Step one in studying to play the piano doesn’t truly contain taking part in the piano. First, a brand new scholar must discover ways to learn sheet music. As soon as that’s understood, they should discover ways to map these notes to the correct keys on the piano. This course of could be very troublesome, and many individuals have deserted their dream of taking part in the piano due to it.
However all of this upfront work isn’t what taking part in the piano is basically about; it’s simply the ugly course of that we’ve got wrapped round it. Like most individuals studying to play, Mateo of the YouTube channel battiemme didn’t get pleasure from his time spent finding out these conditions. So somewhat than put any extra time into it, he spent his time hacking on {hardware} to keep away from it. He got here up with an answer that lights up every key in order that he is aware of precisely what observe to play when he’s studying a brand new piece of music.
The system is known as Pianethor, and it’s powered by an ESP32 growth board. It drives a strip of 72 RGB LEDs which are positioned above the keys of a piano. This system could be loaded with a MIDI file, which it converts to notes. Every observe is mapped to a person LED, and it lights it up when the corresponding key ought to be pressed.
The anticipated performance has all been constructed into Pianethor. Customers can alter the pace of music playback, and there are additionally play, pause, and cease buttons. If you wish to get fancy, you may even change the colours of various notes.
This concept isn’t completely novel. Pianos with light-up keys exist already. Nevertheless, this resolution permits you to use the piano that you have already got for studying. And other than that, you’d have a troublesome time discovering any resolution that prices lower than an ESP32 and a strip of LEDs.
Take a look at the video beneath to see Pianethor in motion.
