New Players; Electronic Teaching Tools
By Jody Kravitz
Martin's question, above, about "New Players" as a teaching aid struck me. I can't help but wonder if a MIDI editing system, a keyboard, and access to some digitized roll libraries might not be a better learning tool for this student. In addition to roll sources, there's a vast and growing library of freeware, shareware and commercial MIDI files he could access. I've personally been experimenting with a package from PG Music recommended to me by Rob DeLand. I've been meaning to write a review of it.
Briefly, each package consists of about 50 hand-played tunes in MIDI format and a "player" program that has some interesting learniing features. There are about a dozen packages available with a wide variety of music including rags, blues, classical, and even Bluegrass, recorded with _REAL_ musicians playing _REAL_ instruments. The player program does not display in piano roll format, but rather allows you to see when the notes were struck, displayed on a standard music staff. An option allows you to have the notes positioned exactly where they were struck by the pianist, and have a green "trail" showing how long they were really played, or, you can have the program quantize the music and have it shown in standard notation quuarter notes, triplets, ties over measure lines, etc. Whats fun is that when the program is playing, the notes that are being played are highlighted, and an image of a keyboard is displayed with the played notes highlighted. The Bluegrass version shows the instruments played in "tablature" format. You can vary the speed, and --- more importantly --- you can stop, single-step, step by chords, and even step backwards!
I've not determined yet if you could import material not supplied by the vendor into the program. They don't volunteer this information, but I'd be surprised if it was impossible.
Everything I've heard of theirs is quite good, and I'm particularly fond of the rags and blues. Using an external synthesizer with "keyboard range" controls (such as a Roland Sound Canvas), its quite easy to vary the playback volume of the right or left hand and then play the part yourself using your MIDI keyboard. Of course it doesn't give you an "accuracy rating" like a typing tutor program, but it _IS_ fun.
I know anecdotally of one rag pianist who learned by playing along with rolls. I also know that some people who've spent a lot of time pumping can look at a roll and tell you what the tune is. Robbie pulled this stunt on me the first time I met him! What do the rest of you say about learning tools ? Should Martin buy a piano, a computer, or both ?
Jody
P.S. PG Music's Web page can be found at:
http://www.pgmusic.com
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