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F(OS)S for Learning a Musical Instrument ?
Anonymous Musician asks: "Recently I took up learning to play the violin (at age 37) and it is great fun. I found two little software tools to be of good help: Wired Metronome (Windows binary, free to download) to keep a steady beat, and TS-AudioToMIDI (Windows binary, shareware, 30 days free trial), using a microphone and built-in sound-card to detect in real time the note I am playing (I admit, sometimes it is more like a noise) and have it displayed on a piano keyboard to check and train my tuning.
What tools, freeware or FOSS, are you using to assist you with learning to play an instrument?"
The guitune project seems to do everything your second program does. Linux only at the mo' (but in gtk or qt flavours)
There's loads of metronome free software around too.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
A lot of drummers use an earpiece with a simple click track to keep time... Complaints that it destroys a drummer's "groove" are fairly common, but on the other hand it does help pull you into a rigid tempo - use it as an aid, not a crutch.
ignore the name...
it's a crossplatform java program that funtions almost as Guitar Pro. It can read and write several available formats so there's plenty of stuff out there to load up and examine/play back. I use it to examine the Bass score for pieces. It does Tab input and conventional music notation (conveniently on the same window) and there a fretboard display as well which shows you where to stick your finger (unfortunately it don't show you which one is best though)
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I use a Boss DB-12 electronic metronome, it's got tons of features and is still really easy to use. It has a line out that I plug my Vic Firth drummer isolation phones into and that works much better than any mp3 type of system you could cook up, since you can change tempo, time signature, and accents. It works great with the isolation phones; both the drums and the metronome are clearly audible. You could also easily do the same thing with the Wired Metronome that is mentioned in the post.
OLGA has been shut down by the RIAA... however, their archive is out there in torrent form and also on foreign sites which don't care about the RIAA...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Once I discovered Tuxguitar, I dropped kguitar and dguitar...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Using drum patterns from Hydrogen is indeed useful and I use them along with dubbed recordings using Ardour which allows the usual multi-track recording, editing, etc. A requirement is the brilliant jackd audio connection kit which allows a crazy level of audio processing and manipulation. All in all, I have no need for anything other than linux when recording/dubbing music.
Warhammer forums
You're not the (only) time keeper, just the most audible producer of timing queues. The latter is what makes your time keeping skill less of an issue than your ability to read other players timing since you stick out like a sore thumb if you flam with them. If you play in a group you feed off each other to keep the time, constantly adjusting to each other. If you are the only one sticking rigidly to the beat when the others drifted a bit, you will (quite rightly) get flack for it.
That said, for time keeping practice, nothing beats a metronome. Get an electronic one that flashes and tape it in front of you if you feel fancy, otherwise but the mechanical one level on your bassdrum. Or create an mp3 with just a beat on it... the point is that it Does Not Change - if you get out of sync with it its your fault. I wouldn't recommend playing along with recorded (non-electronic) music for this as it is a lot harder in comparison; you do not get the group vibe (hard to explain) that would let you adjust to their minute changes in their timing.
As a violinist, I'd not use either of these programs. The metronome one is handy, but why fire up a PC when a cheap bit of hardware is just as good and a lot more portable?
Tuning software/gadets I'm against. I've known lots of people that learnt with them and I think they harm not help. You need to get used to *really* listening to what you are doing. Looking at notes on a screen actively hinders this IMO.
DansTuner - Tells you if you are playing a pitch in tune
GNU Solfege - Eartraining program for GNOME
Gtick - Digital metronome
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
Nice, the comments provide tools I didn't know before :-) Here's another one:
http://www.musictheory.net/
It's a free bunch of good flash-based music trainers (downloadable for offline use).
Animoog.org
Well, OLGA is/was great for learning guitar, it's many tutorials and tabs help quite a bit.
Of course there is also educational software for instruments as well, though I've never used any.
Audio editors are GREAT for learning to play, cut the tempo in half and retain the pitch to get those fast licks nailed and refine your technique. Record your playing and listen to what you thought were tiny mistakes become glaring errors.
-= I can't think of anything witty, creative, or insightful for my sig, so deal with this. =-
Actually it was shut down by the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA).
There have been some decent suggestions for metronome and tuning programs, but really, nothing can beat just dropping $30 or so on a combination tuner/metronome. Most have plugs for earpieces, so you can easily overcome the "drowning it out" problem, and should be available at your local music store.
Also, as a clarinetist, I can tell you that it's easy to develop bad habits early on, which will be difficult to overcome later. With any musical instrument, bad habits can lead from poor technique at best to debilitating injury, but violin (and viola) are particularly prone to this. While I've never played a string instrument for any length of time, many of my friends who are string players have told me that the first two or three lessons for beginners can be devoted to just _learning to hold the instrument_. Sometimes, the bow doesn't even come into play for weeks after that.
For this reason, I would say that the most important thing you can do as a beginning violinist is to find yourself a teacher who can show you the basic technical aspects of playing. Even if money is tight, it's worth taking just a few lessons to save yourself a lot of mental (and likely physical) anguish down the road. And of course, if money isn't really an issue, then you'll benefit from continuing lessons. There's no substitute for having a master standing over you and helping with individual issues. Many teachers love to take on adult students, so it shouldn't be hard to find someone in your area willing to teach you.
That all being said, welcome to the music world! The violin is one of the most challenging instruments to learn, but it's also one of the most versatile and widely used throughout the world. The rewards you'll reap from the experience will be well worth the investment of time and energy.
Yeah, seriously eh? Take note, people, you do not know just how much free software exists if you've only seen the stuff that runs on Windows. This from someone who only switched about a year ago.
Don't assume that just because you can't find a good FOSS app running on Windows that the type of app you're looking for doesn't exist, there's a lot of free stuff that only runs on *nix.