A. I'm trying to learn piano. In doing so, I've identified several weaknesses - skills I lack - and ordered them based on the order I feel they should be learned.
the first two, most-important skills (to me) are:
- upon being told a note, I should be able to quickly play that notes
- I should be able to quickly interpret sheet music
if I can do those two things, then I can play any simple tune by reading sheet music. GREAT. (later on, of course, I'll want to be able to play any TWO notes, or any THREE, but, you know, let's start with one :P)
I CAN do these things already, however I do them very slowly. ex: if you said "play me a C" - bam - I got that. easy. if you said "play me a G", however, that's a whole process in my brain which goes something like: "well, I know where C is - here it is. and some kind of internal heuristic tells me that it would be faster to get to G by going left; let's believe that that's true and just go with it. so: C... B... A... G-- FOUND IT!" <-- this is clearly SUBOPTIMAL.
A. RIGHT: so: this program is something I'm creating to help me develop those two skills given above.
in its current form, it kind of looks like a cross between sheet music and Rock Band, where notes go across the screen (as letters), and you have to play them on time using your plugged-in MIDI keyboard.
I'm undecided on whether or not this is a good approach. for example, I feel that I can "cheat" a little by seeing "the next note is higher two steps" and hit it that way, without worrying about the letter. on the other hand, that's exactly the sort of shortcuts you take early-on in Rock Band, and as you increase the difficulty in Rock Band, you learn better ways. on the other hand: how good of a model IS Rock Band??
A. oh, man! undoubtedly!
and I don't even want to look at them. not even a little bit.
THIS approach - figuring it out myself (even if that's slower); coming up with my own curriculum (even if I make more mistakes); writing my own software (even if it's already been done) - is WAY more interesting/fun to me :P