Synthesia a good alternative to repertoire learning?

[poetsofthepiano]

Hi, I have found the MIDI files for all of Beethoven's sonatas, Mozart sonatas, Chopins preludes, etudes, polonaises, ballades, waltzes, Bach WTC 1 & 2 and so on.

I tried some of these on synthesia. You can even control the speed of the piece while learning and as you are playing it keeps generating the sheet music. I've found it to be cool for music analysis as well.

Has anybody else tried it out? Does anybody else think its a good idea?

[perfect_pitch]

Has anybody else tried it out? Does anybody else think its a good idea?

NO!!!

Unless you like learning to play the piano like a rote-learning monkey. I do apologise if that sounds insulting, but do NOT allow yourself to be taught by a simplistic, piece of crap like Synthesia...

[coda_colossale]

I'll confess that I like watching piano rolls on Synthesia, but as a learning tool, it's a no-no.

Giving up on traditional notation, which provides you with much more than just the notes that are to be played and when to play them, contrary to Synthesia, which is not only impractical for learning and memorization, but also doesn't allow one to fully understand a piece of music, or music in general if used in the long term, just because it takes a while to get used to it seems not like a good idea to me.

And good luck learning Chopin Etudes and Ballades, or a Fugue from WTC with that

[chopinlover01]

I'll confess that I like watching piano rolls on Synthesia, but as a learning tool, it's a no-no.

 Giving up on traditional notation, which provides you with much more than just the notes that are to be played and when to play them, contrary to Synthesia, which is not only impractical for learning and memorization, but also doesn't allow one to fully understand a piece of music, or music in general if used in the long term, just because it takes a while to get used to it seems not like a good idea to me.

 And good luck learning Chopin Etudes and Ballades, or a Fugue from WTC with that

I defintiely agree here. If you were to try to track all the individual notes in a Chopin Etude, (aside from your playing sounding like absolute shite) for example, you'd have to play it at about .5% speed. It would be incredibily unmusical.
Not only that, traditional notation system is the most effective way we have.

[stoat_king]

I too have enjoyed watching a few of these on youtube.
I confess I had no idea that is was intended as a learning aid.

However, I have trouble getting over how horrible it all sounds.
If I were forced to learn music by listening to the piece played on the bagpipes by a drunken beginner, it might affect my enjoyment of the whole thing.

If anyone is interested in such graphical representations of music, I'd recommend having a look for videos uploaded by someone called 'musanim' on either youtube or vimeo.
Particularly effective are Debussys Arabesque#1 and something called 'Churning'.

I note that the author of the software that produces these very much better animations is a musician who designed it as a way to impart information to people that were watching a video of the music and NOT for learning - pretty much echoing what coda_collossale said above.
I still prefer watching videos that have the sheet music of the music being played, but for people who cant read music, I think its a brilliant innovation.

[bonesquirrel]

I defintley agree with the idea that you should NOT use Synthesia as a primary learning tool, but I do have something to add.

A few months ago, I started playing the piano (I had been playing simple things on piano when I was like 10 but had obviously had over 5 years absence) an I found out about Synthesia.

Once I discovered it I completely took learning music notation out of my do to list and used MIDI files as my primary (an pretty much only) learning tool.

Threw MIDI files alone I have learnt - Mocking Bird, Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement (even part of the 3rd Movement), Fur Elise, Chopin's 4th Prelude, half of Rachmaninoff's 4th Prelude, part of the Rach 3, a few sections of Hungarian Rhapsody number 2, Take Five, Autumn Leaves, about 4 minutes of Hungarian Rhapsody number 5, Bach's 1st Prelude in C Major, about 2 minutes of one of Chopin's Nocturnes and the beginning of Schuman's Carnival Op 9.

Despite this large amount (for only a few months) I wish I spent this time learning to read instead, I have quite a few issues with MIDI files

First of all, its really hard to get it sounding at the right speed because there is no time signature, you have no idea about the pulse of the music, only threw listening to other recordings. Also the expression isn't impossible but its a lot harder than if you just read what it says on the score, I find myself kind of guessing what the piece should sound like, rather than actually knowing. The 2 biggest issue I have about this though is that sometimes its really hard for very complex pieces (like the Rach 3) to actually physically see the notes, I have ran into this issue in the Rach 3, there is just too much sh*t going on at once that everything becomes completely inseparable. Not only that, but I don't always have my laptop with me, so I am bound to the laptop for me to be able to learn, I cant just bring a score, an trust me after a few months, it drives you crazy.

Just don't do it, learn to read. Basically Im doing one of those "Dont make my mistake" things. Just don't! Don't use it as even a last resort, its evil.