Software for Your Musical Instruments? 138
kko asks: "After looking for tuning software for my newly-acquired violin, I stumbled upon Tutor, which is an nifty violin tuner that also helps in developing your intonation and quick reading skills. What software have you used to aid your instrument practice, and how has it helped (or hindered) you? If you are an instructor, what do you think of instrument software in your student's learning process?"
From a Guitar player... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no need for software if you practice, and practice well.
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:1)
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:1)
I agree. Guitar Pro 4 (and now 5, I believe) is the way to go for musicians. I play bass in a band, and guitar pro has helped me to learn all the songs I needed to practise. It also helps while writing out your own songs.
It's easy to use, and it supports both guitar tabulare (VERY handy for budding guitarists) and standard notation, which increases its appeal to other musicians. There is a chord builder and scales shown on a guitar fretboard and on a keyboard diagram. I teach myself, so things like that ha
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:3, Insightful)
RonB
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
Somewhere in there, I tried learning bass. I figured that it appears to have simplicity and fault tolerance. No better.
End result?
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:1)
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
I beg to disagree. It means that you get a lively culture where people can express themselves quickly, and by this virtue the music has often more to do with life today. Yes, there is much crap, but there is also much crap if you listen to the lay classical orchestra staffed by the local music school.
But there is also stuff like, dunno, let's tak
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:1)
Although `Joe Cool's Blues' was awesome from my personal Charlie Brown nostalgia hehehe...
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
you can actually completely reverse the approach (for example: violins are for those people who are too stupid to cope with 6 strings).
tabbing on a guitar is sometimes quite important because sometimes the finger position IS essential, especially when you have a bit more strings to chose from (think easier playing when the tones are near each other or thinner sounding vs thicker sounding). you won't get that information from the standard notation.
and while recognizing pitch is im
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
As for recognizing pitch, it's one thing to say "Yeah, that's a C. Fifth string, third fret." and "Oh crap, that C is pitched about ten Her
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
it is a difference between e on the 6th string, open or e on the 5th string, 5th fret.
it sounds different and there is a difference of the frets you can reach easily from that position.
this is what tabs are for.
anyway, as i also mentioned you need recognizing pitch for guitar playing.
think of "bend the tone 3 semitones up and then two semitones down" on two different stringed guitars.
guitar playing is not 5 basic chords you know.
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
His reasoning is much like yours. Learning hand placement based on notes yet to be played (and learning pitch). Tabs help with this. Taking too long to get from one note to another or having it an octive out can really screw the song up. If a violin (yes i played that and a bass in gradeschool) had the note range a
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
Are you pretending orchestral strings don't have to deal with this? Just because it isn't explicitly spelled out in our music?
That "4th string open e" could also be played "3rd string" in any of 4 hand positions, or 2nd string, 5th position depending on the coloring of the tone the musician is looking for.
And vibrato?
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
If what you say is even remotely true, then it says more about the classical musicians you hang out with being stuck-up snobs than it does about guitar players. I won't even say those assholes are elitist - "elitist" means
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
Quit being a jerk. There's plenty of guys who play power chords not "so they can feel tough", but because they like the sound that is made. And if they're on stage, there's probably thousands of people in the audience that agree about
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
If you go to any amateur orchestra, you'll see a huge range of abilities. Some of them may only have been playing for 2-3 years, but they're competent enough to get along as third violin or whatever - like your "powerchord" guitarists. No-one's ever going to confuse them with a serious professional player, but they're just about good enough to get around the instrument for the easier parts of the score. Your "powerchord" players who know nothing more than that are going nowhere further t
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
And it is precisely what YOU said which makes classical/jazz musicians to be elitist dinosaurs by many other musicians.
a guitar has frets (so it's impossible to be out of tune)
Not impossible, just more difficult. There's still plenty of ways to play out of tune on a guitar, intentionally or not. For example, lateral pressure on the string -- "bending" -- will increase string tension between the
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:2)
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:3, Informative)
from a Cellist and Guitar and etc etc player... (Score:1)
You need a teacher to learn the violin. I know this isn't a direct answer to the question about software, but since nobody else has mentioned it, I hope you know that you need a teacher to learn the violin. before i can talk about software, this must be said.
anyway, i don't know about specific software packages, but i use a midi sequencer to make some things that i practice along with... simple stuff like a 3-octave scale that i play
Re:From a Guitar player... (Score:1)
But seriously, I'd just use a book.
Absolutely INDESPENSIBLE - Amazing Slow Downer (Score:2)
Windows: http://www.ronimusic.com/amsldowin.htm [ronimusic.com]
Mac OSX: http://www.ronimusic.com/amsldox.htm [ronimusic.com]
Dorky name, but GREAT software! I'd call it "indespensible" when it comes to learning, practicing and transcribing music.
I transcribe complex guitar music, occasionally from live concert recordings. Being able to slow down a passage to tiny fraction of orignial speed (20%!) while preserving pitch is essential to hearing the phrase and understanding the component notes. ASD
zynaddsubfx (Score:3, Interesting)
Use it to for banjo tuning, along with finger position charts, basicly as a universal pitch pipe.
Re:zynaddsubfx (Score:2)
ROFLCHRIST to that!
Re:zynaddsubfx (Score:2)
"zynaddsubfx" may be the worst product name I've ever heard of. No surprise that it's found on SourceForge...
Cubase! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is much easier to identify your mistakes when you can just listen to yourself play.
It is also fun to take a break and record some origonal song ideas.
Re:Cubase! (Score:3, Informative)
Audacity [sourceforge.net] - simple audio recording
Rosegarden [rosegardenmusic.com] - audio editor/sequencer
Ardour [ardour.org] - digital audio workstation (think pro tools)
Re:Cubase! (Score:2)
wavepad [nch.com.au] is a perfect alternative (free edition). More stable and easier to use.
What original song ideas? (Score:1)
It is also fun to take a break and record some origonal song ideas.
What original song ideas? Didn't you know that the industry already owns every possible melody [slashdot.org]?
Re: Cubase! (Score:2)
Seconded! It can be very embarrassing listening to yourself (trust me, it's worse when singing than playing an instrument), but if you grit your teeth and do it, it can really help. Once you've persevered enough to be able to listen to yourself without cringing, you'll probably find other people like listening to you as well!
You don't need any high technology to do it, of course; when I was learning piano an old handheld tape recorder was plen
Nothing Spiritual About Software (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing Spiritual About Software (Score:2)
Re:Nothing Spiritual About Software (Score:2)
They don't need to though. I mostly use the computer as an always-available backing band when I have an idea I want to try. I use Harmony Assistant [myriad-online.com] to set up a backing track, and record my own performance to overlay with the Harmony sounds.
It's not the same as the real thing, but it's helpful. I think of it as a prototype, the way a sketch is step on the way to a portrait.
Re:Nothing Spiritual About Software (Score:1)
With that in mind, I can't figure out what your point is here. Sounds to me like you're upset because you spent some money on some gear and it didn't make you amazing.
I used to think that when I was 'deep in the jam' that I was getting better. Participating in live improvisation (with yourself or with a group) is a great way to extend your abilities, but this will only
Re:Nothing Spiritual About Music (Score:2)
Spoken like a true Musician. However, just as you are a true Musician, there are people who are "true producers", "true arrangers", "true composers" etc. whose talents only display themselves not when playing your heart out, but during careful deliberation and consideration.
For me, cubase provides such an environment :)
Speed Adjustment (Score:2)
Possibly... (Score:5, Informative)
I play guitar and for the most part I do not use software to aid in practice. I have tuner software (Enable Encore) that I can plug into which I occasionally use, and music composing software (Guitar Pro 5, G7, and Finale).
When beginning with an instrument it's best just to practice reading music manually. In the case of guitars, that would mainly be tabs. Guitarists much prefer tabs (finger positions on six lines for the six strings) when learning music as chords can contain many double notes and would look messy on a staff.
Anyway, with violin, you'll be reading staves. I'm not sure how much you know so I'll to to help a little: violins use the G clef, so the lines on the staff from bottom up are E, G, B, D, and F; and the spaces are F, A, C, and E. The strings on the violin from biggest to smallest are G, D, A, and E. Practice by saying a note and playing it, then move onto reading simple songs and playing them. I'm not used to fretless instruments so I have no idea how hard that is.
I doubt my advice there helped, but as for the software part: There isn't much that will help you learn how to play an instrument. It's best just to read music and practice playing it until you get the muscle memory that will assist you in both playing faster and playing with less thought.
Re:Possibly... (Score:2)
Re:Possibly... (Score:2)
Re:Possibly... (Score:2)
There are also a lot of other Free Software projects that deal with music practice and education [linux-sound.org].
Free alternatives (Score:2)
Musition and Aurelia are okay, though aging a bit and not cheap. There are similar resources available online for free.
And now, a bit of shameless self-promotion:
I run a website with
Oh, and *take lessons* (Score:2)
I'd never recommend the software, videos, books, etc. that purport to let you "teach yourself" whatever instrument. They simply can't compete with a decent human teacher, who can notice that your arm is way too stiff, that your thumb in your bow grip is wrong, etc. etc. when you first do it -- not after you've done it that way for months so that it's ingrained.
There's also software for helping you out with your pitch while playing, etc.. I wouldn't bother (you
Re:Possibly... (Score:2)
There are some good 'flash card' trainers to help learn to read music like you can read letters on a page. http://www.musictheory.net/ [musictheory.net] is a go
low tech approach (Score:3, Informative)
Re:low tech approach (Score:2)
How do you get to Carnagie Hall? (Score:2)
Practice, practice, practice.
Seriously. I'm an amature musician, I've played piano and percussion (all percussion, mallets, tympani, drumset, all of it) for the better part of 14 years, and I've found that just playing as much as possible is the best way to improve yourself. You know if you're playing well or not, you don't need a computer to tell you that. Quantity gets quality, and there's no shortcut to just sitting down and practicing for hours and hours.
Re:How do you get to Carnagie Hall? (Score:1)
But I am quite clear on the "requiring practice" bit, since I also play the guitar and the piano.
Re:How do you get to Carnagie Hall? (Score:2)
Depending on your goals as a musician, you may find notation software (like Sibelius) or ear training software (like the free Flash trainers at musictheory.net [musictheory.net]) to
Some software (Score:1)
Re:Some software (Score:2)
I think what the GP was refering to is that many "pocket metronome" type devices also have a function where they will play a pure A440, such that they can be used as tuners of a sort as well as metronomes.
A few (Score:2)
When you write songs, it helps a lot to have a multitrack recorder with you. For the love of god, do not use Audacity for this purpose. Use Ardour, which is about a million
Re:A few (Score:2)
I found it after running into problems getting audacity to record streaming radio (audacity kept putting in pops and silences that werent there..)
Lots of things (Score:3, Insightful)
For Piano, there are a lot of great programs. And they are ruthless. They hook up to your MIDI keyboard, and will evaluate every little detail of your performance.
For other instruments, it's really valuable to actually get together with a teacher. They can point you in the right direction. It's well worth the time and money. You can learn theory, and get your ear to hear things with software. But, to learn how to move the bow, or blow into an instrument, you really ought to get some REAL lessons. You can hear, and see how it is done, and ask questions, and if you are doing it wrong, the teacher will tell you.
Re:Lots of things (Score:2)
Re:Lots of things (Score:2)
Smartmusic (Score:2)
There are lots of problems with Smartmusic. First, the interface. It's terrible. It is my biggest complaint with the program. Second, the "Jazz" section does not let you print out anything. Third, when you play with it, say if you are a drummer, it lags behind on the screen. On my Mac Mini it couldn't refresh at the
Re:Smartmusic (Score:2)
Re:In The Chair (Score:2)
Audio/MIDI Sequencers (Score:1)
Anyway the general idea is that if you're playing in a band, you lay down a track in Ableton (or another midi sequencer) which matches what the band is playing, and practice along to that.
The difference between 8 hours of actually practicing the whole song, and practicing your little part is astonishing. It helps y
Question (Score:1)
I ask because I have a (possibly) related question: at what age is it too late to try to learn a musical instrument? About 20 years ago my parents forced me through a few years of piano lessons. To this day the best piano performance I've seen involved a baby grand piano, a trebuchet, and a couple hundred pounds of pyrotechnics.
That said, now at age 30, I really wish I'd had some kind o
Re:Question (Score:1)
The secret, I think, is:
Get an instructor who is use to non-traditional students (i.e. doesn't just start you in book one of Suzuki). Then, focus on what is important to you. I wanted to cre
Re:Question (Score:2)
To be h
Re:Question (Score:2)
Not listening to many bad e-guitar players, huh?
* Many modern guitars have "fast" necks, with frets that are so high that your fingers don't touch the fretboard unless you press hard, kinda like a sitar. Makes it easier to bend and supposedly faster. If you press hard, you'll be out of tune, and it's really easy to do that if you're pl
Re:Question (Score:1)
I've long wanted to take up a new instrument that really interested me, and finally decided that I wasn't getting any younger, so I may as well just do it. Go for it!
Re:Question (Score:2)
As for the violin, it's probably too hard. But maybe you could play a fiddle.
Re:Question (Score:2)
Re:Question (Score:2)
Active folk musicians will be any age (from 8 to 80!). Many/most folk musicians play several instruments, so they'll usually be actively learning one. This means that if you can find yourself a group of people learning to play folk tunes, there are always going to be people in the group who are a bit more advanced and people who are beginners. Similarly, if you can find a teacher who plays folk then he/she will be used to teaching adults.
There's a good range of tunes too. Studi
TuneLab (Score:1)
Do you understand tempered tuning? (Score:2)
On a piano or fretted string instrument notes like C sharp and D flat are the same frequency. On a violin you may well find that a C sharp is a few cycles per second higher than a D flat. Unless you're trying to play along with a piano or a fretted instrument, in which case you may need to "cheat" on your fingering.
Even if yo
Re:Do you understand tempered tuning? (Score:2)
It's actually very hard (I suppose for a piano tuner who does it every day, it's instinctive) to tune a piano by ear - the beats are quite subtle. Since I'm never going to tune it frequen
Paganini for Guitar! (Score:1)
For Linux:
[sort of offtopic]
If you play the electric guitar, you should try to find a recording of Paganini [wikipedia.org]'s 5th Caprice. It's kind of an etude for violin; I used Audacity to slow it down (it's all 16th no
Re:Paganini for Guitar! (Score:2)
They are cheap and incredibly versatile but dont sound anything like an actual amp. I often use the same setup as you and its pretty good for laying down demo tracks and stuff but you just can't beat having a real amp, the guitar becomes so much more responsive and that not even touching on the warmth of a tube amp.
Recently Ive ditched all my digital gear completely and now record using a sansamp preamp using VST for f/x and it gets me a much more "l
Re:Paganini for Guitar! (Score:2)
Re:Paganini for Guitar! (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRtxz6mwbPc&search
Impressive.
Don't use a computer (Score:1)
Guitarport (Score:2)
The problem with the e-guitar is that to get the sound you want for many rock styles, you need to crank up your amp. Effect boxes help, and may be fine for practice, but you never get that sound of a Marshall at 10.
Guitarport is a cheap little box with a DSP that is plugged into the USB port. The software lets you choose from a wide variety of preset digital models
Re:Guitarport (Score:2)
Re:Guitarport (Score:2)
Tuning Fork & a Teacher (Score:2)
As for learning to play an instrument like the violin, forget software. Find a violin teacher and get some lessons. It will be a much better use of your money because:
a) they know what they are doing and will adjust their
Re:Tuning Fork & a Teacher (Score:1)
I am not looking to escape practicing a lot, either. I just wanted to know if there was other software out there to help you make even more out of your regular practice.
From a teacher... (Score:2, Informative)
I give individual clarinet lessons to a large number of students and i am continually looking for new material and methods in order to give them the best and most interesting experiences.
If you go into a music store, you'll notice that there are a great deal of 'playalong' cds included with books at the moment - although playing with a cd isn't what i would call learning to be a musician.
Why?
I come across a lot of students who can't *read* music. When it comes down to it, learning to read music notati
Re:From a teacher... (Score:2)
Being able to read music notation is very useful - but (depending on what your goals are) I think too many people are taught to be human player pianos (s/piano/instrument-of-your-choice/). If your goal is to be able to make music, I think learning theory (i.e. what makes music sound like it sounds) is much more important than being able to sight read. I can only speak for the piano - but I found the emphasis on sight reading and s
A great tuner (Score:1)
Re:A great tuner (Score:2)
Im damn sure I wouldnt be able to lose a rackmount
Computer + Instrument advice (Score:1)
As a professional multi-instrumentalist with 17 years experience and having completed a masters in a topic relating to computer music (intelligent music performance systems), here are a few basic things I've found helpful on the computer side:
Avoid Magix Piano and Keyboard Workshop (Score:2)
For tuning ANY stringed instrument...... (Score:2)
Basic composition tools (Score:3, Informative)
I've been a amateur drummer for 25 years, and have tried a few software packages, but here are the ones I actually find useful.
Under Windows, for overdubbing wav and midi I mostly use Cakewalk [cakewalk.com] (warning: link contains annoying self-playing music). I use the cheaper Home Studio. They have a real product differentiation problem as Sonar is the expensive product, and then they market or bundle cheaper versions that may cover your needs just fine (its hard to tell from the product descriptions which features are grayed out). I use Cakewalk because the Windows drivers can be used in a very low-latency mode, and I always have a Windows laptop kicking around. I have not liked the scoring side of Cakewalk.
Also under Windows, I have used Sibelius [sibelius.com] (version 3 and 4). It is a phenominal scoring program that produces great looking sheet music. This is the only thing I do with a PC that I think is really better than without the PC. If you score with a program that plays back what you've written via midi, you can correct many mistakes on the fly. Sibelius is unfortuately still phenominally expensive for my uses, and I've never purchased it (nor has anyone I know).
Under linux, the equivalent of Cakewalk is Rosegarden [rosegardenmusic.com]. It is very impressive at the moment. Building it is a royal pain for me. It doesn't use your standard autotools driven make, it uses Scons [scons.org] (not in my distribution). Scons requires a Python module that's not available in the stable version of Python. Hey, people writing free software can use whatever they want, its just a shame some people won't try their product because of the barrier to entry. I've had latency issues with Rosegarden + JACK [sourceforge.net] which I think can be sorted out but I have to decide if I want to run the tools as root or pull in the whole SELinux overhead + realtime module (no different than Cakewalk in Windows -- it does not work well as non-admin). Rosegarden's scoring is coming along but not quite there for me.
For scoring under Linux, I'm using Lilypond [lilypond.org]. Lilypond is phenominal, but many won't like it because its markup-based (like writing Latex). You have to go through the compile cycle to view what you've written, and dump midi to hear it. Fortunately for me, rythym section music is very repetitive. The quality of printed music it can produce is unmatched. I'm sure more programs will start using Lilypond as a processing back-end.
for guitar... (Score:1)
More software suggestions (Score:2)
n-Track is a great alternative to the home recording software big boys (Cubase, Sonar, etc.)--much cheaper than the full versions and much more powerful than the "lite" versions. You'll be doing some pretty fancy stuff before you run into limitations with n-Track.
I haven't really kept up with the world of composition software, but back when I was interested in
From a 13 year violin player (Score:2)
2: a metronome. It's cheap (somewhere around $5 or $10) and lets you adjust the tempo as you need it.
3: time. You've gotta practice over and over and over and over again. There's no two ways around it.
Speaking as a violin teacher... (Score:2)
If you don't have a teacher, get one. Take a portable cassette recorder with you to your lessons, and record them for playback during the week. Develop good practice habits: 30 minutes/day consistently is better than 8 hours on Saturdays.
For computer stuff, the only thing I use is a collection o
Learning to sing in tune (Score:2)
Software for musical practice (Score:2)
A440 source + your ear (Score:2)
2. Tune your A string to that note.
3. Bow across the A and D strings. Tune the D string until it is a perfect 4th.
4. Do the same across the D and G string, then the A and E string.
No softwar
Re:A440 source + your ear (Score:2)
Re:A440 source + your ear (Score:2)
Make sure it can sit on your stand (Score:2)
All of the posts pushing you toward a tuning fork are fine as far as they go, but the visual feedback you receive while working on the bridge end of the fingerboard is valuable.
Also, I play in a couple of ensembles, one of which tunes to A=442 instead of A=440, so when working thos
I use... (Score:2)