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

Neither of the above.

[fatrat]

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.

Re:Neither of the above.

[kfg]

Tuning software/gadets I'm against. I've known lots of people that learnt with them and I think they harm not help.

Tuners are going to be the death of string playing, particularly with regards to traditional and baroque music.

I've started to see electric fiddles with frets on them. People, there's a bloody damned good reason that violins don't have frets on them in the first place; and it isn't just to annoy you.

It's so you can play the right pitch, whatever that pitch is; and it often isn't the one that the tuner tells you it is.

Learn to hear intervals, not notes; and learn to tune by fifths. Then go out and get yourself a shitload of the oldest recordings of solo Irish and Old Time fiddle music you can find and learn to hear the microtones.

This may rankle at first, but that's only because your ear has already been corrupted by the tuner/equal tempered piano. There's a whole lot more, even in western music, than the over rigidly defined 12 notes of the equal tempered chromatic scale.

Like consonant intervals that are actually consonant and not merely almost consonant. When I've been playing solo violin for a few hours and then move to piano the piano actally hurts my musical ear. It takes some time to be able to not hear it as slightly out of tune.

This doesn't, of course, mean that you shouldn't learn to play along with a piano and match its musical tones, but you should be aware of the fact that when you do so you are making a compromise with the music.

And the best way to learn to play along with a piano is to play along with a piano, not using a tuner. In fact you should learn to play along with several different pianos, as in practice they'll actually all be in slightly different states of tune and you should be able to hear that and adjust for it.

Music is sound and thus about hearing.

KFG

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

MusicTheory.net

[Lord Satri]

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).

Technical skills...

[Analog Penguin]

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.