Working On Portfolio

Skills sketching
1

Hey guys, I’m getting my high school portfolio together and could use a bit of help. Aside from the traditional art work some schools want to see I’m doing some design work, which is so much more fun btw.

This is the first project I’m working on. The problem is that many pianists have trouble flipping pages when reading sheet music or are distracted by having to remove a hand from the keyboard for so long. Some people have learned to flip pages just fine but, I personally know many people who have been playing for years and still have trouble.

My idea is to have a LCD screen with a reflective back that allows it to be read without the backlight (I opted not to use e-ink because of the distracting way it refreshes the page and lack of color). The device would act much like a Kindle or Nook, except it would have a much larger screen, 15"-17". It would be able to display pdf, jpeg, doc, or any other files that can be used to display sheet music. The display would be touch screen to allow for scribbling any notes the musician might want. It would be wirelessly linked to a input device that would turn the pages onscreen.

I came up with a couple of ideas for input devices:

  • foot pedal - which turns out can’t be used because there are already three to deal with
    button placed next to the sheet music - still have to move your hand a long distance and the action is too similar to pressing the keys
    touch pad - this seems to be the best choice. can be attached anywhere the pianist desires with a non-destructive adhesive and is much easier to use.

Here are the pages i did the research and stuff on in my sketchbook. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas they would be very helpful. Thanks in advance! :smiley:

Sheet Music Page Turner.jpg
Sheet Music Page Turner.jpg1100×769 153 KB

2

Did you do any market research? A quick google will suffice. You should find what’s out there. What works, what doesn’t work.

Regarding your idea: I really doubt the majority of musicians would switch to a digital display of sheet music. For one, not that much sheet music is digitized. The whole infrastructure behind the device deserves some thought. Also, think about why they would want to buy another device. What will justify this purchase? Also, scribbling notes with your finger is really really really frustrating and inaccurate. Your finger is huge, and the notes on sheet music are fairly small.

It’d be good to get some user research in there, too. Ask your pianist friends about their playing habits, look at them when they flip the page. Run some concepts by them.

As a former pianist (like all Asians), I can say it’s not that hard to turn the page (it’s kind of annoying, but you get used to it), and an accepted solution for intense pieces is to have someone flip it for you in concerts. However, this is an interesting topic, and I’m looking forward to what you can come up with.

BTW e-ink is available in color, just way more expensive, and there’s not a lot of colored sheet music. A 15-17" LCD device will be fairly costly.

3

You should check out this site:

http://corporate.freehandmusic.com/

It says this about one of their products:

“About the size of a sheet of music, the MusicPad Pro Plus has a high resolution, low glare easy-to-read display. Its back-lit touch screen eliminates the need for external light in in low-light or no-light situations. And a quick touch on the screen or tap on the optional foot pedal will turn the page for you. Plus, the convenient video out feature makes it easy to project your notes and annotations so you can share materials with students or colleagues.”

I first saw these a few years ago at a Harry Connick, Jr. concert. Everything looked really smooth.

4

You should consider musical notation such as codas, repeats, multiple endings, etc. These elements might force you to turn more than one page at a time. What if you eliminate the turning of the pages all together? Possibly automatic scrolling based on the tempo? There might need to be a way for the software to recognize the aforementioned notations and display the appropriate parts (some sort of hyperlinking).

What is the scenario in which your page turner would be used? I think it would be different if you are practicing or performing in a concert. When performing you wouldn’t be stopping, while during practice you may need to play certain parts over and over again for mastery or memorization.

As far as the scribbling of notes goes. What if you could just modify the notation directly, with the ability to reset it? I find that when playing in the orchestra, I get sheet music with notes that either you can’t read, or don’t apply to the way in which the conductor wants the piece to be interpreted.

5

I was wondering about this when I was in that concert. I never once saw anyone make the movement to turn the page. Now, I had no way to see any sort of foot pedal though . . . Maybe they were changed by an off-stage conductor or technician

Here is a link to the patent that Harry Connick, Jr. holds :

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6348648.PN.&OS=PN/6348648&RS=PN/6348648

The abstract:

“A system and method for coordinated music composition and display among musicians is presented. The system and method enables a conductor, composer or band leader to interactively edit one or more score parts of a composition using a pen-based interface, mouse, alphanumeric keyboard, or a musical keyboard. Hand-written music editing, which is entered with the pen-based interface, may be flexibly converted to a digital music notation format. Connected to the composer station are one or more musician stations that may be arranged as an orchestra. The musical score parts may be selectively transmitted to one or more musician stations by the composer. Thus, an operator of the conductor station can flexibly write and edit music score parts and transmit the parts to musicians over the network. The system and method can also be used to conduct the orchestra in rehearsals or performances”

6

Going on what erikb81 was saying with it being able to recognize tempo, what if it could compare what your playing with the music on the sheet? Kinda of a guitar hero. I think there may be software being developed for guitars, but maybe there is room for expansion into other instruments.

7

To do what Ujay is saying you could start looking at how electronic tuner’s work. They can recognize the notes you are playing and if they are in tune. Another place to look would be electronic keyboards. Some have the teaching mode where they tell you which keys to press as they light up. These might be areas to start your research.

8

This was what I was talking about for the real guitar game: http://www.guitarrising.com/

9

Yeah I did. Found a couple of similar products out there, but they all use pedals, which isn’t possible for pianists who use both feet to play. The ones out there are designer for use with other instruments, and some don’t look like they can even be placed on a piano.

I watched a couple of people playing, both at home and at a performance. One of them, who has been playing forever, got a bit mixed up when she flipped the pages. The one at the performance had to turn the page which caused a noticeable difference in the music. But, I haven’t got a chance to watch a professional performance, so not sure how it affects the very experienced players.

I looked into that. I considered using tempo, the actual notes played, and just a simple timer. The timer would just be too hard to judge how long the correct time is. Using the notes played would be the best option, if all the music was digitized in a special format. It would require that the music be in a readable format with software to decipher the notes. So pdf, jpeg, or any other image-type files would not work, meaning you couldn’t just scan in your existing sheet music. There is software out there that can do this, but they’re not always accurate and that would cause the user to have to manually edit the files, something i doubt they would like.
Tempo would be the best out of them because it’s the easiest to implement. But it would still require you to know the tempo of the song. I’m not a musician so don’t know this, do most musicians know the tempo of the song they’re playing? Also, if there are multiple people playing at the same time, say in an orchestra, the tempo would not be accurate because of the other instruments.

The scenario would be mostly in schools, bands, or orchestras. This is mainly because of the higher price tag something like this would carry. It is also for personal use, which is why I don’t want something that depends on a proprietary sheet music format to read.
It would be used in performance and practice. It would have a practice mode where you can choose parts of the music and practice it.

That does sound annoying and definitely a good idea. I’m gonna add that in, have a way to edit notation directly, though it’ll be harder for image files. but i thing a simple eraser tool will do just fine.


So i did more research into other products like this already out there. There are one or two pretty good ones out there but, overall they interfaces are not very user friendly and none of them would work well for the piano because of their size. Pianos, being one of the most widely used instruments, need something like this.

A couple of features I would add after doing some more research are:

  • Simple, compact scanner for sheet music (to buy separately)
    Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to download music wirelessly and share with others
    Audio in/out to listen to and record your music
    A very easy to use library (the ones on existing products are usually a mess)

Btw, that guitar game looks really cool!

10

Oh, for those who play piano out there, how often do you use both feet when playing? And how long have you been playing or how good are you? Just need to get an idea of what kind of players use both foot pedals.

11

I’m not a musician so don’t know this, do most musicians know the tempo of the song they’re playing? Also, if there are multiple people playing at the same time, say in an orchestra, the tempo would not be accurate because of the other instruments.

The tempo is usually marked on the sheet music, either explicitly (ie. quarter note = 120bpm) or with a tempo marking ( ie. moderato, presto, andagio, etc.). In an orchestra setting, the conductor sets the tempo by marking it with their hand movements, all members of the orchestra regardless of their instrument follow the conductor and try to match the tempo he is marking.

There are certain file formats that include both audio, and the notes written on the stave (ie. midi, mus). There are also several XML schemas that tackle musical notation that you could look into, one of these is MusicXML.

I’m very interested in seeing what you come up with. :slight_smile:

12

Put a webcam in it and some software that can detect an intentional, unusual and easy facial gesture (wink). Orient it toward the player.

OR

Have you seen the iPhone app that can sample some music wherever you are, go online and analyse it and tell you what song it is? Maybe something like that can tell where you are in the music, despite tempo fluctuations, and turn the pages at the right time.

OR (similarly)

If the digital sheet music comes with (or is based on) a midi file, a small mic in the instrument could catch a signal that is converted to a midi note so your device is following what your doing. For a real piano and all the polyphony coming out, yeah, that would be challenging. For an e-piano it would be as easy as hooking up the midi out.

13

I looked through some of my brother’s music books. Some of the music does not have a specified tempo. Of the ones that do, it’s usually not numerical; there are words, like the ones you said. So, the user could input a numerical value for the tempo, but how can they input “andagio”? The words don’t really have a specific numerical value attached to them to use. And if you are following a conductor, the tempo based page turner would not work.

Webcam idea is really good, but I don’t think people would be comfortable doing it during a performance. Especially if they are being filmed. And I tried out midomi.com, one of those sites you were talking about. It works great for most songs, but usually for non-instrumental ones. Most of the instrumental music I played did not register, except the more popular ones like movie music.

I did a bunch of research on midi files to figure out how they work and what they are used for. Using midi files to determine page turns would be by far the best solution, except most sheet music does not have midi files accompanying it. Also if the piano, or any other instrument, is not digital it would be very hard to get accurate readings. I don’t think there is a broad enough user base who would use a midi file page turner to implement it in the design. Especially given that this is already a relatively small population.

I downloaded MusicReader: http://www.musicreader.net/
It seems to be the best digital sheet music product out there. It has a feature to convert and image file into it’s proprietary format, .mrs, but can also read pdfs. It has software that can recognize staffs and measures, but not notes. Although, it’s not always accurate on the staffs and measures. For the ones that it successfully recognizes, you can enter the desired tempo and start an automated page turning process, usually getting it correct. It has a music library, editing options like highlighting, writing notes, and even placing musical notes. The problem is that it has many features, but nothing really works well. The program is overall very buggy and freezes up often. It is built for use on tablet PCs, which have far less processing power than my laptop, so i wonder how it performs on those. And on top of that it’s not visually appealing.

I’m going to use MusicReader as a starting point, for features, and what not to do. I will have the tempo option to change pages, though it will not be an option for the sheet music without measures detected (to avoid confusion).

Though, because much sheet music doesn’t have a numerical tempo, the page turning will have to be done differently, for primary use. I’m still leaning towards the metal touch strip. Any ideas on that?

14

I looked through some of my brother’s music books. Some of the music does not have a specified tempo. Of the ones that do, it’s usually not numerical; there are words, like the ones you said. So, the user could input a numerical value for the tempo, but how can they input “andagio”? The words don’t really have a specific numerical value attached to them to use. And if you are following a conductor, the tempo based page turner would not work.

There are conventions as far as what the speeds are for each of the tempos. For example:

Adagio — slow and stately (literally, “at ease”) (66–76 bpm)
Moderato — moderately (101-110 bpm)

You could just take the middle value and use that as a standard bpm for that tempo. You should be able to find the values for most of these. Most modern metronomes will have a listing of the tempos and bpm range written on them or even programmed into them.

If you’re doing the motion detection cam, then you would only need to detect the conductor’s movements (down movements) to mark the beat and have all the readers for the orchestra follow that tempo. That would eliminate page turning all together.

15

That’s really helpful! I looked up some metronomes are most of them do have the conversions built in. But, the ones that I found only have the common tempos built in. Some of the ones I’ve found in this book, such as Allegretto and Valse, aren’t on the metronomes I’ve found. I’m guessing they should be on the more advanced metronomes, though.

Motion detection would be the best for a whole orchestra. I was watching some videos on youtube of conductors, not all of their movements are clearly defined. Some of them consistently have clear up/down movements, but others have points where they rotate their entire body while going down and wave their arms at odd angles. I’m sure there is software advanced enough to track this movement, but it won’t be cheap.

So, when you guys have design projects in school, how much do you consider cost? Do you try to design the best possible product or the most realistic? I think this distinction will decide where the design is headed.

16

Motion detection would be the best for a whole orchestra. I was watching some videos on youtube of conductors, not all of their movements are clearly defined. Some of them consistently have clear up/down movements, but others have points where they rotate their entire body while going down and wave their arms at odd angles. I’m sure there is software advanced enough to track this movement, but it won’t be cheap.

That’s pretty typical, but that only usually happens when the conductor has to queue players to start their part, or to play a certain way. You probably wouldn’t have to detect every single movement. Maybe just the beginning ones since the tempo is written on the sheet music. So then every time the tempo changes, the conductor will usually set the tempo again, and you would only need to read about 4 measures or so to get an idea of what the tempo needs to be.

As far as the cost goes, I’d say it’s pretty important. It will, however, depend on your target market. Look at what’s out there currently for sale, the cost, features, etc. And that should determine what the price point for your product should be. Unless of course you are creating a new category of product, but you still want to make sure you’re not designing something that can’t be produced because of the cost.