2 Qs: Playing some sort of music notation file and forking this repo for a different KB layout

[philiprhoades]

People,

Has anyone ever done any work about enhancing this code so that it can read some sort of music file eg Lilipond or MIDI and play the music?

Also, I don't know much about JS but can someone comment on the possibility of forking this code and changing it so it would work with the attached layout?

Thanks,

Phil.

[vsicurella]

Hey Phil, I haven't yet contributed to this project but I'm very interested in it, because I'm actually working on some features for the official Lumatone app which this project was born out of.

I have C++ code that can generate layouts based on certain tuning parameters which can even be extended to auto-generate note names and such. It doesn't allow you to generate every possible isomorphic layout, however it can be used in conjunction with a manual mapping method (simply defining the step sizes) to make some sense out of it (grouping the intervals using colors).

Making it support playback might be a bigger project unless there's a solid JS MIDI library out there that implements reading MIDI files and such.

What I'm working on is based in JUCE, implying the code can be versatility used cross-platform and for different targets such as VST/AU plugin formats as well as standalone apps, and something like that would probably be easier to interact with Lilypond (perhaps even in realtime).

To directly answer your question, you can actually create this layout with the current version of the app. I used the 12-tone JI preset and adjusted it to make it here.

It is a bit annoying to adjust everything, but this particular layout wasn't too bad. I'd like to adopt my code into C++ to make this configuration incredibly easier! For now, yashton's fork has a nice UI redesign that makes it a bit better: https://github.com/yashton/terpstrakeyboard

[philiprhoades]

@vsicurella ,

I was just looking at the Lumatone before I posted my note here! - it does look VERY nice . .

Your C++ code sounds interesting - I started off on Fortran 4, then Basic, then C - I put a little work into C++ at one stage but didn't continue with the effort - I started using Ruby when that came along which was by then, fine for everything I wanted to do.

I haven't yet started looking for a JS MIDI lib but it was something that I was going to do anyway as part of this current exercise.

JUCE does look very interesting too - if I had another lifetime I would look at it a lot more closely . . perhaps if it could help me do what I am trying to do with this current exercise - getting a more intuitive feel for music and its construction - I could spend some time on it . . I think watching the music play (being able to control the speed for closer study) on this sort of visual keyboard would be a great tool for understanding what is going on in a piece of music. I love this stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgXUFnfKIY

but for my own education I need to start with something less overwhelming . . I am less concerned about developing muscle memory for a keyboard or gutiar or something and more interested in getting a deeper understanding via some sort of audio + visual mechanism . .

Oh wow! - thanks for making that new KB - it didn't even occur to me that I might be able to do what I wanted with the user input stuff that was already there . .

I will have a look at yashton's stuff too.

Update:

I just found this which can read MIDI and visualise playing the notes on a conventional KB - but I couldn't hear any sound . .:

https://github.com/kosua20/MIDIVisualizer