New AIR/Java app Piano Marvel hits the AIR Marketplace!
Over the past year at Rain Interactive, I have spent all my time and energy as project manager and lead developer on the most revolutionary piano teaching software to date called Piano Marvel (not that I’m biased or anything 
. This unveiling also reveals the inspiration behind most of my posts over the last year. Our team’s goal was to create an application that could display interactive sheet music, record keystrokes on a MIDI keyboard, allow toggling of metronome and accompaniment playback, and give an evaluation based on the notes that were pressed. The application has been in beta for a few months now and we have been amazed with the feedback we have received from students and teachers across the nation.
We decided to build Piano Marvel’s rich front-end with Adobe AIR because we have a lot of Flex expertise at Rain and the development time required to create beautiful UIs using this technology is very quick. However, in order to make this application work, we also had to leverage Java in order to interact with a MIDI Keyboard since AIR is not able to do this natively. Finally, we used Merapi to manage the communication between AIR and the invisible Java process through a socket.
Here are some of the amazing things we have been able to do with Piano Marvel:
1. Create a rich interactive music notation engine.
2. Display immediate feedback on all correct and incorrect notes that were played.
3. Have the ability to specify tempo, make music selections, and toggle fun accompaniment and metronome playback.
4. Create an environment that makes playing the piano addictive and entertaining
Piano Marvel has just hit the Adobe AIR Marketplace as the first application that is not a traditional completely AIR application. There is a free trial (no credit card required) that lasts for a month and if you download the application from the AIR Marketplace, it costs $12/month (instead of the usual $15).
Please get a MIDI keyboard and USB/MIDI connector and try it out. Let me know what you think below!
[...] are several screenshots of the app and its features. Props go out to Nate Ross for letting me steal his screenshots and captions. Create a rich interactive music notation [...]
Nate,
I came across your site and PianoMarvel’s and wondered what its status is, as there doesn’t seem to be much activity.
What is the most sophisticated music it attempts to teach?
thanks,
Professor John Amaral
Seriously? August was the last time you posted? You’re coming up on a year! Let’s see some action ’round here. It’s not like you have twins and are working in NYC or something.