

Show HN: RiffUp – Edit Music Notation in the Browser - orlandohill
http://www.riffup.com/demo

======
orlandohill
It's far from perfect, but I thought someone here might get a kick out of
this.

It's written in CoffeeScript, and uses Raphael.js to draw parts of the
Gonville font.

Audio playback is done via Flash, so it may give an error in your browser. I
looked into using MIDI.js for playback, but that gave worse results in some
browsers.

I've done a few experiments into git-style music collaboration. I'm not
convinced that enough people will actually pay for private collaboration, so
I've put that on hold, for now.

Side Note: I'm currently looking for remote work. Contact details are in my
profile.

~~~
jtheory
I have a (now in maintenance-mode) site at
[http://eMusicTheory.com](http://eMusicTheory.com) that's based on Java
applets... but based on the number of subscribing teachers who are contacting
me over the past 2 years saying "the school is getting a bunch of iPads, but
the drills don't work!", at some point I'm going to have to start migrating to
JavaScript.

I have a pretty significant codebase (in Java, for now) representing music
theory concepts as objects, which should be pretty simple to convert to JS,
but I haven't tried tackling the notation rendering yet at all -- mostly
because I've been busy on another project for 2 years now.

Get in touch if you'll be open sourcing this library, or if you have any
interest in building JS-based music theory drills; there's certainly a market.

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jthurman
This is pretty cool. How far do you intend to take it? Here's a "use
case"/feature request:

In addition to being a developer/entrepreneur, I moonlight as a high school
marching band instructor/arranger. In other words, I'm a semi-professional
composer. I work with a team of people who write different aspects of the
music: One guy writes the winds, I write the percussion, and others contribute
as well.

Currently, whenever one of us has an idea about something to do with whatever
we're arranging, we have to either get everyone together in a room with a
piano to talk through it, or someone has to sit down with a professional music
notation program (we use Finale) and "sketch" it all out.

It would be really cool if there was something online like RiffUp that would
let me put together that "sketch" quickly and easily, and send a link to my
colleagues. Like a "pastebin" for sheet music.

To get there, it would need to do a few more things, in roughly priority
order: * Allow you to save your creation and send a link to someone else. *
Support "-let" rhythms (triplets, for example) * Use multiple staves * Set the
tempo * Allow other time signatures (time changes would be good too) * Choose
a different voice for each staff

The great benefit here would be simple composition without having to worry
about all of the stuff associate with making a real score. So much of music
notation is about making stuff that prints nicely, which is actually a
separate process from just creating the music. And, of course, being able to
easily share it with colleagues without requiring them to have the same
software I do (or to download a file and open it in that software).

And to answer the followup question that you'll ask: Yes, I'd be willing to
pay for this.

~~~
orlandohill
Thanks for the great feedback!

Your use case would certainly be supported by the kind of service that I've
had in mind. That said, it sounds like Noteflight would already fit your need
to share quick musical sketches.

I'm not sure how far I'll take RiffUp. Competing directly against
Noteflight/GuitarPro/Sibelius/Finale/... is an option, and there are a few
innovations that can be made in that space. That wouldn't be an easy path,
though.

I was more excited by the prospect of creating a community based around mass
collaboration. The idea that a few notes could be forked to create many
distinctly different songs.

For now, finding money to live is the overwhelming priority, so I can't
justify spending much time on this. It could be that I pursue things further,
later on.

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prg318
This is a really neat application! It would be really interesting cool for an
application like to work with guitar tablature notation. Maybe I have a new
project ahead of me?

I think it would also be easier to use purely from the keyboard if there was a
way to use the Up and Down keys. I realize that Up and Down will scroll the
window - perhaps "CTRL+UP" and "CTRL+DOWN" could move the cursor up and down
on the staff? I know some people that are used to applications like Finale
Notepad/Sibelius prefer entering notes purely from the keyboard for speed
purposes.

~~~
adrianh
We're doing the guitar tablature thing at Soundslice:
[http://www.soundslice.com/demo](http://www.soundslice.com/demo)

We've got standard notation support high on our to-do list. :-)

It's sort of a different product than RiffUp, as Soundslice is all about
"reverse engineering" songs and giving you tools to help learn a song, with
the philosophy that it's better to learn from a source recording than from
sheet music/tab alone.

------
bharathwaaj
This is fantastic work. If integrated with an app like
[http://soundslice.com](http://soundslice.com), it might become the defacto
app for musicians. Keep up the good work!

~~~
tobolek
it will be interesting to see how soundslice and riffup solve the
collaboration thing. that's where these tools can differentiate themselves
from desktop apps such as transcribe!. online crowdsourcing tool for reverse
engineering of music. nice!

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grittathh
Very cool! I'm a n00b to the music-notation-app-world, but was able to get
going pretty quickly. I'm not sure if any of these are already standard
features on most music notation apps...but I think keyboard shortcuts to the
note/rest types would help. Maybe even an option to eliminate some clicks
(just press the key corresponding to the note/rest to place it underneath
current cursor position)

Then again, being a n00b, maybe I don't realize that speed-of-input isn't the
bottleneck for composers hehe.

~~~
orlandohill
Thanks for the feedback! Those keyboard shortcuts sound very helpful. I think,
they're standard in some programs, too.

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memset
This is really neato. How "richly-featured" do you plan on making this?

The reason I ask is that it would be really nifty to be able to share or
export these tunes. Either via MIDI, or preferably, via another notation
format. If they will be fairly simple melodies, ABC might be a great output
format, which converts easily into sheet music notation and midi.

Otherwise, you might want something fancy-pants like Sibelius (or whatever
people are using nowadays for notation.)

~~~
stigi
Was trying to use Sibelius recently and it s*cked big time!

An open format for export would be great!

~~~
deadlysyntax
Midi?

~~~
ygra
Midi is hardly appropriate or useful for music engraving. It's for controlling
a device to output music in the way you want, not for recording how it looks
on paper.

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youknow24
Nice! One suggestion: up/down keys for changing the selected note(s).
Personally, the thing that I've never been satisfied with Sibelius (and
others) is that I have to use a mouse way too often to do things that could
easily be accomplished with keystrokes. I want notating music to be more
fluid, like programming…or playing piano–just pluck away as the ideas come.
Good luck, the possibilites here are exciting.

~~~
orlandohill
Great suggestion. A fluid, intuitive editing experience is something I'd like
to achieve.

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guycook
This is brilliant. I've been working lately on something very similar (using
d3 + gonville) so I know how much work must have gone into this.

I'm sure you're aware of how much is left to do, but if I had to offer one
criticism for right now it's that getting around is a bit slow.
Ctrl+left/right for moving between measures and home/end for each line would
be quite helpful.

~~~
orlandohill
Yes, it was a lot of work getting this far, and there's still plenty to be
done before it's a full-featured music editor.

Great suggestion for moving between measures! I'll definitely have to add
that.

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seyn
Great one! i would suggest to have a look at
[http://noteflight.com/](http://noteflight.com/) html5 version.

I am a big fan of, changing the octave and converting from piano -> clarinet
etc..

i was planning to do something like this, but you have already done a great
job

~~~
orlandohill
I agree, Noteflight is excellent, and they're making good progress with their
new version.

My initial idea was to create something closer to GitHub, but with music
notation and guitar tab instead of text files. I'm not sure where I'll take
things, at the moment, though.

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fictorial
Hey I recognize that tune.

[http://www.rdio.com/artist/Dead_Can_Dance/album/A_Passage_In...](http://www.rdio.com/artist/Dead_Can_Dance/album/A_Passage_In_Time/track/Saltarello/)

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weisser
The current notation software options are really painful for anyone but the
hardcore composer. This is needed.

I have some relations at music schools. Reach out if you'd like me to connect
you.

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basicallydan
Mate, this is super cool and awesome.

Next step... support
[http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com/](http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com/) ?
:)

~~~
orlandohill
Actually, that's not such a crazy idea. Realistically, it would be months or
years away, but Hummingbird seems like a valuable teaching language, and it
could fit well with some of the other ideas I have.

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deweller
Can you override the native ctrl function in Chrome?

I can't get ctrl-click to work because Chrome (Mac) brings up a pop-up context
menu only.

~~~
orlandohill
Thanks for the feedback!

I've updated it so that you can use either Ctrl-Click or Shift-Click. Let me
know, if you're still having problems.

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jscheel
Very cool work. I would echo the suggestion to fully support keyboard entry,
and I would also suggest sharps and flats.

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bradbeattie
Collapse adjacent rests? I was mucking around deleting notes and ended up with
a bar full of quarter and eighth rests.

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dubcanada
It would be cool if you could share it!

~~~
orlandohill
Good point. I can certainly imagine open-sourcing the code for this app. I'm
not sure how soon that would be, though.

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josscrowcroft
Wow. Congratulations!

~~~
orlandohill
Thanks!

