Startup Idea: Musician Aid: A Sight-Reading Tool
I work as a developer myself, but I also work part time as a musician. I've recently had this idea for software that I'd almost consider trying to pull off myself; but I'll probably never have the time and I'd gladly share it just to see it happen and would certainly pay for it if it existed. The idea relates to my part time work as a musician.
It's a tool, an app that would be tablet based, to assist with sight-reading music (as well as being generally educational for music students.) If you're unaware, sight reading is the act of reading and performing a piece of music you're totally unfamiliar with, have never heard, and are playing the very first time you're ever seeing it. This is extremely difficult even for really good musicians. It's often necessary for certain types of professional work - playing in pit orchestras for musicals or theater, doing studio work for musicians, substituting and sitting in on gigs - you're handed a piece of music and expected to perform it on the spot. But it's also a very useful learning tool in general and something any serious music student practices.
When sight-reading, you usually have a short time to look over the music. A good sight reader knows there's certain pit-falls to look for; notes that are flat or sharp (called accidentals) that may come up as a surprise in spots. Changes in tempos or keys. Sometimes you have to count long periods of rest where you're not playing - and its easy to lose your spot when you're not familiar with the music. Sometimes just turning pages for longer pieces of music requires planning - music isn't always printed in a way thats friendly to page-turning, and there might be a difficult passage right at the end of the page and it can be next to impossible to reach away from your instrument to turn the page in time. (So often we scribble in the next few measures on the next page on the page prior, or plan to shift pages around on the stand when there's a break in the music, etc.)
For strings players (I play the upright bass in particular) it's important to have a plan as to what fingers to use to play which notes, which string to play them on, when you're going to shift your hand to different positions, etc - called your fingering. You make these choices to put your hand in a good position to reach not only the notes you need right now, but to be prepared for the notes that are coming next - this is very hard when you're unfamiliar with a piece and don't know what's coming next! There's also bow patterns - knowing when to switch directions whether you're bowing up or down - depending on the articulation, length of notes, et cetera.
My idea for an app to help this would solve these problems by doing a few things:
- First, it would scroll the music for you - no more page turning. This might require the conductor themselves to also have a tablet or device, to hit "start" and the whole orchestra could be synchronized so everyone's page is scrolling at the same time.
- While it's scrolling, the current measure of music could be subtly highlighted - you'll never lose your place.
- A visual metronome can be placed on screen that flashes or pulse to help you count.
- Things like accidentals can all be marked in for you; normally when sight reading you go through a score and fill these marks in with a pencil - why not have the software mark them so it's crystal clear? Certain flats & sharps are implied by a score and not explicitly marked, but it's easy to miss when you're not familiar with a song (or easy to forget even when you are familiar.)
- When it comes to fingerings - this is probably the killer feature that no other software has - and would have tremendous uses as a teaching tool even outside the realm of sight-reading. An algorithm can figure out the most efficient fingering patterns for the music at hand, and notate it on the music. (String players do this manually now, marking notes with a '1, 2, 3, 4' to remind themselves which finger to use for which note.) The algorithm can automatically figure out which fingers would be best and require the least amount of movement around the instrument and notate it on the score.
- The same for bowing patterns; there are symbols we mark on scores to remind us when to change directions with the bow. An algorithm can also figure out based on the length of notes, the articulation, and the tempo of the piece, the most efficient way to bow back and forth and note it right on the music.
- Ideally it'd support scores in a few different formats, like standard MIDI files, or from apps like MuseScore (an open-source scoring software.)
- It should also have a zoom feature. I have poor eyesight and it can be really hard to see sheet music in smaller print!
There are apps that do most of these things, but not all of them combined. The idea of an automatically scrolling score that a conductor can control, synchronized for an orchestra or band does exist (I don't recall the name.) But last I checked it was just a very basic way to display and distribute the music using tablets instead of paper.
The algorithm for figuring out fingerings & bowing technique doesn't exist anywhere, and would be an incredible achievement and useful tool. It would make sight reading much easier, and for any student - not even professional players - it would get right down to suggesting the best possible way to play a piece. (And there IS a best way; it takes some mental effort and trial and error to discover it - but it could totally be solved algorithmically.) This could not only aid sight-reading, but could tremendously improve player's technique and reduce the difficulty in learning difficult pieces. It would actually not be very hard to program; the difficulty is perhaps in knowing the intricacies of different string instruments to figure it out. That's where I thought about it; I'm in a unique position where I'm pretty good with both. But I could see any developer being able to pull this off with a little bit of consultation and advice from accomplished players. I have searched out the fingering algorithm idea. It looks like it's been researched, and has even had papers published about it, and in most cases I've found, it's with respect to playing piano or guitar. I haven't found anything that actually implements it. Nor does it appear any patents exist (like I mentioned, I've lightly considered taking a crack at this myself - so I did look a little - but it's probably not something I can get to any time soon.).
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