Color Piano

요즘 피아노를 좀더 쉽게, 좀더 멋나게 칠수 없을까 하는 중 발견한 어플입니다.
 

Learn how to play Piano without learning Sheet Music! Visualize the color of sound. Scales, Chords, Inversions & more!

Color Piano Theory is an educational application that utilizes colors in teaching piano theory, creating a visual interface for learning the keyboard; learn how to play songs on the piano without learning sheet-music! CPT ties together chords, scales, inversions, octaves, key signatures, and play-by-play examples of classical compositions.

Getting your feet wet with Color Piano;

- Drag & Drop MIDI files into your browser to view/play them in CPT. MIDIs that you Drag & Drop should be of Piano only (not multi-instrumentals).

- Configure the Piano to play slower to get started learning a new song, then slowly increase the speed as you get better. 

- Use your MouseWheel or the ScrollBar on the right to scroll through the song you're currently learning, and to go back and replay parts your having troubles with.

Why in color? Good question;

To improve memory recognition, colors are mapped to the sounds on the keyboard, creating a synesthetic experience. By picking a color-mapping that works best for you, these colors will give you a visual cue to the note you’re playing.

One way to memorize information is to give the information multiple associations; in turn giving the information multiple “pathways” for the brain to locate it. With color added to the mix, we are building a memory recognition triangulation:  sound (measured in hz), color (in RGB), and space (the XY coordinate of key on the keyboard).

Historic mapping of color to sound;

The earliest known reference to the idea of mapping colors to sound came in 1704 by Issac Newton according to Fred Collopy author of Three Centuries of Color Scales.

This leads me to a question brought to me recently, “Why do so many of these people associate ‘red’ with ‘C’, ‘orange’ with ‘D’, ‘yellow’ with ‘E’, ‘green’ with ‘F’ and so on?”  My best guess is many of these calculations were based on mappings to the rainbow, aka the visible spectrum;  where ’C’ in western music has been historically thought of as a grounding, base note, the color ‘red’ is the shortest wavelength in the rainbow.

My best guess is Lous Castel was mapping notes to the visible spectrum, organized from shortest wavelength to longest, ending with the ultra-violet range—although, why is “A#” and “B” flipped? Perhaps a sign of dyslexia? Alexander Schriabin declared that ”D#” sounds “steely with the glint of metal”, and ”E” sounds “pearly blue the shimmer of moonshine”, and who can argue with that?  What does sound look like to you?