10 Preview r2571, r2613 - Free Play

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 01-26-14 6:41 pm

Free Play is great for all users who want to create piano teaching videos, put a camera above your hands, record it together with Free Play view, finished. Great. No need for any piano teacher any more. I can imagine many piano teachers might get angry about this.

Any piano player with some skills can teach easily all the rest of the world with a lower piano playing skills than theirs! A new democracy in piano teaching, thanks to Synthesia.

This might open up new ways of piano teaching via the web. Requests by users to teacher, teacher tells how much money they want for that course. If enough money is collected via the web, the teacher sits to his/her piano, records and explains. Both sides are happy. Easy way of sharing knowledge, freely or with some cost.

Free Play mode is very important for teaching. I would even like background image changes here dynamically, like a presentation going on in the background while you are explaining something. Those background images might be changed via program change events. So up to 128 background images would be possible. Actually 16 * 128. For the beginning 128 background images are enough.

Implementation could be as follows: If in some fixed directory are images use them alphabetically sorted as background images, switchable via program changes.

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 01-26-14 7:02 pm

And yes, you can show sheet directly as background image. Why not? Great for teaching. Another option might be making the background image area completely transparent and showing the desktop below it directly. No need for complicating things. Scroll a pdf with sheet in the background directly. Or some presentation pdf. Piano teachers will love this.

Xoco · Post by **Xoco** » 02-01-14 2:51 pm

Good idea "Free Play", but is not "Tocar gratis" in español, is "Toca libremente". "Toca gratis" is literally "Play free of charge (gratuitous)".

Post by **Nicholas** » 02-01-14 9:16 pm

Thanks, it sounds like I didn't provide enough guidance about what "Free Play" meant to the translation service. Someone already noticed that in the French translation, too. I'll make the correction you just suggested, too. Thanks again!

Post by **Nicholas** » 02-03-14 12:44 pm

Korados wrote:What is the worst part now is that Synthesia 10 is doing this new error on every MIDI that contains strings or brass even on the MIDIs that were perfectly fine
in the previous versions.

Could you send one of the songs that were fine in 9 but broken in 10 to support@synthesiagame.com, please? I wonder if it's some new class of bad MIDI file.

I'll take a look.

Korados wrote:... the organ tracks are fine now but the trombone tracks are changed to piano.

Hmm, I just tried it again and the one Trombone track (with all the others muted and hidden) seemed to play fine as the correct instrument the whole song. If you don't rewind (or click in the timeline) at all, does that work for you too?

Post by **Nicholas** » 02-03-14 1:02 pm

TonE wrote:Free Play mode is very important for teaching. I would even like background image changes here dynamically, like a presentation going on in the background while you are explaining something.

I like this train of thought. Enabling more use-cases for different types of Synthesia users is something I'm interested in.

The sky really is the limit with Free Play, isn't it?

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 02-03-14 2:34 pm

Yes, and it would be very easy to implement, as you implemented already all required parts of it. Only a new way of putting them together.

Post by **Nicholas** » 02-12-14 4:38 pm

Korados wrote:What is the worst part now is that Synthesia 10 is doing this new error on every MIDI that contains strings or brass even on the MIDIs that were perfectly fine
in the previous versions.

Korados wrote:... the organ tracks are fine now but the trombone tracks are changed to piano.

I just spent a couple hours tracking down a different bug... which has an excellent chance of being the thing causing this set of problems too. (Worse, it was caused by a previous fix for this kind of stuff!)

In the next preview, hopefully this behavior is (finally) fixed now.

bluesdance · Post by **bluesdance** » 02-25-14 11:29 am

I used free play today in my elementary school class with 1st and 2nd grades. They loved it and it contributed positively to my teaching.

However this is one problem: In the current setup, all of the black keys are labeled as flat, except for F#.
I don't see how this can be helpful to anyone (besides fans of G harmonic minor!).

I would like to have at least two options:

1) Show all sharps
2) Show all flats

And maybe
3) Show BOTH sharps and flats
After all, there's enough vertical space on the black key to show both labels.

And maybe, also
4) customize each black key to show either sharp or flat name based on user choice

That would allow harmonic minor as noted above, various modalities, etc.

Thank you!

Post by **Nicholas** » 02-27-14 2:13 am

bluesdance wrote:Show BOTH sharps and flats

For teaching, this is actually a nice solution.

Eventually there is going to be a method on that screen to choose which key you're currently thinking in. Providing that extra bit of context will provide a few benefits:

The key/note labels will be more correct.
Chord names will be prioritized by the current key. (So you might see an F sus2 instead of a C sus4 first. Though even then, there will also eventually be support to name inversions and show more than one chord.)
And all sorts of headroom for cool experimental features like masking off the keys to show the notes that belong to that scale (for a given mode), maybe showing an on-screen circle of fifths and which keys are "accessible" from the current one, etc.

In the meantime showing both sharp/flat naming would be an improvement. While still incomplete because of double-sharps and double-flats, it's still a whole lot closer to being complete.

bluesdance wrote:I used free play today in my elementary school class with 1st and 2nd grades. They loved it and it contributed positively to my teaching.

It's really cool to hear feedback like this. Thanks for sharing!

PHIDIAS · Post by **PHIDIAS** » 03-04-14 6:15 am

Free Play mode have some problems. When I press the piano (like middle C,D) it will show up like reverse playing MIDI songs, that is correct. But when I use mouse to press the keys (while still holding C,D) it will break the bars of C, D.

Please fix it, thanks.

Spoiler:

bluesdance · Post by **bluesdance** » 03-04-14 1:06 pm

I love the masking function concept. I'm glad you're thinking about enabling key signature / key selections as well as possibly showing both names for the black keys.

Post by **Nicholas** » 03-07-14 11:32 pm

PHIDIAS wrote:But when I use mouse to press the keys (while still holding C,D) it will break the bars of C, D.

Thanks for the report.

I just fixed it. The fix will show up in the next development preview.

mahen · Post by **mahen** » 03-24-14 3:48 pm

Hey Nicholas !

Very nice new feature !

What about adding a "loop pedal" feature in this new mode ? Giving the possibility for the user to add several layers of instruments one upon the other ? And possibly a way to switch between several different sequences ?

It would make a cool improvisation tool !

Another crazy thing : what about the possibility to even add voice / samples above it ? Okay, it gets out of the scope of Synthesia

But at least a kind of "MIDI loop pedal" (some KB or piano keys behind assigned to its control) ?

Keep up the great work

After following Synthesia for years I finally have to possibility to put a laptop on my piano and use it for real !!!