Learn to play the piano with MuseScore piano monitoring

• Oct 15, 2024 - 21:44

In my spare time, I taught children and teenagers how to play the guitar and a bit of piano. When playing the piano, I was often asked by the boys if there was any software that could monitor or control their piano playing.

While searching, I came across MuseScore for the first time, as they had a plugin that tried to implement this.
Unfortunately, I can't look up the name of the plugin at the moment. It doesn't work properly either.
Maybe someone knows if there is a better version now.

Function description:

Version 1
Open own songs.

The blue cursor marks the note to be played.

If the note is played correctly, the cursor jumps to the next note.

If the note is played incorrectly, the cursor stops.

Version 2
Like version 1, but you can play over mistakes.

Open your own songs.

The blue cursor marks the note to be played.

If the note is played correctly, the cursor jumps to the next note.

Is the note played incorrectly?
The wrong notes are written in red.
If the note is played correctly again in the next bar or the bar after that, it will be colored green again.
Screenshot_20241014-175534.png

The piano player can then always find the right note to play, as it is marked in blue by the cursor.
Especially when you look at the keyboard and then look back at the notes, you never know exactly where you are in the notes. You have to reorient yourself.
This would help many beginners and visually impaired people, as the blue cursor always indicates the notes to be played.

I remember that the plugin from MuseScore at that time often got stuck.
However, the biggest problem was that for a half note the piano key had to be pressed exactly two beats and for a whole note the piano key had to be pressed exactly four beats.
Fast legato playing or playing with the pedal was therefore not possible

Other programs such as Piano Marvel have solved the problem by only monitoring that the piano keys are pressed at the right moment, but not how long the piano key must be pressed.
This makes legato playing, fast playing and playing with pedal possible.

(Beginners often play very slowly as they have to search for the notes. This lacks musical coherence and makes it difficult to hear by ear whether you are playing correctly or incorrectly. )
The plugin would also help a lot to find out whether you are playing the right notes.

Looking up and down from the keyboard to the notes would also be much easier.

Other programs do not have the option of loading your own songs for practicing

It is also not possible to change the fingerings. Everything is predefined.

MuseScore has its own notation program as a basis.

Many plugins, such as rhythm counter
fingering, creator
etc

That's why it would be great if this were possible in MuseScore.

What do you think?
Is there now such a plugin in MuseScore?

Attachment Size
Screenshot_20241014-175534.png 196.54 KB

Comments

This looks way beyond the capabilities available via the MuseScore Plugin API but maybe someone with more plugin experience knows otherwise. The capabilites are really geared towards score processing rather than playback.

In reply to by yonah_ag

As far as I know, there is no app where you can upload your own songs and practise in this way.

Apple is unfortunately too expensive and too small, as I am also very short-sighted

With an HP convertible, you can fold down the screen and then you have a huge tablet

Vielen Dank
Frank

In reply to by yonah_ag

Thanks for the tips.

I've had Piano Marvel for years. I also think it's quite good.
Unfortunately it only works over the internet and requires a subscription.
You can't change fingerings or make corrections in the program itself.
So you always have to make the changes with Finale or MuseScore and upload them again. I find it quite complicated.

MuseScore is first and foremost a notation program, so it would be easy to make changes to the piece while practicing.

What's more, I don't always have internet access here.

If the plugin worked in MuseScore, I could even practise with the piano teacher. Yes, actually everywhere.

But thanks for the research
Frank

In reply to by campus77

Because MuseScore is first and foremost a music notation program, it is good at allowing quick changes to scores and switching from practise mode to input mode, but it is NOT good at monitoring MIDI instrument input and comparing it to the notated score.

However, MuseScore is an open source project so you are welcome to develop new functionality.

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