AudioTheory Piano Keys News

AudioTheory Piano Keys is launching in one week's time. I can't wait to share it with you, and ahead of this I'm excited to announce a set of piano exercises that will be included.

So yes, just to clarify, AudioTheory Piano Keys is still first and foremost a tool designed to help with your learning, rather than a set of instructional lessons. But it will also include the ear training exercises detailed below, which are new additions on top of the features already announced.

[h3]Higher or Lower[/h3]

It sounds so simple, but understanding music starts with understanding how sounds change in pitch relative to each other. Which one is higher (or lower)?



This is the most straight forward ear training exercise, but it's an essential skill worth mastering. You will be presented with two notes at random and must identify the relative difference between them.

[h3]Note Match[/h3]

Okay, so 'Higher or Lower' was an easy one for you. The next step towards musical mastery is to be able to identity specific notes from sound alone. The AudioTheory tools are perfect for honing this skill as you can use the main keyboard for reference, and work within a scale or custom range of notes.



You can make things (relatively) easy to start out with, say just the notes in the C major scale across one octave. Or you can extend this and try to identify any note across three octaves, if you're feeling brave.

[h3]Chord Match[/h3]

Hard mode. Although exactly how much of a challenge this will be is up to you, as the exercise can be played with any subsection of the piano chords library and any subsection of root notes. You can start with a basic combination such as major and minor chords and then extend this to include more chord types. Or set a fixed root note and focus on only differentiating between types.



This mode works best when you also plug in a MIDI device – this way you can try playing on device and attempting to match the mystery chord.

I hope these lessons will be of benefit for those wanting to train their ears and intuitively understand music from sound alone. Thanks for reading, and please look forward to the release of AudioTheory Piano Keys next week.

Fraser

I'm very excited to announce that AudioTheory Piano Keys will be arriving on the September 24th 2021. That makes right now the perfect time to add it to your Wishlist, as this way Steam will send you an email next month when it's available to purchase:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1513510/AudioTheory_Piano_Keys

Following on from AudioTheory Guitars, this new piece of software is designed to help you learn or improve at the piano with a set of interactive tools. These make it easy and intuitive to understand chords, scales, and how the music you're playing works.




[h3]AudioTheory Piano Keys features:[/h3]

• Real-time note highlighting. Connect any MIDI device (such as an electric keyboard or synth) and see the notes you're playing highlighted across a set of customisable diagrams.
  
  
• Built in sound effects mean you will also receive audio feedback if using a MIDI device that doesn't have a speaker (or using your computer's keyboard and mouse for input).
  
  
• Scale presets. Choose from an extensive library of scale presets and load this selection of notes onto the main piano view. Note highlighting is relative to the loaded scale, which makes it easy to see how sharps and flats work in their current context.
  
  
• An extensive library of chords. Load these into the main view to keep track of different chord positions and reference against your current input.
  
  
• The scale wheel. This is a circular diagram that visually shows how notes fit into scales. The root note is locked to the 12 o'clock position, allowing the focus to be on the relationship between the notes.
  
  
• Real-time scale highlighting. This is the second row of notes above the main piano. This lets you see how a note that's being played fits into two scales at the same time (e.g. both the main scale preset as well as its own major scale).
  

Thanks for reading and please look forward to the upcoming release of AudioTheory Piano Keys. See you then.

I'm excited to announce the upcoming launch of AudioTheory Piano Keys – an interactive toolkit designed to enrich your understanding of piano music theory.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]AudioTheory Guitars... but with a piano?[/h3]

I've been developing the AudioTheory software range for a couple of years now, and AudioTheory Piano Keys is a somewhat logical continuation of ideas I've been exploring in the currently available AudioTheory Guitars.

This application has an extensive library of interactive chords and providing the same thing for piano chords makes a lot of sense. However, with AudioTheory Guitars you've also got the fretboard component and other tools optimised for transposition. My goal has been to provide piano-specific tools along these lines, so AudioTheory Piano Keys will be launching with a couple of brand new innovative features designed for visually explaining how the music you're playing works.



[h3]The Scale Wheel[/h3]

The first of these is the Scale Wheel. This is a circular diagram that visually shows how notes fit into scales. This works by locking the root note of the scale to the 12 o'clock position allowing the focus to be on the relationship between the notes.

It's a really useful way to understand how all scales of the same type follow the same pattern. The root note meanwhile is interchangeable and can be adjusted by spinning the wheel around as desired.



[h3]Real-time scale highlighting[/h3]

The idea here is to show how a note that's played fits into two scales at the same time. And also in real time! This is one of the application's more advanced features, but once you've got your head around the concept, it's an extremely powerful tool for helping write new songs or playing captivating progressions when improvising.

This works by having a second row of notes above the main piano. You can load the song key to the main display and then this second row shows the scale for the note that is currently being pressed. By default this filters against both scales, essentially meaning that the second row is showing you the subsection of notes that are both in the main song key and also in the key of the current note being played.



Of course alongside this you have all the useful features for note highlighting, viewing and playing scales and customising the application view with preset options for different compositions. The store page for AudioTheory Piano Keys is now live which means now is the perfect time to add it to your wishlist:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1513510/AudioTheory_Piano_Keys

Currently there is no fixed released date as I'm still implementing the finishing touches, however I anticipate AudioTheory Piano Keys launching in approximately 3–6 months. Please look forward to this release!