Show HN: I finally released that sheet music app I keep yammering about | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I finally released that sheet music app I keep yammering about

etudeapp.com

318 pointsdangrover112 comments

I'm really excited about the iPad app. Imagine sitting down at a piano, putting a iPad where you would normally put sheet music, and playing away with your app auto-scrolling so the musician never has to deal with a page turn. Anyone who has ever played piano knows how amazing it would be to have that eliminated. What a great learning device that would be!

Kudos and I eagerly await the iPad version!

This app really does look like it is a match for the iPad.

I would consider doing this:

A) Make the iphone app free or 1$, get as many users as possible B) Approach whoever owns rights to sheet music, music lessons, etc C) Allow them to sell premium content through your app and you take 50% of the profits

iPad users could just double scale the iPhone app.

Except that the app scrolls the music along one staff. You'd still just get one staff, and it would be gigantic. An iPad version that could show a whole page would be much more useful.

I would personally pay 20$ not to do that for this particular app.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Make money now. Don't leave it on the table. Sell 50,000 (or 100k! or 200k!) copies at $3 or $5, and then approach sheet music copyright holders.

Copy the business model that Tapulous uses for Tap Tap Revenge: I should be able to download a Ben Folds-branded copy of Etude, and then a separate Beethoven app, and then a separate Liszt app. Each one should cost five bucks. And then user should be able to buy EVEN MORE CONTENT via in-app purchases.

Showing content owners that you've already made a million dollars (or whatever) is much more compelling than vague hand-waving about market share and potential of an installed user base.

I get really frustrated with this notion that newly released software should be free, or that monetization potential is always increased by giving something away. Who knows what might happen tomorrow?

Perhaps an app significantly better than Etude will soon be released. Maybe Dan Grover will get bored of working on Etude. It's possible that sheet music copyright holders could even be dumber than music labels, and they'll be unwilling to cut a deal.

There's money to be made, and the best way to make it in the short term is to sell the app.

Incidentally, the very last company I worked at (before realizing I should do my own thing) was Tapulous :)

So you must know Kyle Kinkade, then? He and I have been drinking buddies since we met at MSFT in early '07

I do know Kyle! Cool guy! Luckily, he managed to escape too (and with more tact than I)

Apple only keeps 30%

That was the model tried by Noteheads back in the day. It failed miserably: http://noteheads.com/

That's one of the first thing I though of when I heard about the ipad. I had figured an app for the iphone that used its mic to follow a piano piece along and "turn" the pages would have been cool but for the tiny screen. Then ipad came along.

How hard would it be to use the mic input to estimate progress through a piece and turn the pages? Of course just using timing to scroll at the right speed would be ok, but having it listen would be much cooler.

Using timing to scroll eliminates the ability for the player to add any speed variations in a piece, which most experienced players would.

It's a fun app for the common folk, but useless to experienced players.

Some really basic audio recognition should enable the software to figure out the current position on the sheet, hence making it useful for experienced players as well.

Do this. Would also be useful for beginners who make mistakes and often need to repeat portions.

really basic? score following is hard.

The audio recognition bit is indeed basic - all you need to figure out is the note and possibly the length of the note.

The following part hard is a bit harder, but not impossible - compare what you have recognized with what you was expecting. If it's not what you expected, look around the last known position and see if you can find the pattern you recognized (while taking repeat signs etc. into consideration).

you don't have to follow it in perfect-realtime, you could totally mimic a human page-turner who flips the page at about the right time.

Nah, not useless -- come on. The speed variations aren't going to be that huge, and the variations will matter even less on an iPad. I can imagine a number of technical solutions to this issue that don't involve any signal processing. It's a valid point insofar as it would need to be addressed for advanced players, but let's not be so quick to dismiss this guy: the app is absolutely beautiful and he's clearly skilled and thoughtful.

He's not dismissing it, he's giving feedback. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd want to hear if I were launching - how I can make my product better and appeal to more people.

I wasn't dismissing it. For 90% of people who would consider this app, it's great! I really just posted this because someone previously said that this could replace sheet music.

The highlighting of the keys is also an amazing feature. I've posted YouTube videos of me playing the piano with the camera angled unintentionally over my shoulder.. and actually used the video to see what keys I was playing and copied what I was doing.

There should definitely be a "no sheetmusic" mode in this app for people who previously copied people's finger position on youtube... for people who have no desire to learn how to read sheet music.

Good luck.

I don't think that's the deal breaker for experienced players. That'd be pretty to solve with a bluetooth foot-pedal. Here are a few of the things that come to mind that pro-level folks would have hang-ups on:

• Typesetting: I don't know what score format they're using, but this can be a big one. There's a big difference between a professionally engraved score and just having the right notes there.

• Annotations: From the conductor, self, whoever.

• Overview: Professionals scan a score looking for key parts. This seems virtually impossible in iPhone format, but would be workable on the iPad.

• Size: Even the iPad is small compared to a performance sheet music page.

I suspect the three big market segments are hobbyists, children and church musicians. There are relatively few professional performers.

It was mentioned elsewhere that the typesetting is done via LilyPond, which is supposed to be excellent.

Just like tex the quality has potential to the very good, but when you stray from the defaults it suddenly takes a lot of tweaking to produce a nice-looking score.

Sheet music is truly one killer app for the iPad. I had never thought of it before seeing this app, but even if it's something as simple as scanned .PDFs of your sheet music, imagine not having to carry around backpacks full of books.

I have a lot of jazz fake books that are literally monstrous to carry around.

The iPad's the right size (ever balanced a laptop on its side on a piano's music desk?), and a touchscreen would certainly be convenient for turning pages and annotating scores.

Personally, I'd rather see that app on the Kindle DX, or a device with a similar screen. My eyes suffer enough already from all their computer time.

(If the app were on an Android device such as the Nook, I'd turn the pages with voice commands.)

Devices have already been made and sold that accomplish this -- presumably because the idea is so obvious.

http://www.google.com/search?q=electronic+sheet+music+reader

My keyboardist/drummer friend has one such device.

I like the app, and if there is indeed an iPad version, that would be fantastic. I played with it a bit this morning and posted a review. Here's the gist of what I said:

Pros:

- The music font looks really good, very clean and readable.

- The store navigation is fast and easy to use

- The music scrolling/speed controls are very handy and easy to use.

- Good initial selection of music.

Cons

- On my 3G the update after a page turn is too slow, no matter if it's continuous or turn mode. Often half the score isn't displayed yet, and it's impossible to look ahead. This made it difficult to actually play to the score at full speed. Would it be possible to do more aggressive caching/pre-rendering to make it smoother?

- You went to all the work to make a great store navigation UI, but the "My Music" UI is cover flow only. Even after downloading just a few pieces, it was clunky and slow to find anything. My Music desperately needs better navigation.

- The modal dialog that pops up in the store when done downloading is really annoying, especially because navigation is locked as its preparing to display. The download icon already has a badge to show the download status, why do I need the modal reminder? It just disrupts the flow.

Suggestions

- A very handy feature for students would be to show different colors for the different hands in the keyboard view, and show what finger should be playing the note.

- A difficulty sort in the store could be handy. Or at least a "beginner" category in the styles.

- I realize I can use the volume switch, but a mute button in the app would be nice. Especially in the iPad version where I may not be able to reach the switch.

Kudos on shipping, I look forward to what's to come. With some improvements and an iPad I could see this replacing a lot of sheet music, especially on the go. Break a leg!

$2.99? I really hope you raise the price. This app looks exquisite and it provides immediate value.

Well done! The iPad version could be a game changer...

It is noted that the price is introductory.

A lot of people rate iPhone apps when deleting them, so I think a low price can really hurt your ratings. If an app is too cheap a lot of people, who aren't that interested will download it. After, however, they realize they never use it, they will delete it, and while they're at it, they might give it 2 or 3 stars. I think selling your iPhone app at a higher price could be beneficial, as mostly passionate people will buy your app, who will probably give it a 5 star.

I have not released an iPhone app (yet), but this is how I think of app prices; tell me if you have other experiences.

That might be the case at $.99. But if you go up a bit (even to $1.99 or $2.99), the amount of bad reviews like that decreases pretty quickly.

Do you know this from experience? I'm really curious how iPhone app customers "work".

Some patterns emerge from just taking a cross-section of the reviews to see how app customers behave at certain price levels. Here's my biased, inexperienced first blush at it:

1) Free users will destroy you in ratings, unless you are a universally known brand that is basically repackaging a pint-sized version of their popular website/application. I've seen people at the "Free" level say "I LOVE THIS APP BUT IT HAS THIS ONE SMALL PROBLEM SO I HATE IT AND GIVE IT ONE STAR YOU CAN'T PAY ME TO USE IT LULZY!" Freeloaders love free, but they will incessantly take advantage of it and are generally ungrateful, which shows in their ratings.

2) At .99 cents, you get casual and one-off users who know the value of their hard-earned dollar and will expect a relatively unreasonable amount of value because of loss-leader devs that price their complex apps that way to move up the charts. The 99-centers will conflate purchasing an item with an expectation of constant content refreshes or perfection in updates, or they will penalize. It's a false economy to try to appease these customers. Better to just cross fingers and hope to make it up in volume (or in-app purchases).

3) At 1.99-2.99, things start to get interesting. Your reviewers begin to appreciate the decisions you've made in the apps design or execution, give you actual usable (albeit terse and/or a bit angry) feedback, and ratings are a little higher overall.

4) At 3.99+, you are either a AAA game dev porting your blockbusters down to the iphone/ipod touch, or you're an indie that has built a following by selling volume pricing at first and then raising it up once you've cemented your position on the charts. Your reviewers are spectacularly verbose in their heaping of praise on you, and offer almost QA-level bug reports that you can use for your updates.

I think the sweet spot for someone starting in the app store is $1.99-2.99 US, plus a "lite" version with in-app purchaseable upgrade to the full version. Perceived value with a teaser freebie. If your app is at all useful/fun, then it'll gain an audience. I think alot of people just saw the "goldmine" app store articles and thought they could make an app that was just like iFart or iShoot "but cooler" and failed miserably.

I mostly agree with this. I have two versions of my card game in the store, one free, and one paid. I don't think it's possible to have a free app that has a rating greater than about 3 stars, unless you are a huge company with millions of downloads.

But based on what I've seen and read, I think my paid card game is atypical, price-wise. I've seen very little difference in the number of sales, whether the price is $0.99 or $3.99.

Do you know this from experience?

Yup. I'll go over what its like for the app that I work on, but, what muhfuhkuh said is very accurate as well.

I work on an app thats in the app store for $1.99. We see some bad reviews (people requesting features we already have, complaining about something thats out of our control (lack of backgrounding's a big one), etc). But, for the most part, the reviews are pretty good; our 4 and 5 star reviews combined amount to around double the 1, 2 and 3 star reviews.

In contrast to some of our competitors applications; one is $1.99 now, but was anywhere from $.99 to $3.99. It was on sale for a bit at $.99 and has some pretty bad reviews - lots of impulse buys and people not knowing how to use the application. It has more 1 and 2 star reviews then 3, 4 and 5 stars combined.

Another of our competitors applications is $4.99. It doesn't have nearly as many reviews, but the ones it does are "higher" quality. Maybe two or three reviews < 3 stars. But, only 20-25 reviews in total.

I hope you raise the price as well, the reason being that this is a niche application. For the people it provides utility to, 4.99 or 7.99 even might well be worth it and for people that it does not provide utility to, it's not worth buying even at .99 and probably not even worth the trouble of downloading for free.

This is quite possibly the first thing I've ever seen that makes me want an iPhone. I hope you release something like it for real computers eventually.

I agree that this app would be awesome if it ran on real computers. It would be amazing if the app could track the user's progress/ability using MIDI and be able to show errors / redo problematic parts as well. More of an emphasis on learning and improving than just playing. I have been wanting something like this for a long time...

Were you the only one developing it? How long did it take? Love the app and the video on the webpage, by the way.

Luckily, I have a precise answer to this because I have this weird habit of tracking every minute of my time on my own projects. Here's the breakdown on Etude in hh:mm

Actual iPhone app: 210:11

Song converter: 72:52

Store (UI + server side): 82:23

Building site and designing marketing materials: 44:52

I did most of the work, but I did contract some of the graphics I had trouble with to a designer, and I've taken someone awesome on board to work with music companies and other "strategic" stuff for the future.

Hm this adds up to roughly 11 work weeks of straight-through work. Do you have some kind of real-time estimate and break down about which parts you developed first or in conjunction with what other features?

My mind usually races a million miles an hour when starting new projects and I end up doing a little bit of everything.

Graphics look great. Any chance you can point out who the designer was? She/he might be interested in other contracts perhaps?

OT, but how did you get into that time tracking habit and what do you use to track your time?

(not) Properly tracking my time is my biggest weakness.

One thing you could use is Freshbooks. I started using it for consulting and then started gradually using it for general time tracking.

NB: Not the OP

Personally I track time using Excel. I have a table of start time, end time and a category and desc.

I set up a macro to create a new row, another to create a new task after the previous. It takes me about 5 seconds to "start working" and about 30 seconds to "end" and type in a desc.

It's great later when you need to have precise timing to see if you hit your estimates. I got into the habit when I was developing custom firmware on contract at Technman.

I see it as a huge motivator. I don't track time when I am not working - so it highlights for me the holes in my productivity when I slip.

I use OfficeTime: http://officetime.net

I also wrote some Ruby scripts for parsing exports from it and making cool graphs

Note to others: OfficeTime appears to be primarily an OSX app. They have a downloadable Windows beta, but no immediately-downloadable Linux beta.

http://www.officetime.net/download.html

[I'm not the OP.] I use Freckle for time tracking. http://letsfreckle.com/

Good Job. Just know we're all expecting to see your sales numbers 1 month, 3 months and 6 months out ;)

Congrats!

One thing I didnt see in your FAQ was whether you make time shifts based on time signature: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 or tempo marking: allegro, adagio, etc.

Also - while I think the settings of .5x fast - 2x fast are user friendly I would love to see a metronome and the ability to adjust beats per minute. As someone who has done classical training and testing based on bpm I can say it makes or breaks learning a piece.

I wouldn't put this on my iPhone due to legibility, but I would absolutely put it on an iPad.

That made me want to play piano again. I sucked but it looks like using it I could get better a lot faster.

An ipad version would definitely be a plus. Hope you got that planned ! :)

I love it. This is exactly what I've been looking for.

But I don't own anything Apple. Is there an alternative coming, such as a web-based version? I'll pay.

I whole-heartedly agree. This can be done in flash/html5/etc + browser on a mobile device.

I don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch, so I can only comment based on the video on your site - but this is ridiculously awesome. The app as well as the store and website look very professional, which is a big selling point for me when I do purchase apps. If the marketing website looks sub-par, I tend to assume the app will be as well. Perhaps not a fair assumption, but it's just the way my mind works.

Being that I play the keyboard/piano a little, but can't read sheet music I have one idea: search for webpianoteacher or shawncheekeasy on YouTube and watch a lesson or two of his. He teaches piano in way that is akin to "tabs" for guitar players. This is how I learn what little bit I do know. I don't know if the audience would be big enough to spend the time adding this as an option or if it would be even be feasible, but I thought it worth a mention.

Kudos on what appears to be a job well done and best of luck with the sales. If I end up getting an iPad, I'll be looking for an iPad version without question.

Is there any way to create or upload your own songs? It looks like a very polished app, but I'd like to be able to create my own songs, or even cooler, edit songs to see what they might sound like if played differently.

Excellent job with the app. I will probably be downloading it soon.

This looks extremely impressive and elegant. I'm excited to buy the iPad version -- it's a perfect fit.

What format is the purchased music? The engraving is impressive, so my first guess is that it's some part PDF and some part MIDI information + metadata to match MIDI to PDF contents?

It's its own format (engraving + metadata + midi). It actually uses optimized PNGs, but the iPad version uses PDF.

I'm going to do a detailed technical overview on dangrover.com when I get a chance

Cool, I look forward to it.

I suppose one obvious next question is: did you do the engraving yourself? What tools did you use? And: when can I purchase Rachmaninoff's Etudes? :-)

Engraved via GNU Lilypond. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1192384

You sir, are a genius. The app looks amazing, but your demo is simply perfect. How many takes?

Strike one idea off my "opportunities" list. :). Well done. How long did development take?

How did you make the video for the homepage? I like the circle that represents a touch.

I think SimFinger is the app used to represent touch.

Atebits has a nice iPhone demo tutorial: http://blog.atebits.com/2009/03/not-your-average-iphone-scre...

Actually, I used my own app, PhoneFinger: http://wonderwarp.com/phonefinger

what restrictions have you encountered on the publishing of scores on the app. I think sheet music is more locked down then actual songs. When I used one sheet music service, it wouldn't allow me to store a digital copy of the song I wanted, I could only print it once - if my printer jammed in the process, I had to pay again. I asked the owner of the service why and he said the industry was tightly controlled. He also said he wasn't allowed to offer an unlimited download subscription for a monthly fee ala netflix etc which I suggested he should do even though he wanted to.

This gives me that really excited feeling in my gut that I get when I see something cool. I've always wanted to learn how to play piano, but I was always overwhelmed by diving right in. This is why the iPad is going to be so cool.

Do you have plans to do this for other instruments? I can see it being enormously popular for guitar tab, especially if you can add your own tabs to it.

EDIT: Additionally, I think $3 is a perfect introductory price. If you've built a large enough following, you can leverage that to increase the price (perhaps by offering updates/large additional music libraries?) at a later date.

Very nice. Great initial selection, too. I grabbed the Art of the Fugue scores, and I'll give them a shot later today. I've always had a lot of trouble with reading the score and figuring out the fingering on 3+ voices in counterpoint at the same time, and let's see if your app will help.

Minor nitpick: the composition labels are a little hard to keep organized. For example: "Fugue 1". It does say BWV 846 underneath in the store interface, but when scrolling around, it isn't entirely obvious that it's actually from the Well-Tempered Clavier, book 1.

You've made a pretty impressive looking app. What is your feedback like? What do your prospective users think of it? Without having used it, my first reaction is that I think it would be pretty annoying to try to play a piano while reading from an iPhone - constantly having to squint at a tiny screen and a nightmare of scrubbing to practice sections of the song are two specific complaints I can make right away. I'm interested to hear the reception of this app.

Dangrover: Do you plan to make this app work on both the iPhone and the iPad (in real-iPad-mode) in the future, or will the iPad app be a separate buy down the road?

You are a life saver! I was looking for something exactly like this and was surprised there was really nothing good out there. This is great. Thanks!

I am not a pianist but loved the way your application is made. Your website is very selling. Nice video, nice design. I am impressed.

Wow, nice work. I think $3 is way too cheap, especially compared to piano lessons. I'd easily pay $50 (I'm an Android user though).

Actually, the average price of a paid app in the Android Market is lower than that of one in the App Store. Also, there is a higher number of free apps in the Android Market.

Source: http://androidandme.com/2010/02/news/android-market-has-the-...

There's been some research into using a glove with haptic feedback to help you learn about which fingers should press which keys. (https://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/designcomp/index.php/Mobile_Music...) Would be awesome to see this used as a peripheral for Etude.

Nice one. Bought it now before you listen to the guys here and put it up to $50. £1.79 is a bargain! Now only if I had a piano...

Hey dan, I bought your app, a little bit expansive when we compare it against other music app. basically I love the Idea, but in my opinion you should improve the audio engine, I can hear some clicks and noises when much notes are played together. about the music as itself are you use internally using midi?

Regards and Congratulations

Truly stunning design & idea. On a similar note, I'm planning to work on a music composition app for the iPad starting summer when I'm done with the semester. It's basically an extension of an iPhone app called Symphony, which still needs more work.

Holy cow, that's a well-made app. You dangrover are either a passionate music lover, an excellent developer, or both. Kudos - I don't even play the piano but I'm going to buy it just so that people that make software like this are rewarded!

I don't play piano, I don't have a piano, but I bought this app just to see the look-and-feel. Now I want a piano.

Congratulations for an awesome job, I bet this will be one of the first iPad apps to be featured by apple once it's released.

This is awesome. I'll buy it today, but I want to know when you're going to add in some simple sampling tech so that the sheet music can respond when you hit the wrong notes, or move the page ahead...

How to change the "Carrier" text for recording a demo:

http://blog.atebits.com/2009/03/not-your-average-iphone-scre...

Fan-friggin'-tastic, I especially like the attention to detail. Good job! I really suggest you kick this up to 5-10$ soon enough :)

[if we can wish for ponies, I'd love for a guitar version of this too :P]

I don't have a device this works on but the demo looks very well done. I've been playing around with a similar idea but more along the lines of a front end for music in ABC notation.

Awesome! Just purchased this without even thinking about it. Would love to see this app grow, supporting other instruments like saxophone, guitar, trumpet, etc.

I thought the sheet scrolling was a little disorienting (too fast), but then I saw you have a 2nd way of scrolling (note by note), much better. Great app!

Now I want to learn the piano just to play with this app.

I have to agree with everyone else and say this is fantastically well done, and I think you underpriced it. I think $50 is too high, but $10 is good.

There might be an opportunity to collaborate with the startup http://www.noteflight.com

Congratulations on already hitting the Top 100 Paid overall on the app store! I'm sure in no small part due to HNs "super-influencers" :)

Does the ipad have a microphone? It seems like that would open up a lot of doors for this kind of app (and obviously the iphone has one).

All I can say is wow. Not only is the app super intuitive, but genuinely useful and usable.

On top of that, you have a real eye for design.

Great job, I wish you the best.

Great app. I struggle reading notes while playing and the small keyboard is really helpful.

There's also a bug in Für Elise, it ignores the repeat signs.

Can you make a web-based subscription version? I know people who'd never get an iPhone/iPad (no real need), but who'd love this.

I got an email about it this morning and I picked it up. Haven't gotten a chance to try it yet but thanks for making it.

Looks very pretty. Nice job. I agree with the other poster about the low price of $2.99 - that's way too low.

I'm pretty sure I saw in-app sheet music purchases in the video.

If so, the $2.99 purchase price is irrelevant. In fact, if it has in-app purchases, it should probably be $0.99, and only because I believe the app store TOS say you can't charge if the app is free to begin with.

It used to be that you couldn't have in-app purchases for free apps. At some point Apple changed their minds, and now you can.

Integrate a metronome and I'm sold on it.

v2 seems to get easier with all the suggestions :) Keep up the good work. Great app! Now if only I was a musician.

Is it just me or does the note play when it hits the left edge of the highlight? This seems counter intuitive.

Yes, I couldn't put my finger on it but the sync seems slightly off. Great app idea.

Yeah, the "flip page" setting definitely plays the note on the left-edge of the highlight whereas the continuous setting plays it in the middle....

Cool, my friend Brad told me about it this morning and I was checking it out already. Pretty impressive.

Impressive Dan! Nothing but praise for your app. Currently practicing Moonlight Sonata. ;)

I'm going to try this out tonight. Already bought a copy via a macheist email I received.

Super cool. How long did it take you to develop the app?

Great app! i bought it after just watching the demo :)

Download on the appstore button doesn't work for me.

does this auto scroll as you play? that would be the real killer feature! it looks great.

Nice work man, congrats!

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