Remember Simon? The circular 70's light and tone toy for memorization skills and motor coordination? It had this one setting where you could just whack at the damn thing and make groovy little songs- with a four note scale. Why not use the same technology to teach guitar or piano. Let's take the guitar example... a long thin plastic membrane that slips in under the strings along the neck. Each fret location along each string has a small LED which lights up in sequence to some pre-programmed song. The LED lights up and you pluck the note. Song's could be downloaded off the internet- a record feature would let you send tunes to your friends- and best of all, the bridge between the visually artistic and the musically artistic would be gapped. A larger plastic membrane could be layed over piano keys, don't know about kazoo technology, though. What this thing really needs is a better name... will be happy to edit it in and share credit.
-- ASLAN, Dec 12 2002

Hit Melody http://www.halfbake...m/idea/Hit_20Melody
A leettle like thees? Maybe a better title but still no votes. [FarmerJohn, Oct 21 2004]

http://www.guitarherogame.com/ And if you saw *this* game coming, play your best powerchord now! [jutta, Mar 02 2007]

PianoLed https://pianoledsho...20to%20be%20played.
LED lead piano lessons [pashute, Aug 22 2024]

This would be more like playing whack-a-mole than playing music.
-- bristolz, Dec 12 2002


[bristolz] and the problem here is...? Actually, I've noticed that if you find the rhythm you can whack the moles like nobody's business and rack up those tickets. However- it would merely be used as a fingering tool for rote memorization- which, with a good ear can lead to new creations.
-- ASLAN, Dec 13 2002


There was a mamma mole, a papa mole, and a baby mole.
They lived in a hole outside of a farm house out in the country. The papa mole reached his head out of the hole and said, "Mmmmm, I smell sausage." The mama mole reached her head outside of the hole and said "Mmmmmm, I smell pancakes." The baby mole tried to reach his head outside the hole but couldn't because of the two bigger moles. The baby mole said, "The only thing I can smell is molasses."
-- thumbwax, Dec 13 2002


I don't think the approach teaches anything about music but, hey, I'm no expert.
-- bristolz, Dec 13 2002


[RT]: perhaps but only in the same sense that sheet music can and not nearly as well. With sheet music you can see what's coming and get a sense of the overall shape of the music. Not so with the whack-a-mole approach.
-- bristolz, Dec 13 2002


Muscle memory is key to rote playing- but it can also teach you the basic chords and scales, which can then be used, creativly, to make your own music. A device such as this cannot teach creativity, per se, but it can teach familiarity with tried-and-true repetitive practice routines. As for fingering, perhaps different colors for different fingers? But what about that record feature- now that would be cool...
-- ASLAN, Dec 14 2002


[bristolz], we miss you.

And [ASLAN], I love it. As a guy who only knows a dozen chords and his grasp of music theory is weak on the best day, I've fantasized about this. It could be a good muscle memory training tool.
-- normzone, Aug 23 2024



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