School of Science and Technology 科技學院
Computing Programmes 電腦學系
| Programme | Bachelor of Science with Honours in Computing |
| Supervisor | Dr. Vanessa Ng |
| Areas | Mobile Learning of Musical Instruments |
| Year of Completion | 2015 |
The aim of the project is to develop a mobile E-learning application for beginners to learn basic knowledge and assist them to do piano practicing. The focus of this application is on helping beginners who are weak on the basic music theory of piano. Beginners are hard to handle music theory which looks like easy, such as music notes, beats and so on. So, there are some learning materials for the beginners of music, let them be easy to start learning music. The project has defined following objective:
Designing learning materials for beginners to learn basic music theory.
Learning a language, the learner need to practice on reading, writing, speaking and listening. Learning Piano just like learning a language, the learner need to practice on reading music sheet, writing the music sheet, playing piano and listening to music. Therefore, this application is around these four points to improve beginner's skills. The application will have the following components:
The following activity diagram is describing the flow of using Easy to Learn Piano:
First of all, users need to take music lessons if they don't have any musical knowledge. If users have basic knowledge of music theory, they can try to do exercise. After finishing learning material, users can do exercises to review what they have learned in the learning material. If users get a decent result in the exercises, they can start a new lesson to learn new music theory. Otherwise, users are required to study the lesson again. After users take all lessons and do all exercises, they can practice keyboard, create music sheet by composer tool or do the listening exercises.
“Easy to Learn Piano” is an application which runs on tablet PC of IOS (iPad). The following is the start page of the application:
Users can take music lessons or do music exercises in this section. There are four music lessons, four multiple-choice exercises and two gap-fill exercises. The following is the menu page of “Learning Materials” :
Furthermore, there are some chapters can let users tap on the blackboard and play sound, helping them to remember the contents easily.
Each exercise is corresponding to one lesson, for example, the question of “MC exercise 1” is about “Lesson 1”. Users may do “MC exercise 1” after they finish the “Lesson 1”. All questions and answers are fixed, but the positions of the answers are random. That means the users may not remember the marks of answers. They need to remember the answers. Users need to tap an answer box to answer the question.
There is a great stave on the blackboard. Each question is provided a note on the stave and the position of the note is random. Users need to fill in a correct musical alphabet in the bank, which is under the note. Users need to choose the alphabet, which are under the blackboard and tap it to fill in the blank. After the users filled in all of the blank, they need to press “Submit” button to submit the answers.
This feature provides a music sheet to show the notes, which is used for users to follow the note to play a music. This practice can let users improve the sight-reading skill of the music sheet.
This feature provides a keyboard for users to practice at will. The following is the capture of the Classic view. Users can change the range of pitch of the keyboard by the mini-keyboard at the mid of the screen
This feature provided users to create some simple music sheet. It is limited in one note at the same time and the note must between the stave. Also, the maximum notes number is 100.
This is a piano game, for users to have fun and practice pressing the keys. The game is about a number of boxes which drop from the top of the screen one by one. Those boxes will be dropped onto the keys. Users need to press the corresponding key when the boxes are on the blue line. If users can follow the boxes and press the correct key, he could play a full music. Although users can't learn how to play the music at real, they can know that feeling and give confidence for them to learn piano.
This chapter analysis users experience about using this application to learn piano. The evaluation was performed for investigating the effectiveness and ease of use of each feature. For evaluation project aim, questionnaires are designed to opinions and evaluate the functions in this application. 20 people are involved. Their age ranges from 18 to 25, all of them are university students. People must not learn piano before. The survey by questionnaire of this evaluation was on a Likert scale. The five-level Likert item is strongly disagree, disagree, neither, agree and strongly agree. Also, questionnaires collect data is about their suggestion after using the application.
In this project, I designed and implemented an application for assisting beginners to learn piano. There are four main parts of the application. “Learning Materials” include an e-book system of basic music theory and music exercises. “Keyboard Practicing” provide piano game and piano practicing. “Composer” provide tools for users to create music sheet. “Listening Game” provide listening game for users to discern different tones.
“Learning Materials” can help the user to learn basic music theory, such as knowledge of notes, beat and so on. “Keyboard Practicing” can improve the skills of reading music sheet and playing on the keyboard. “Composer” can let users practice in the use of note and train their creativity. “Listening Game” can help learners to feel the sound and rhythm. Also, it can train learners to discern different tones.
Copyright Kwok Chun Hei Alvin and Vanessa Ng 2015
