Show HN: Babeloop, a new music sight-reading webapp Backstory: I have a kid learning to play the clarinet in a music conservatory, which involves compulsory sight reading classes. Teaching for sight reading is done on books. The idea for this app is to port the method online, so that it's easier to practice and follow one's progress. It should also be more fun, and, for those so inclined, competitive. The learning method is based on landmarks: for each clef one first learns the position of 2-3 landmarks, and then each note is in relation to a landmark. So for example, if you know where the middle G is on the treble clef, then you can learn fast that 2 positions up (next line) is B, and two positions down is E. (Anecdotally, in an earlier iteration of the app, landmark notes were displayed using specific colors; but users learned colors instead of the note position on the staff, and when they moved to a level without colors (or an actual score) they were completely lost.) The app doesn't try to teach keyboard playing, or fingering for any other instrument for that matter. It only helps associate the position of a note on the staff with a name, in a given clef. It doesn't deal with octaves: a C3 is a C4 is a C; or accidentals: a sharp G is a flat G is a G. It also doesn't wait for user input, as other apps do. Music doesn't work that way; but more importantly, the point is to learn to recognize intervals instantly, not count them. No account is necessary to use the app, only to participate in the leaderboard, and save one's score in case of device reset (or to use more than one device). When an account is created, the data is stored on the server in SQLite; I'm curious to see how far it can go. (Without an account, no data leaves the device.) It's still a little rough around the edges but should work ok in reasonably recent browsers. On the client side, it uses VexFlow to display notes, staff and clefs, but animations are done using CSS transitions (not JS), to be mobile friendly. Tone.js helps provide a more accurate timing than a simple setInterval. Icons are coded in SVG by hand; for simple shapes, this is surprisingly fun and straightforward to do. https://ift.tt/jXSIi5Q May 15, 2022 at 10:55PM
Women Pioneers at Muni: Adeline Svendsen and Muni’s First Newsletter By Jeremy Menzies To close out Women’s History Month, here’s a look back at one woman whose work to bring Muni staff together in the late 1940s created a legacy that lives on to this day. Adeline “Addy” Svendsen was founding editor of Muni’s first internal newsletter, “ Trolley Topics .” Adeline Svendsen sits at her desk in the Geneva Carhouse office building in this 1949 shot. Trolley Topics was a new venture when it started in February 1946. As Svendsen wrote in the first issue it was created, “to bring a little fun, a little news, and a lot of good will to all our fellow employees in the Railway.” Just two years prior in 1944, Muni merged with the Market Street Railway Company, expanding the small municipal operation into the largest transit provider in the city with hundreds of employees, vehicles of every shape and size, and dozens of facilities scattered across town. The newsletter was meant to help unite ...
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