

Show HN: Making Music Free for Education - akumpf
http://news.fiddlewax.com/post/104915803154

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thejew
It's a cool app and must have taken a lot of work. As a piano teacher myself:
teaching chords is important but showing those notes on a staff I would think
would be even more important. And showing chords in a grid with no relation to
any other instrument doesn't really do anything pedagogically. If the chords
were in their places on the keys of a piano or at least the colors of the
keys, where flats and sharps were black and natural keys were white. Wave
forms are cool but don't really teach anything (if you really are going for
education here and not just a cool app).

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akumpf
This is a good debate to have.

My hope is to get more people making music and thinking more deeply about how
notes, scales, chords, etc. are all related for creating new songs. The
formality of sheet music is secondary, and naturally most people that really
get into an instrument will inevitably learn how to read/write notes on a
staff.

But initially, I think the formalism of sheet music gets in the way and is
discouraging to lots of people who may otherwise enjoy learning to play an
instrument. Getting someone to sit down and start creating a new song with any
kind of depth, phrasing, or chord progression is a feat itself.

I believe that forcing sheet music to be a primary focus bogs down the initial
excitement/drive. It's like teaching color theory before playing around with
crayons first. :)

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thejew
I hear ya. So it's a primary app? Right now it has 0 relation to any
instrument at all. So if after spending some time with this app they walked
over to any instrument at all they would have no idea what to do. No
notation... Ok, but have something that at least looks like/relates to notes a
little so that they can eventually get there. A good music app is hard to find
and you are obviously a good programmer. I found people learn best when you
compare it to something or tell a story or get them to use their imagination.
Right now it's just grids.

~~~
akumpf
Yes, Fiddlewax Blue is gridded. That is both a weakness and a strength. :)

There are two main use cases for the app:

1\. New musicians (i.e. people who haven't really played an instrument before)
can jump directly into playing notes and chords in a way that far less
intimidating than most physical instruments, but still build intuition around
chord types, pitches, harmonies, relationships, etc.. It's a foot in the door
to no longer feeling like making music is beyond you, and encourages you to
play/enjoy the process. When you hit the app's limits of griddedness, that's
when you take that intuition and excitement to other instruments.

2\. Proficient/comfortable musicians can pick up Fiddlewax Blue to create new
sounds and progressions than they would otherwise explore on their main
instrument. For example, a lot of people play the guitar, but spend so much
time learning a few chords that they can feel boxed in. When you have a larger
palette of chords and scales, you can find new melodies and riffs, then
translate those back to your main instrument.

