Help Wanted - a Piano keyboard note name cut out

[Louis B.]

Hi all,

Does any body fancy drawing a piano note name cut out like the one my daughter made in this photo below. This can really help beginners who want to learn to read music and it works especially well now I have included the note names in the next release. I would like to include it with the next release.

I recommend drawing it using Inkscape (free available for windows + Linux).



Louis

[trevh]

As an extension to this, the ancient and now defunct software and hardware package called "Miracle Piano Tutor" (does  anyone here remember it?) had FINGER NUMBERS appearing on the staves. I found these to be enormously helpful in forming the neural pathways needed to auto associate the printed staves with both note locations on the keyboard AND fingers to use. So much so that I earned a "High Distinction"( >80%) for "Music 221 Piano 1", a second year university course in 1996 as a mature age student.

When first  sold (in the early 90's), it came with a keyboard which had an rs-232 - like serial interface instead of midi and the software ran under MS-Dos! Towards the end it worked with Windows and any midi keyboard, which is the one that I still have and occasionally use. Sadly, it wasn't open source so when those who built it went on to other things, development and even sales of the system stopped.

Hopefully, Piano booster can grow to fulfil the potential that this early package was not able to deliver. Certainly it did not have the active community forum around it and so was not able to tap in to collaborative development resources.

[CarlM]

Hi Louis,

I just finished the first version of a piano note name cut in Inkscape.



Carl

[CarlM]

notes.svg v1.0

notes.svg

Carl

[Louis B.]

Thanks L. (just a v. quick post for now)

[Louis B.]

Thanks for doing the piano keyboard note name labels, I think I would like it to distribute as a pdf with the piano booster 0.6.4 release.

I have a few changes, perhaps it should be on two pages and then we could write instructions on the sheet. Something like:

This sheet can be used with Piano Booster to label the names of each note on your piano keyboard.
Piano Booster is available from etc

Instructions

1. Print out these two pages.
2. Stick the two pages together with clear tape.
3. Cut along the dotted line.
4. Place on your Piano Keyboard.
5. Startup piano booster with show note names turned on.
6. Start playing the music.


I also think it should have two stave's that run right across the two pages with a treble and base clef so that it looks more like standard piano music. The svg clefs can be got from wikipeadia, they have the creative media license.

Please confirm that you are giving this the creative media license.

That would be brilliant

Thanks

Louis

[CarlM]

I confirm giving notes.svg the creative media license.

Carl

[jesselks]

Took a stab at adding clefs (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bass_and_Treble_clef.svg and notes.svg), but I got inconsistent results with borders.
notes_staff_20100405.pdf
notes_staff_20100405.svg

Ubuntu 10.04 (beta) printed differently than 9.10. And inkscape printed differently than PDF viewer. I was hoping the PDF would provide a consistent size/border across all platforms (i.e. mac/win/linux). Any ideas on how to do that?

Also, what do people think about the staff? I wasn't sure if I should make things bigger or smaller. Trade off between easy to see and paper flopping around on the keyboard.

I'll try re-formating again in a few days if no ideas turn up before then.

Jesse

[jesselks]

Added a cut-line and terse instructions. Not sure what to call this, so the title is a bit wordy.
notes_staff_instr_20100405.svg

Also, what license or URL in include? I assumed Attribution and Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA).

Jesse

[Louis B.]

Great thanks for that. We should try cutting that out and sticking the
two pieces together and putting it on the piano to see how it works out.
Do you think it needs a dotted lines to show were to cut?. should the
result be to be a single long sheet or should it be folded in two along
the top (in which case you need to make space for the fold).

Regarding the size I believe pdf should be standard across all
platforms . You don't need to worry about printing from inkscape not
many people have Inkscape installed. Bare in mind there are two
different paper sizes. In the Europe we use A4 and in the US they use
Foolscap which is slightly longer I think.

Louis

On Sun, 2010-04-04 at 22:56 -0800, jesselks [via Piano Booster] wrote:

> Took a stab at adding clefs (from
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bass_and_Treble_clef.svg and
> notes.svg), but I got inconsistent results with borders.
> notes_staff_20100405.pdf
> notes_staff_20100405.svg
>
> Ubuntu 10.04 (beta) printed differently than 9.10. And inkscape
> printed differently than PDF viewer. I was hoping the PDF would
> provide a consistent size/border across all platforms (i.e.
> mac/win/linux). Any ideas on how to do that?
>
> Also, what do people think about the staff? I wasn't sure if I should
> make things bigger or smaller. Trade off between easy to see and paper
> flopping around on the keyboard.
>
> I'll try re-formating again in a few days if no ideas turn up before
> then.
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> View message @
> http://n2.nabble.com/Help-Wanted-a-Piano-keyboard-note-name-cut-out-tp4047214p4852460.html 
> To start a new topic under Piano Booster Users, email ml-node
> +[hidden email]
> To unsubscribe from Piano Booster Users, click here.
>

[Louis B.]

You forgot to include the one with the instructions.
Creative Commons Licence

L.

On Sun, 2010-04-04 at 23:40 -0800, jesselks [via Piano Booster] wrote:

> Added a cut-line and terse instructions. Not sure what to call this,
> so the title is a bit wordy.
> notes_staff_instr_20100405.svg
>
> Also, what license or URL in include? I assumed Attribution and
> Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA).
>
> Jesse
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> View message @
> http://n2.nabble.com/Help-Wanted-a-Piano-keyboard-note-name-cut-out-tp4047214p4852574.html 
> To start a new topic under Piano Booster Users, email ml-node
> +[hidden email]
> To unsubscribe from Piano Booster Users, click here.
>

[jesselks]

Oops, uploaded the same file twice. Here is a cutout with key labels in between the black keys and added an octave marker (to help me line it up).
pianobooster-note-chart-20100415.pdf
pianobooster-note-chart-20100415.svg

"Keep it between 7.5 by 10 inches," was the most concise advice I found after a brief search on how to print the same on both US Letter and A4 paper. In case anyone is trying to duplicate this process, I set the inkscape file to 900 by 675 pixels and rendered it (save-copy-as) in PDF at 90 pixels per inch. Also helpful: http://betweenborders.com/wordsmithing/a4-vs-us-letter/

First, What does everyone think? Some questions: Should we add color? Should we make a version with labels for the black keys? Should we finish the chart for 76/88 keys?

Second, if this looks good, can someone in A4-land test this on A4 paper and try it out on their keyboard/piano?

Jesse

[jesselks]

Added another strip to help me find some keys beyond the range of two strip version. pianobooster-note-chart-20100518.pdf
(source: pianobooster-note-chart-20100518.svg)

Going into lower octaves would require a second page to the pdf. Anyone think that would be helpful? My keyboard only has 61 keys, so I would need someone to help by testing it out.

Jesse