Cant seem to get around the speed issues

[Sandhya60]

I want to progress, and I have no problem with the notes. In fact, slowing it down sometimes makes it more troublesome.
It seems I cannot get the notes to fill with color exactly even though I am almost on top of them. So I end up fighting with the speed. I even take it down to tick tock speed and in doing so it becomes a fight to get the note to strike exactly on top of the notes.
The reason why I am frustrated by this, is even though I am almost exact on the note speeds, I cannot progress to the next level.
Even on a mundane practice (if you go back to the beginning boothcamp stuff) doing one note repeatedly but not being able to get the dot to hit perfectly.
Is anyone else frustrated by this?

[andrewwegierski]

It sounds like your keyboard and computer might not be communicating correctly. Can you describe you set up in more detail? Keyboard model, cables, adapters, Computer operating system, etc. You can also post pictures of the connections if you'd like. And, a picture of what's going on in your lessons. That would help me to see what's going on here.

Thanks!

[scirocco]

it becomes a fight to get the note to strike exactly on top of the notes.

I had this problem too. It took me a long time to realise that trying to watch the cursor line up with the notes is the wrong thing to do. You have to LISTEN for the timing and play using your ears not your eyes. Most of my problems went away when I realised that. (Not that doing it is easy; I still get it wrong sometimes).

Real world music doesn’t have a moving cursor.

[Russ1409]

Real world music doesn’t have a moving cursor.

Indeed, it's played by feel. I try not to get hung up on the scoring and the app telling me I missed a note by .001 of a second. I listen to it and if it sounded good...success!

[andrewwegierski]

Indeed, I think the scroll bar is a good guide to see how things look vs. how they sound in time. But yes, using your ears is the best method! Rock on, guys.

[Laurensss]

I am still not 100% happy with the timing of the scrolling cursor but it's inherent in using "normal" music notation for a method like this (the programmer has to choose to either enter the measure at the exact correct moment, OR pass the first note / rest in the measure at the exact correct moment. Since these moments are the same in time, but in (readable) music notation there is a horizontal offset between them this cannot be solved unless you step away from classical notation and I'm thankful PGS has not opted to do so.

The apps that have developed their own notation that lends itself better to this (coloured streams corresponding to fingers, etc.) really put their users at a huge disadvantage once they leave the apps ecosystem.

[Sandhya60]

yea, I am not convinced its a computer/keyboard issue. I do not have this problem with my "other" program I use....also I notice a slight speed up slow down (almost im perceivable) when the curser passes over the note. It may be only off .000001 sec. enough though that the note does not turn green, so it has ended up being a "video" game for me, I am more worried about the curser than actually playing and acknowledging the music. Yikes. And that is ever slowing it down to a snail to where you cant tell what the melody is because it has been slowed down to almost one note per 3-5 seconds.
The only other issue I have with this aspect is I would like to show a completion of each step, but I literally have spent a month just trying to match dots on the first 4 measures of one song!, I want to show completion of each step, not just jump to the fuller piece and work on it.
Anyone else frustrated by this? I am almost 3/4 the way through the rookie sessions by the way..

[sw1tch73ch]

I don't know how "on" the beat you have to be. It seems a lot of slow songs have a good bit of wiggle room. Fast songs are a lot tighter on needing to be "right on" the beat. That said, I don't know that the moving bar is that useful for knowing when you show actually hit the note. It's more of a way to know which note you should be playing - the one closest to the bar. I use the Metronome to hear the beat and play with that.

One of the tricks is to use the "DEMO" hands at the top of the app (there is a left and a right hand) that will tell PGS to play the melody too. If you just listen to get a sense of the rhythm it won't grade that play through. Then, leaving the demo on, play along with it and try to play the notes with the program - again, ignoring the bar as arbiter of when to play and go by how it sounds. Once you get that sense of timing, you can turn off those two hands and just have your playback make the melody part.

Finally, perhaps there is a setting, like the "latency," that will rein in the timing between the computer and keyboard. The "other" program might be using different latency assumptions (that's the only one I actually know makes a difference). That will be something support@playgroundsessions.com can work with you on.

[andrewwegierski]

Well said. If you need help with latency or any possible delays, shoot us an email. I'd be happy to help you!

[scirocco]

I don't know how "on" the beat you have to be. It seems a lot of slow songs have a good bit of wiggle room. Fast songs are a lot tighter on needing to be "right on" the beat.

Yes, I’ve also noticed this. It’s as if the error tolerance is set as a percentage of note duration rather than a fixed time interval regardless of tempo.

It would be interesting to know how it’s coded in the app. Maybe Andrew from PS could tell us how it’s set up to work.