Sunday, June 21, 2009

FastKeys 1.5... More still to come.

Here is an in-between version of my sight reading helper. I hope it works better than the last version, but the piano now has 2 octaves, but I hope to eventually have the whole piano on the screen and possibly an option for 1 octave or whole piano.


UPDATE: A newer version can be played here








14 comments:

  1. What can I say......great game. Excellent work. Very good idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is great. Really great, really helpful. My problem with new version is you miss out on learning all the ledger lines above bass clef because they just show as treble. Don't know if 2 will fix this problem,hopefully. Really i'd like to see everything about the game completely customizable, BPM, note range, clef, amount of staves, maybe include tenor and alto, smallest and largest note value, etc. Any part of the game missing, like the ledger lines above bass clef, is a part of your musicality you could be developing but are missing. This is just my constructive critisism. I think it's still a great game and a really useful tool. Thanks for making it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks littlemouse for the advice. I'll try and take it on board for 2.0. I doubt though that I will make everything fully customizable, only because one day I'd like to implement an online scoring system, and if everything did not remain constant, there would be no way of comparing scores from person to person. But I can certainly add extra ledger lines as you said. Your input is greatly appreciated, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sorry Marty, but I don't like the new version as much as the old one. To me it's counter productive to show a multiple octave keyboard that doesn't correspond to the grand staff. I understand that there probably isn't enough screen space to show a full keyboard but the two octave display where you can it the note in any octave builds very bad habits. You either need a keyboard as big as the note range or go back to a single octave. I hope you leave the old version up, because it has really helped my reading.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, I played the new version a little more and I do like the fact that notes come from both clefs at once, but I'm still concerned about getting bad habits from incorrect octave jumps on the "keyboard." I have dealt with it by just clicking in the highest octave, but perhaps a single octave keyboard option wouldn't be that difficult to implement.

    Once again, thanks for creating these games. They are a real asset to beginners like me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. No worries BlueKeys. I have been experimenting and the next version will most likely have the option of a single octave and full 5 octaves to cover all notes. I've widened the screen a bit so the keys wouldn't skinny. I might do another release before I implement the key signiture feature.
    Marty :P

    ReplyDelete
  7. Marty, I love the program. :D

    One suggestion I'd make is to give options to label the notes on the staff and to label the keys on the keyboard separately, so you don't have to have both on at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Marty. I guess if I'd read your post from 21 June instead of jumping right into the game I would have seen you were planning to do that all along [Bluekeys blushes in humiliation and looks at toes].

    ReplyDelete
  9. hey its been really helpful..thnx marty! livestrong!

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is a great tool for practicing sightreading. I've been using it the past week, and my first scores on the speed test were around 600. I'm now at 900 and going for 1000. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great game -- What would be nice is a MIDI-compatible version (is that even possible in flash?) or a keyboard controlled one as well, so that we can develop muscle memory

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is fab! Thank you so much. I'm addicted - it really helps!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hey man, this is awesome! Just started playing and this is helping me great deal! Keep it up I appreciate your hard work on this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is great! I've been playing the piano for about 15 years, and I still find this very helpful for increasing my ability to read music on the fly.

    Thanks!!

    ReplyDelete