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?"

Comments

Firefox

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Who uses their computer to learn a musical instrument?

Get Firefox, and use it to order scores and a real metronome---and to find yourself a real music instructor---online.

Re:Neither of the above.

[JabberWokky]

Anybody over about 30 and many people over 20 who are learning their first instrument have to learn some pretty darn fundamental things. They aren't going to be able to get a groove or jam when they can't even keep a basic 4/4 beat. I've known plenty of people who couldn't separate out a Beatles bassline or find and keep the beat on a folk song. People who learned when they were kids or in their 20s have no problem whatsoever and can't understand that others just can't hear the fundamental basics of music. I grew up with a guitar playing father and learned the circle of fifths with my ABCs, but I recognize that many people who didn't have an interest in music early in their lives simply can't pick out individual instruments or the basic beat from even simple songs, or even tell a single note from harmony or a chord from a note.

We're not talking about a teenager learning guitar... this is a older person learning to play, quite possibly for the first time in their lives. If so, they've been ignoring the basic things about music since Lyndon B. Johnson was president and Woodstock was just a bird in a comic strip. There's no problem with that, but things that "cradle you" are often needed just to relearn and slowly internalize what a teenager or child can pick up very quickly right from music.

--
Evan

Re:Neither of the above.

[jafac]

Learn to hear intervals, not notes; and learn to tune by fifths.

You're asking too much from most people, who may or may not be moderately musically inclined, but frankly, just plain can't hear that shit. (hell, at my age, I'm lucky I hear anything higher than 10,000 Hz anymore).

Ironic that you cite "folk music". What you call "folk music" plainly has it's origins and style in actual folk music, taken over by virtuosos.

Nothing wrong with virtuosos, mind you.

But not everyone can be one.
Most people don't even have the ability to appreciate one when they hear it.