Counts how many keys you’ve played. Breaks it down in kpm’s, and gives specifics on any desired key, octave, chord, scale, mode, volume, or anything else you can think of. You could probably write some fairly complex algorithms that analyze tendencies toward root notes*, interval usage**, etc. Oh that would be sweet. Somebody make it.

*for me, there will probably be a drop in keystrokes (on the average) around root notes because I tend to hold them for a longer period. The degree of the drop could be quantified.

**for me, likely heavy on the fifths and octaves, but to what degree? How often do I play more intricate chords? When I do, what other patterns coincide?

This idea seems to be entirely independent of rhythm, so far. In order to incorporate it, you would probably need to follow a metronome, which may get annoying. Suggestions welcome, unless you’re gonna suggest beatmapper wizards like on acid pro and the like, ‘cause they suck.
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 10 2004

I am not a piano player, but I must admit that I did think it was not how many keys you pressed in a minute, but how well you pressed them, that counts in music. Unless you're Sid Vicious, of course.
-- DrCurry, May 10 2004


DC, I whole-heartedly agree. This is for the Calculus of music, so to speak.
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 10 2004


Would there be a 4th pedal that would total up your cumulative kpm and display it?

And a 5th pedal for "memory"?

Both of these pedals should make clicking, whirring old-fashioned cash register sounds.
-- phundug, May 10 2004


...
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 10 2004


"Lets see ... 'M+' ... WTF?! - aww crap, this is worse than my TXInstruments Grapher!"
-- Letsbuildafort, May 10 2004


Why not just capture a midi file and dump it into a spreadsheet... that's really not too tough.
-- zigness, May 10 2004


A MIDI file must be something considerably different than I thought it was. <wanders off to cure a bit of ignorance>
-- half, May 11 2004


[zigness]: good idea. But it's still tough.
It's not like there's a "dump into spreadsheet that spits out all the shit I asked for" button.
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 11 2004


What is the point of this? Don't get it.

// How often do I play more intricate chords? //

Can't you tell by listening?
-- waugsqueke, May 11 2004


Waugs--are you kidding me? Why analyze x?
Hindsight is twenty-twenty. This is what the idea is all about, and frankly, I think whoever fishboned this did so because they don't understand it, which sucks.

//Can't you tell by listening?// I could say, "Oh, there's a third, and oh there's a seventh, another third." But it's not so easy to take a look at a snapshot of the whole thing. Music can be broken into formulas. Very, very complex formulas.
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 12 2004


ydyd, on the surface it might seem like this is difficult to do, but let's say that you've captured your playing into a midi file. You would need to write an extractor program to grab the midi channel events from the track chunks in the midi file. This can actually be done from within a VBA macro running in Excel.

Granted. It's not already there, but it's way more than possible. I'll try it this weekend and let you know.
-- zigness, May 12 2004


One more thought...

//This idea seems to be entirely independent of rhythm//

This is a dangerous idea in my opinion. Rhythm is key to music in general. The beginning to "Joy to the World" and the C Major scale (going down) are exactly the same -- except for rhythm.

When analyzing music it's the MOVEMENT between tones that matters the most. Not so much the tones themselves.

"Harmonic Rhythm" is as important as overall rhythm as well.
-- zigness, May 12 2004


You're right. I guess my biggest obstacle is "How can a program analysing rhythm account for spontaneous tempo changes?" That's why I suggested using a metronome. But I hate that, as I love the fermata. I'd use it frequently if I actually notated what I play. I wish I had some piano on the web to use for examples.
-- yabba do yabba dabba, May 12 2004


ydyd, spontaneous tempo changes and the fermata are just part of the deal... if you're analyzing something like music you have to include it all...

as an aside, I don't know how serious you are about trying to actually work through some of this stuff, but I'm sure I can help. I just think we'd have to continue this by email though.
-- zigness, May 12 2004


if I had something similar for my PC keyboard I'd know which keys were likely to wear out most often and could keep spares.... well, I could...
-- neilp, May 12 2004



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