What is Reddit's opinion of Synthesia?

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I taught myself using a program called Synthesia. Imagine Guitar Hero but for piano, I just used that to learn my favorite songs, and now I can kinda play piano. You can find videos of it on YouTube or you can buy the software

EDIT : Here is a link to the game.

> Is there any way I can do this a bit more efficient?

Yes. If you have a MIDI keyboard then get a copy of Synthesia. It's like Guitar Hero for the piano. If you pay the extra $25 to unlock the learning pack (and I recommend you do) then you can use it to learn the piece (it waits for you to play the right note) instead of just playing it as a game.

Then grad the MIDI file for the prelude and start practicing!

It's no substitute for learning to read the music, but it'll help you to learn the piece, which in turn will help you understand how the notes written in the score translate to the keys you need to play. It also makes it more fun, which is important to keep you interested long enough to overcome the initial difficulties you may have with reading the music. But keep at it. Each time you play it'll become a little easier.

Buy a MIDI keyboard and Synthesia! The midi keyboard might be anywhere between $150 and $500. And the Synthesia app, I think it became free now? Anyway, I think it's brilliant. See here .

Hey, I quickly turned this into a midi for you -- link. You could play (and "view") it with Synthesia. Of course, you really should learn to read music! It can be frustrating but it's worth the practise.

You might like Synthesia, which is free and is basically like Piano Hero.

There's also an app called Etude, which was released by Steinway and is pretty much the same thing.

However, if you're serious about learning I don't think anything can top regular lessons with a teacher.

MIDI allows you to transfer musical data between devices. MIDI itself is not music, it's just a list of what happens, when it happens, how long it happens for, etc.

You'll be able to connect your MIDI keyboard to your computer with a MIDI to USB adapter. This will allow you to:

• Control software synthesizers and other instruments on your computer with your keyboard.
• Make use of notation programs like MuseScore to quickly input musical notes
• Use MIDI-heavy programs like Synthesia or PianoCheetah

MIDI is quite a cool thing and I encourage you to Google more about it.

This is the way to go. However I want to offer an alternative that I think is really cool. Synthesia has made a game out of the piano. The demo version is rather cut down but the full version has some nifty stuff to help you learn.

cough niceexampleofteachingthroughgames cough

If you're referring to the piano playing (a la 'Piano Hero', as I call it), it's a program called Synthesia. It's free to download and it has a lot of pre-loaded music in it.

Synthesia is kind of like a game in that you can learn guitar hero style. its good for learning scales. i also think it is very good to learn the muscle memory of using your hands in a unique way. it allows you to shut your brain off so you can focus on the action of playing and how to move your hands, and forget about everything you need to remember when you play normally. obviously you need to be doing other kinds of practice, but Synthesia can help you learn your way around a keyboard very fast. i always used to have to look at where my hands are and where they need to go. Synthesia helped a lot with that hurdle.

Synthesia. It's seriously an amazing program. As long as you can find the .midi file, you can learn literally anything you want. Here is a huge site that I use with thousands of free, fan made (and very accurate) Video Game .midi files in case you are interested :D

Ok, I can heavily wager these "tutorials" are just demo playthroughs of Synthesia. http://synthesiagame.com/

The free version is good, but the real magic comes from Practice Mode, which you have to pay for. I won't help you pirate that for personal reasons.

I will, however, help you with finale notepad. Last I checked, it was free, so that's cool. Sibelius is a FUCKLOAD better, (being like a $700 program), so if you can somehow get that, that'd be cool, too.

Both are easy ways to input sheet music visually, and export as MIDI; the format Synthesia reads.

All that's left is a keyboard, which I assume you have lying around, and either a MIDI USB cable, (£20 for one that won't suck dick), or a normal A-B cable (which you have, if you have a printer). Then you can learn music with sheets, but without needing to learn sheet music reading.

If you wanna inquire further about any of this, PM me, or add me on skype ("asday_"), and I'll be glad to help.

This all being said, learning to read sheet music is really easy, and very useful.

Write the note letters under the notes on the sheet, and play new music a lot.

After a while, you'll get sick of writing the note letters, and just read the notes instead.

I would recommend the Final Fantasy piano collections. A lot of them are fairly easy, and ALL of them sound good, (at least from what I've heard).

Yeah, that's Synthesia. If you have a digital piano or keyboard with a midi interface, you can actually plug it in to your ipad and do some cool things like play along, set it to play one hand while you practice the other one, slow or speed up. Basically it uses midi files for this.

Check their guide http://synthesiagame.com/keyboards to see how you could connect your keyboard to your ipad. I went the wired way and use an apple lightning to usb camera adapter along with a e-mu xmidi 1x1 tab cable (http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product.aspx?pid=19089) and it works like a charm.

You might also want to take a look at Flowkey (http://www.flowkey.com/en), which is another app you can use to help learn play piano. It is subscription based though.

I haven't done any sheet music converstion to digital in a while, so no idea what to recommend on getting your stuff converted. I would also be interested in what people are using for this these days.

Yeah I get a little frustrated sometimes moving up/down octaves in how they present it in that hooktheory app, as far as I can tell the easiest way is to first type in a note using the # shortcuts then use your mouse to drag the note up or down to the next octave.

Anyway I'll give you my other "daily" training that I should be doing but again it's more like I'll do it 3 days in a row then not again for another month or more. Thanks for the tip on trying at the same time every day as a routine, I'll give that a try.

Here is my other "should be daily" training:

http://synthesiagame.com/

I own it for the desktop and for the iPad. It works pretty good on both, actually slightly better on iPad IMHO than Windows. On Windows by default it uses the built in Microsoft MIDI which is really laggy, there is a noticeable latency. To get a decent latency at least on Windows there is a guide there to do it which is a little bit of a pain but not too bad as long as you are used to dealing with plugins and putting stuff in the right directories, etc.

It involves downloading some freeware MIDI synth and some soundfonts. Once you do that it works pretty well and as long as you follow the instructions carefully it's not too hard at all:

http://synthesiagame.com/support/faq#better_synth

This is kind of like a 'video game' piano learning - in the Guitar Hero style where notes fly at you on screen and you have to hit them on time. They have versions that work on your PC, Mac, Android, and iOS. The app seems the same no matter the platform (I have it for PC and for iOS/iPad).

http://synthesiagame.com/

Don't worry to much about 'upselling' in app purchases to unlock more songs. They give you plenty to be honest - and the app supports importing any midi file. You do of course have to mess with it a bit to tell it which instrument to play if you are uploading a whole song. There are tons of midi files of good piano music all around online.

I'd recommend this, with a midi keyboard. Weighted keys if you can afford it.
http://synthesiagame.com/

And look to a piano forum for information on piano technique so you don't hurt your self. I started playing from the fingers and ended up with chronic pain.

http://reviews.pianotechnique.org/thomas-mark-what-every-pianist-needs-to-know-about-the-body.php

This book has been helpful for me to play without pain.

The absolute best part about that song is how easy it is to learn. I went from menial piano ability to playing the whole thing in about 25 hours of practice using Synthesia. The harmony repeats itself constantly and the melody doesn't wonder too far. Next up, Le onde, which is all over the place, and it's so rewarding.

This isn't really what you're asking for, but I feel like this program could be very helpful to learning disable students trying to learn piano.

http://synthesiagame.com/

It's a game but you can basically learn how to really play piano with it.

I believe you can get it to show the note names and color code them, which would be very helpful for someone who has trouble reading notation

You can use Synthesia, it works with just a default keyboard, but it works best with an actual midi controller.

I used it to learn how to play piano, it's great for learning late in life. I really reccomend getting a keyboard. Where do you live? I might be able to send you a small 8 key controller

closest thing I can think of Synthesia, but it might just be for piano

it does split a midi file into all sorts of instruments if they were int eh song, bass included.

point is, you don't have to plug in to play along, like playing along to a play along CD, I honestly just connected the dots just now.

only thing you'll miss out is seeing where you've made a mistake, though hearing it is more important.

If you can't read sheet music, and have a midi keyboard and a midi cable or midi to usb cable, then I suggest you download Synthesia and a midi file for let it be, and learn guitar hero style.

EDIT replaced shit midi download site

Synthesia uses the music from gmajormusictheory.org. (You can choose a level at the top to navigate.) They have nice beginner sheets with finger hints, which are great when you're starting to learn.

I second the recommendation of at least some formal training so you learn, at the very least, how to position your hand, etc.

But if you're really set on self-learning (perhaps after you've done a couple months with a teacher), you could try hooking your keyboard to your computer and playing the various piano-based games out there, such as this one: http://synthesiagame.com/