But…what about learning to read sheet music?

What about it?

Boo fucking hoo, technology is making music more accessible and removing the barriers associated with sheet music. Fire is scary and Thomas Edison was a witch.

Yes, I said barriers.

Not everyone is great at reading sheet music. I started playing piano when I was four and I still absolutely SUCK at sheet music. It’s just never clicked for me. I can identify notes, given enough time, but it takes me forever to learn a new piece, I often have to literally mark what a note is, and sight-reading is incredibly far beyond me. If I had access to this, maybe I would still be playing piano instead of just letting it gather dust in the spare room. Maybe I would still be improving my skills. Heck, maybe I could use it as a tool to IMPROVE MY SHEET MUSIC READING.

Think of how accessible this makes piano music to the sight-impaired. How much easier it is to see those colored bars and lit keys than the little dots on little lines on a page.

Stairs didn’t go out of style because we invented escalators. Books didn’t go out of style because Kindles are a thing. Sheet music isn’t going to just up and vanish because there’s a new alternative on the block. You can keep playing from sheet music if that’s your thing, and people will keep learning from it.

But I can see this being fantastic for people who sheet music just really isn’t their thing, because of accessibility or other reasons.

really, sheet music was just an efficient way to transcribe music on to paper that didn’t take up too much space and could more or less be explained to the masses.

that said though, its HARDLY intuitive, mostly in relation to things like the variances in clefs and key markings and how easily all that can be mixed up or straight up forgotten.

really, its just a written scheme used to communicate a traditionally aural language for the purpose of reproduction and archival. sheet music doesn’t make you better at concepts like chord theory or counterpoint or anything like that. those are still ideas and concepts that have to be taught by example of function and effect.

so yeah, i’m all for a different mode of delivering musical instruction. especially if it helps those who have difficulty reading or understanding a currently existing method. 

as a music teacher, this makes me really excited! i have so many students who have trouble reading music, and while i personally believe it to be imperative to learning to sing or play piano, this would make it so incredibly accessible to students who have a harder time reading sheet music.

my one concern would be how this would help students learn new songs that haven’t been transferred to the new method, whereas with learning how to read sheet music you can pick up a new song and learn it over time, but that’s probably the “traditional” teacher in me.

i would definitely love to try this!