Aspiring and experienced piano players have been relying on various digital tools for some time, using them to display sheet music, play instrument samples, and make learning songs more fun.
As useful as the existing digital tools are, they’re all limited by the 2D displays they run on. PianoVision is a new augmented reality piano learning platform that uses passthrough and hand tracking technologies to provide a software-guided piano learning experience.
Currently in Early Access, PianoVision is a desktop app for Windows and macOS. The app is designed to receive real-time data from a MIDI keyboard to know which keys you’re pressing. It then combines this information with passthrough and hand tracking data to align a virtual piano to your real keyboard, allowing you to see falling notes that correspond to the song you’re playing.
“My housemate and I have both played piano for over 20 years, and both of us were impressed and shocked at how effective PianoVision was as a tool for learning and visualizing songs in a completely different format to reading sheet music,” Harry Baker from UploadVR shares his hands-on experience with PianoVision.
While PianoVision certainly isn’t the first VR piano learning app, its ability to understand what you’re playing sets it apart from other apps of its kind.
The app contains a growing selection of songs to choose from, and users can also upload their own two-track piano MIDI files. If you find a song too difficult or too easy, then you can adjust its speed, enable the built-in metronome, or practice with just one hand.
An app like this won’t replace an experienced piano teacher. Instead, it should be viewed as a supplementary teaching method, and it excels in this regard.
