But every year around the holidays a bunch of folks request this. I tell them to buy the course, and then email me who they'd like to gift it to. Then I just manually create a new account and send an email saying so-and-so bought you this course with the login! nathan [at] lightnote.co
> But every year around the holidays a bunch of folks request this. I tell them to buy the course, and then email me who they'd like to gift it to.
You could add an MVP by having a "Gift a subscription" link that leads to a page saying "buy a subscription and then click this link to email me who you want to gift it to". That at least means you don't have to keep answering the question for people.
Over the years I have run a few A/B tests on the landing page. I tried some variations I thought MUST improve the conversion rate. However, this one, which is basically the original one, is still the best performer.
If it ain't broke.
> Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).
I'm on phone so can't check the error right now.
This site is extremely well done. You built it, and all of its content, in a couple weeks? That’s amazing.
The landing page is what I built over the winter break, including those first 7 lessons. Since then that page has remained largely unchanged.
However, when it started getting a lot of traffic I added a pre-order form for a full course. THAT took me 6 months to code up all the additional lessons. Building all the interactive pieces (drum synths for rhythm lessons, an ear training game for intervals, a virtual guitar, etc.) was really fun but a lot of work. For example, the interactive guitar uses samples I recorded note-by-note from my acoustic guitar in my bedroom. Afterwards I couldn't look at it for months. And then over the years I've added more.
So not quite an overnight success.
Thank you for the kind words though!
I play the guitar (and keys) -- but I'm a bit light on the theory part of it -- and this looks very much like I could use a refresher.
Kudos!
I got really far along in yours, which was great, until I got to 6 (Keys): "When a song says that it is in the key of C Major or D Minor this is simply telling you which of the 12 notes are used in this song." You then give examples of Major and Minor keys, each of which contains seven notes. This threw me for a loop. Are you saying every song consists of exactly seven notes (some repeated, obviously) from only one key? Or are you saying every song uses at least some notes from a key? Also, don't some songs switch keys in the middle?
Not looking for answers here, just wanted to point out where I got stuck so maybe you can add some clarity to that section.
Not every song, but much western music, especially pop music and nursary rhymes, will stick to the same major or minor scale of notes for the whole song. Going outside of this scale is quite normal too and changing the scale/key multiple times in a song is also quite common.
The point of learning music theory is to give you a toolbox so that you can both recognise patterns in music you are listening to, as well as give you some ideas of what sounds good when you compose or improvise.
This is quite similar to mathematics where in school we dogmatically teach students how to do arithmetic in the base-10 euclidean system, because having deep fluency in one system is more useful than having a little understanding of many systems.
In fact, I'd argue that such explanations are critical even when you're learning any kind of theory since it tells you when the theory breaks down, whether that's because it simply doesn't fit the task, because people like to get creative, etc.
You simply aren't up to that part yet, because classical western music training teaches the more common ideas which are in music that the punters listen to first. (Mainly because people generally need a few years playing music before they develope a taste for these things anyway)
A key is really an “I know it when I hear it” thing. The notes used are just one of many clues working together.
(2) Where does the "rule" of 7 come from, ie what shapes it: As you know, notes have harmonic friends that they resonate well with. So when you are picking a 'colour palette' of notes that go well together, you will of course often pick such 'friends'. However, the more notes you already have in your picked pool, the harder it gets to add another note, that will still mesh nicely with all those previous choices. Your remaining choices will be more and more likely to clash; in particular it will be more and more likely to be "close" to one of your existing choices. And close notes clash. So, on a 12-note scale, 7 is about the optimal number of tones you can pick without them clashing too much. It is just a convention however, so some stubborn individual might come up with an 8-note scale. Once you start with 8 notes, you would be tempted to employ extra "OK I have 8 notes, but I try to avoid playing THOSE TWO back to back"-rules.
Then again, I often hear my 10-year old loudly playing .. sounds(music?) from tiktok and its ilk, and as an old geezer, I am starting to think that some of our youngsters have given up on scales altogether..
I have no idea what my third point was, at this point.
One of the embedded videos on the progressions page is no longer available on YouTube. I'm not sure whether you're still maintaining lightnote, but thought I'd let you know anyway :)Came to the parent to share my current project which spell checks websites. It found a few small typos on your site. https://www.spl.ing/report-card?website=www.lightnote.co&uui...
Drawing from model is about being the kind of character that enjoys spending hours tweaking at tiny details and measuring measuring measuring. Anybody willing to sit 3 hours in front of the model every day can learn it, if he understands that he must measure.
Drawing from imagination like Kim Jung Gi on the other hand is about doing that every day most of the day since you were a little kid, and you probably need an innate ability to boot (and that might be some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder / autism...).
> There's very little that can be taught about drawing.
While drawing from the imagination is largely about using the intuition. The intuition can be trained just like the more analytical side of the brain. I can teach you a few properties of rotation/space, etc, and then give you the right exercises, and then you won't need to use construction to draw.
KJG does have some innate ability, and he was clearly obsessed, but it's not actually the bulk of his method. He has a video about drawing scissors. He can articulate nearly everything he is drawing, specifically the function which guides the design. There are others who can draw like him. Look up Tom Fox.
I created a little game which doesn't explain it, but allows you to practice and get feedback: https://cdsb.itch.io/draw-cube
On Firefox Android, in step four, I managed to get into a situation where one of the notes kept playing. It occurred when pressing too many keys on the keyboard demonstrating the chromatic scale. Pressing each key again for not "unstuck" it.
And if I'm already providing feedback, then a nice improvement for the end of step two would be an option to hear the two notes of the displayed waves, together.
I'm 2 months of polishing away from being HN-publishable, but I decided I'd share at least in comments.
Awesome work.
I've been pretty impressed at Lightnote and how its executed and actually tried to reach out to the creator a couple of times for potential collaborations. Not sure if my messages made it through.
Related thought - Is there a good way to search for projects like this? I know there are hundreds of these passion projects that never show up in google.
Ex) This year I want to get better at playing piano. Reddit and google bring up a few consistent big name links. I'd love to support a well-produced course by a creator like this, but have no idea how to find it.
I just thought there had to be a more intuitive way to learn music theory than the very boring and jargon-heavy alternatives.
It uses Tone.js to include little interactive pianos, guitars, and other demos.
I've done no marketing, it hit the HN front page for a day, and after that initial spike in traffic has been fairly consistent over the past 8 years.
It uses Stripe for payments and for the first few years it was only Stripe. 3 years in I decided to add PayPal support... revenue doubled overnight, mostly from international customers.
https://www.lightnote.co/