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Sounds like an interesting idea but honestly I have no idea how many people will use the game.
Congrats on launching!
Limiting this to work only with folks who have MIDI keyboards attached to their machines probably cuts your audience down by 99.9999%. Especially here on hacker news.
I think you’re going to find it tough going to get any real feedback with that requirement. You might find better luck launching in a community of folks who are more likely to meet your hardware requirements.
Thanks for you feedback. It is really valuable for me. Actually, my main idea when I started this project was helping to remember the chords and common progressions on a real keyboard. Like making a muscle memory, so personally prefer to keep it for MIDI devices, but helping users there to find a virtual MIDI device could be also a good idea.
This was kinda cool once I got it working! It reminds me of the terminal learn to type games.
I made an app to help learn chords and keys too: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bloopkeys/id6689494178
Mine doesn't require MIDI (although it supports MIDI out as an option), but I can see why you went with that for yours.
Some notes/thoughts: 1. It didn't work on my iPhone (either with Firefox or Safari). 2. A helpful sentence or two would be useful. For example, it wasn't obvious that what you were looking for was midi in and not midi out. 3. Ignore the folks on here talking about monetization (it won't compete with something like Melodics). You made a fun little thing and that's great.
Thank you very much for your suggestions. I made a small update and added a guidance to help users for now and hopefully will share the new version.
nice game! I think it would be better from an education standpoint if the roman numerals were at the bottom of the circle and you didn't include the spelling of the chords. I like that you added 3 lives to make it more challenging and fun.
Here is my game that I am starting to work on. It is meant to teach the concept of harmonic movement - movement by second third or 4th. https://editor.p5js.org/briancameronvoll/full/sCR6630hj It is in very early stages. I have only started learning to code a couple months ago! let me know what you think, I am still trying to think of simple ways to make it more fun.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will try to apply what you mentioned the roman numerals and the chord names in next version
Neat project. I’ve been using SimplyPiano on iPad for about a year and it’s great for learning sight reading, scales, and chords. I recommend it for anyone seeking to improve their piano skills as well as devs building similar apps.
Thank you very much. My goal with this game is to not only teach individual chords but also to delve into basic practical harmony, chord resolutions, and common progressions. This comprehensive approach is designed to support those interested in performing famous pieces, providing accompaniment, and even creating their own compositions.
Replying to myself:
I got it working by plugging my Yamaha P-515 MacBook Pro into my computer. The ergonomics of playing the piano while viewing on a laptop were awkward.
As to the game, well, it doesn’t do much yet. Just prompting me to play some chords. But it’s a start.
Congrats on launching, and good luck with the next steps.
Thank you for your feedback. It will be very valuable to me. Can I ask what browser you are using on your iPad? I guess Chrome will solve your problem on your iPad. I will try to look into it.
As you mentioned, this is a first step and the main goal is to help build muscle memory for common progressions. And also how chords solve into each other, not just learning the chords themselves.
With the great feedback I got here, I am planning to improve it so that more people can enjoy it.
Feel free to join the mailing list to get the updates.
Nice! This reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32023881
Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen it before. I guess it focuses more on teaching scales and chords, and the main difference this game has is teaching how to put chords after each other and also common progressions.
No drop down options exist for MIDI keyboard?
I've improved the in-game messages a bit to guide you. As mentioned before, you'll need a MIDI device (or a phone or tablet as a virtual MIDI device) connected to your computer, and a modern browser with MIDI access on your computer. I've tested it on Chrome for now.
I built SonicStandard because my music recommendations started to feel weirdly “same-y.” Great production, polished playlists… but fewer surprises. And I was tired of those fully AI generated musics which all sounds like each other. And I kept running into great releases only because a friend happened to DM me a link. So once a week we publish a short “issue” of hand‑picked tracks across genres, languages, and scenes. The goal is simple: a small set of picks that feel intentional, with just enough context to tell you why it’s there.
A few details, since this is HN:
It’s free to browse you can explore the weekly issues directly on the site.
There’s an optional weekly email if you want the issue link delivered.
I’m not anti‑AI: I even in this project used AI to score new releases how those are AI generated! but the final selection is human listening + judgement.
I’d love feedback on:
whether the site makes it easy to explore each issue
anything you’d change to make it a thing you’d actually come back to weekly
Site: https://sonicstandard.com
I’ll stick around in the comments and answer everything (including the curation process).