Show HN: My iOS app to practice sight reading (10 years in the App Store)
313 rooster117 131 3/23/2025, 9:25:08 PM apps.apple.com ↗
Hello HN, this has been my personal project for quite some time now. It has been a slowly evolving project over the years and its core function is for users to expose themselves to progressively more difficult lessons of music notes.
NOTE: It is free and there are no ads. There is an in app purchase but most of the app doesn't require it.
Tiny question before I purchase to unlock the microphone feature (which is really what makes sense for me): does the app understands do ré mi via microphone?
Thanks for your work.
Pro tip: You can pick any note you want as the starting pitch, and do realtive pitch from there. It doesn't matter. Pitch is an affine space, there's no 0 pitch!
I learned that as you get older, if you don't use it, you lose it.
This despite Apple claiming that publisher name is one of the top three criteria for search.
Do Ré Mi Fa Sol La Si Do
... is...
C D E F G A B C
... it blew my mind :D I mean, I can see the point in using letters instead of words, alright. But why in that order?
Even today I can't find the origin/reason for that -- apart from "It's a German thing" apparently.
It could be just that the "German key notation") and the "Fixed Do key notation" were each created independently centuries ago, and thus differed. And once each system spread and reached users of the other, well, hello, my Do is your C and my A is your La :)
Well, it's in the alphabetical order.
In fixed Solfège, that would become La Si Do ... but in movable Solfège, Do would be A, Re would be B ...
And I didn't know about Movable Solfège, thanks! I'll have to study that.
But, to put it in audio perspective rather than comparing words and letters, why is the note that corresponds to 440 Hz named A and not F -- implying that, going lower and lower from 440 Hz for each note, 261.63 Hz would not be named C but rather A instead.
Or, to use maybe a comparison that would work from whence those two notation systems were created/named (I figure with a keyboard nearby), why is the first note of a standard piano octave (you know, this: [1]) labelled C and not A? Since it's the first note of the octave and since the German system is using the alphabet (which, well, starts with A), wouldn't it have made sense to have that first octave piano key be labelled A too :)
[1]: https://www.hellosimply.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/...
I've seen this conversation several times online, and it's funny to see how participants cannot agree on what is being talked about here, and no conclusion is reached. So I'm aware that I might be asking a super dumb beginner question, but I really do wonder why Do=C and not Do=A.
Don't hesitate to slap me with a "origins of musical notation systems" link, I love to read about music and history :)
The piano has C natural in the middle of a full 88 keyboard, which is why it is a "natural" scale to pick (C major only uses the white keys, while A major would use three black keys).
So if you are learning another instrument, your "base" note will sometimes be entirely different.
Many "non-western" tradition also aren't tuned to 440 Hz, and even many _western_ traditions don't use 440 Hz for A, 415 Hz is also common.
[addendum] And why Do/Ut, Re, Mi? Because of a Gregorian chant where each sound sorta fell into a vocal range of monks ... then you adopt Do to whatever "sound" the instrument is closest, many years pass and deviations and standardizations ...
[addendum] I recommend starting out researching Guido d'Arezzo (and the Guidonian hand) a bit, that is where we get do/re/mi .. which was used as a teaching aid (which is maybe why Solfege as a term is often used in combination to sight reading or singing from sheet music). Almost no matter what language someone sings/voices Do/Re/Mi/... ... it falls naturally into a vocal range, irrespective of octave.
And then one could look into the hexachord ... and deep into a very deep well of confusion.
The question make sense without ever thinking about piano. The question is: how come the notes named only by letters (without any accidentals) form a major scale, and yet the note A is not the first note (or tonic) of that scale.
The answer is probably related to the fact that those notes also form other scales (seven of them - seven diatonic modes, one of which corresponds to major scale), and it's only relatively recently that the major scale took a central role in music theory.
Maybe we should make one more standard .. that consolidates all of them? ;-)
Quick check with Claude hints that various modes were in common use in church music prior to major scale (Ionian mode) taking more central place in (western) music theory.
All instruments have a "sweet" spot for where they like to make sound. The baroque flute for example, prefers the key of D -- not C. The violin is very at home in the key of A.
If you sit down at a piano, and find a place to put your fingers a somewhat natural place would where there are two white keys beside two black keys.
And then press them in order.. C major scale.
And interestingly enough, the English wikipedia page completely backs me up on that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge ("Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.")
However, the English wiktionary page gives no gloss other than "a method of sight singing". (More fully, "A method of sight singing that uses the syllables do (originally ut), re, mi, fa, sol (or so), la, and si (or ti) to represent the seven principal pitches of the scale".)
Merriam-Webster strongly supports the wikipedia definition, but it does note that "a method of sight-reading music" is an alternative, non-primary meaning.
In French, does solfège refer to any sight reading? A common way to sight-read vocal music is to sing the actual lyrics as opposed to the note names. And by far the most common way to sight-read piano music is to play it without saying anything at all.
Notes:
... and YET neither have I ever heard of nor used "Lecture à vue" (that I remember of). I too would use "apprendre le solfège" (EN: learn solfège) when saying that I'm learning to read the notes on sheet music while playing at the same time.[1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecture_%C3%A0_vue (change language for confirmation)
[2]: Possibly this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IkpUYlOx8
Though I wouldn't say that it is the same as "sight reading" -- but maybe "sight singing"?
- Nice logo
- Clear, engaging screenshots
- Solid title/subtitle with relevant keywords
- Amazing reviews and ratings
Really well done!
In theory, reputation signals from 'awesome' lists and HN threads could inform search engines, LLMs and app market analytics.
2. Now the game is like, press the notes as fast as you can, instead, a musician needs to practice, pressing the note at the right time, which means you can make a metronome + press the notes on time mode, which is even more useful than the present version.
I agree on the metronome and it’s high on my list of TODO’s. I think it would be very helpful.
That's what comes from playing simpler rock stuff by ear/memory for many years and then moving to large amounts of material which can't be done only by ear.
My solution is to have a large amount of unfamiliar material and just open to a random page and start working things out.
When I was suddenly forced to work in tenor, alto, soprano, baritone clefs, I could no longer rely on memorization of note positions. I had to pivot to “reading intervals”. A fifth looks the same in any clef, so if you know the current note, and the next note is a fifth above, you know the next note too, clef be damned.
Really? I don't think all fifths look the same even if they're all in the same clef. If you're working in C major, B to F looks like it's a fifth, but it's a tritone. Everything around this becomes a little weird; A# to E# looks like a fifth and is one, but A# to F is a fifth and doesn't look like one.
Random clefs seem like they would make that problem worse.
Main feature request would be to generate the notes from a score, focusing in the intervals, ranges and patterns the score uses. Doing random notes feels weird, it helps with quick recognition but feels very different to what my head wants to do while playing.
Noticed a typo: "Notes is your is your tool..." in the app store description.
Am I missing something?
C, D, ... are real notes? Some countries do Solfège, some don't.
From ChatGPT:
The choice between using letter names (C, D, E, etc.) and solfege (do, re, mi, etc.) largely comes down to tradition and purpose: • Historical Convention: In Western music, the letter system has been the standard for centuries. It provides a clear, concise way to notate specific pitches on a staff, which is especially useful for instruments like the piano or guitar. • Clarity in Notation: Letters denote fixed pitches, making it easier to communicate musical ideas in written form. This helps performers quickly identify which keys or notes to play without additional context. • Educational Focus: Solfege is typically used as a tool for vocal training and ear development. It emphasizes the relationship between pitches (intervals) and is often taught using a movable system (where “do” represents the tonic of any given scale) or a fixed system (where “do” is always C). This system helps singers internalize pitch relationships and improve sight-singing. • Different Purposes: Essentially, the letter system is more suited to the precision required in written music scores, while solfege is more about developing a musician’s internal sense of pitch and harmony.
In short, both systems have their place in music, with letters serving as the backbone of Western musical notation and solfege acting as an invaluable educational tool.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pranapps.n...
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/note-flash-music-sight-reading...
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/jl.musicalnotes/
https://codeberg.org/jonas-l/musical-notes-android
https://www.babeloop.com/
When I see the stats on paying Android users compared to iPhone, I feel I always will start on iOS and only maybe make to Android if it’s successful somewhere else first.
Given that I might have you „on the feedback phoneline” I have thoughts, I’d like to share:
- It might not be true, but it seems that notes are picked at random so sometimes I feel there’s disharmony which somewhat distracts me - in age of LLMs maybe it would be plausible to ask for generation of more harmonic sounding sequences?
- I don’t practice sight reading often but when I do I usually practice longer than 1-3 minutes - clicking through lessons to get to the next one is distracting - I’d enjoy endless auto-progress (that is - keep progress structure so no free training but just auto start next one)
- I’d like to have minimalistic practice mode (I.e. follow progression but without any aids at all) - I repeat lessons but my brain flips lazy mode when it sees helpers.
I’d like to thank you for making this app accessible in terms of price though. However I have resources and want to support developers I believe in which includes you and your application. I’d suggest „coffee subscription” - I.e. completely optional no-features added but visible and I’d be glad to enable and forget about it.
In fun-fact context: I have some uncommon traits and my educational needs are different from general population (I cannot do repetitions and I have multisensory aphantasia - can’t hear sounds in my head - so can’t memorize them) and your app so far helped building passive eye-muscle link which I find fascinating on its own.
1. I'm currently testing a new way of generating practices with some patterns and elements that make it feel more musical. I'd love to have you test the beta if you're interested. You can just email me in the settings screen.
2. I updated the lessons visual aids by only showing the hint on the staff itself for what was new to that lesson. It was previously overkill to do all notes if it was just adding a couple to the range. The visual aid of notes on the keyboard may also be too far but I think it's helpful or maybe I can fade them out eventually.
3. I hear this and something I should address. Years ago I originally made extremely long lessons but I'd get feedback asking me to make lessons that had an end. I could very easily make the lesson length configurable.
4. I really appreciate the coffee subscription idea. Maybe I can consider adding that and be explicit that it doesn't provide anything other than support of me.
It's great to hear the app practice has helped with your eye. Maybe it's the repetitive back and forth of the reading?
If you add guitar support it will be an immediate download for me.
In tablature, imagine one string's line shows ---10-----7--8------11----13. How long do you hold each note? Clearly 7 to 8 is quick, but how quick? Sheet music gives you this exact information.
https://paulrosen.github.io/abcjs/visual/tablature.html
I'll see if my daughter is interested, but I'd love a guitar version (hint, hint).
I'd love to add new instruments. I actually have a version which is violin only but it is pretty stale at this point.
If you want to go a step further, you have only 1 one-time-purchase, what if you tap the mic icon, and a popover modal has the required disclosure text and the “purchase” button right there? The Slopes app did this to significant effect I believe - reduce friction.
Also, it's all about compromise. When sight reading a serious piece you will almost never be expected or be capable of playing every note. You have to understand what's important and what's feasible, and to do that on the fly you need tons of musical experience.
As a piano player that primarily sight reads, I end playing a lot of music, so maybe it is partly memorizing patterns.