn music" when really it's giving you
a crutch to avoid learning music.

~~~
cranjice
Yeah, sorry, I took one look at this keyboard layout and thought to myself "ok
this is a toy"

I'd love to see an application that could capture audio from an instrument and
act as a real-time theory aid/teacher. For example:

    
    
      * the note you are playing is this
      * the notes you've just played in sequence belong to these scales. here are possibilities for next notes
      * try these chords
      * the chord you've just played is comprised of these notes
      * the next chord in the scale could be this
      * popular songs with these chords or in this scale are

~~~
ThomPete
You need context for that. Clearly something like this isn't for getting your
head around avantgarde music.

I say the more tools the better. People will outgrow their instrument fairly
quickly if it's too limiting and then just move on to something new.

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philbarr
Whilst I'm all for innovation, the "Dodeka Keyboard" is not going to help you
learn piano. It's going to help you to learn to play a Dodeka Keyboard.

~~~
ThomPete
Is that their claim though? Isn't the claim you will learn to play music and
isn't that the most important regardless of which instrument you learn?

~~~
philbarr
I was going off the phrase, "Always wanted to play piano? Now is your time."
from [0].

[0] [http://www.dodeka.info/Play/](http://www.dodeka.info/Play/)

~~~
ThomPete
Play piano, not learn to play piano. Semantics but I think it's important the
title of the Show HN taken into consideration.

~~~
philbarr
I think it's more important to take the content of the linked website into
consideration.

~~~
ThomPete
Yes and even I am I still don't see anywhere it claims you learn to play
piano.

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ThomPete
Hi j_rcht congrats on the launch.

As a long time musician myself I am always intersted in learning about new
instruments. The video you post in the bottom is it purely to increase the
span of how many octaves you fingers can span or what's the purpose?

~~~
j_rcht
Hi ThomPete - thanks! The videos at the bottom only present the app
functionalities - nothing more really. But about the span, we use the same
dimensions as conventional piano, meaning that octaves size aren't wider.

~~~
ThomPete
I'm confused now :) The video that shows the real life piano where all the
keys are the same size?

~~~
j_rcht
Are talking about the video on the home page?

~~~
ThomPete
Yes the link you have all they way in the bottom. A real piano with black keys

[http://www.dodeka.info/Products/](http://www.dodeka.info/Products/)

~~~
j_rcht
oh - this video is to show how our "real" keyboard works.

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brooklyn_ashey
Nice idea! Could be a great intro for new learners or even those who just want
to get at making sound with a lower bar to entry- which is fantastic. I'd love
to try it with a student. Have you?

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sova
Looks really great. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to all the new
musical instruments that can come out thanks to the iOS audio engine :)

~~~
j_rcht
Thanks sova for the kind words! Much appreciated!:)

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meggar
Which audio framework did you choose for this?

~~~
j_rcht
AV foundation

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desireco42
Ipad only. I do happen to have one but...

