Just thought I'd mention that I've designed some Flash tools and trainers that some of you may find useful, including blank tab and treble staff printer tools, standard notation and fretboard tab trainers, tuner and chord and interval ear trainers. They're on my site at:
http://www.fretsource.com
Flash programming is a relatively new venture for me and I'm teaching myself as I go, so please don't be too harsh. My programming level is probably at the guitar equivalent of trying to get a 4 string F chord to sound properly :D
Anyway - at least they work and I've been using the trainers quite succesfully with some of my own guitar students and encouraging (nagging) them to use them by themselves. Try them out if you think they'll be useful. And thanks to Misanthrope for first inspiring me with his chords and scales tools, and to Kirk Lorange at GFB&B forums for allowing and encouraging me to develop and use them on his site.
Fellow teachers - NoteBoat, KP et al. what do you think? Do you find these kinds of trainers useful in your work? Too basic? So far mine aren't interactive, in that they don't record your answers or keep score. That's for 2 reasons. My programming skills aren't quite there yet, but more importantly, I find that any time I've tried music training programs on the net, I hate having to input my answers on the computer. I always wanted to find one that would just let me sit back with the guitar and play/respond without interruption. These ones do that.
:shock:
GREAT!!!
I don't know the opinion of the other teachers but in my humble opinion these tools are great! Thank you very much! They will be very useful now and then. In fact, last week I was trying to remember where did I see sheets with staffs for printing!
I just check it out the other tools. The tab trainer is a great tool and I like very much. It is a great way to learn the fretboard. And also the pitch trainer, and as I can read some music, it is a great way to maintain it. Just a comment, I don't know if you used a good random generator, sometimes the proposed note was always the same. Perhaps you did it in this way.
The other two tools are great too but I just watch them. Although I think I'll use them a lot of time!
Fretsource, thank you very much! :D
If you agree, I'd like to suggest to David or Paul they put a note in the website or blog linking to your website. These tools are very useful for a lot of people.
BTW, after these almost two years I consider myself as a beginner who is starting to understand the guitar. In the real life I'm a Computer Engineer who have been messing with computers more than 25 years. If you need some help, let me know. It would be a great way to return all I've learnt with your posts and comments. :D
Looking good Fretsource, and you've shaved a couple of items off my to-do list for the reworking of the C&S site too ;) Keep an eye on your bandwidth though, that's a chunk of the reason mine haven't got sounds in them...
Feel free to give me a shout if you need any help flash-wise, I'm getting actionscript-withdrawal symptoms :mrgreen:
Thanks guys - glad you approve :)
Nuno - yes the notation and interval trainers can repeat the same notes. That's because I didn't know how to avoid it. But I figured it out when I did the fretboard tab trainer and chord ear trainer. They don't repeat. I should go back and incorporate that into the earlier ones.
Another fix needed on the fretboard tab trainer is that when you select the highest fret level - you enter the highest fret (19 -24) THEN click the level button. The new fret number doesn't take effect until that button is pressed. I'll get around to fixing that soon.
Misanthrope - I hadn't thought about bandwidth. That means if they become popular, my service provider and/or site host company might start charging me more :shock: I better think about that.
Thanks again to both for the comments and for the offer of technical help. I'll gladly take you up on that if I get stuck.
When you do not want repeated items in lists, notes in this case, you can generate the list previously and then 'sort it randomly'. The final result will be an unsorted list. Then you can get the elements sequentially and you will get a list or sequence of random items.
In this case, probably it is enough if you compare the current and the new note, and if they are equals, then you must generate a new one.
This example could be useful for the second topic. Note that when you change the value of 'annual salary' or 'deductions' the paycheck and other fields are computed.
In your case, you have to check if the fret number is valid (>= 19 and <= 24), because you allow to change it when the program is generating new notes.
Finally, on the bandwidth. I don't know if you can send just a midi rather than a real audio file.
Thanks again Nuno. I'm ok on avoiding repeated notes now (the fretboard and chord trainers don't repeat notes). I'll look into your suggestion on the higher frets question when I get a chance. Cheers!
