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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jimmyrcom on Sunday July 12, 2009 @07:52PM (#700748)
A free ear training and music theory software http://www.trainear.com/ that few people use because no one cares about ear training and music theory
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by michaelkeenan on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:33AM (#701099)
The ear trainer is very cool.

I think it might benefit from a simpler interface, and/or making it more obvious where I should look first. I wasn't paying much attention when I first checked it out and I thought I was supposed to hit the piano keys to answer the questions. Then I read that I could hit Replay, but I didn't see the Replay button, so I just hit Play. This changed the interval, which I thought was the intended behavior and didn't like that. Then later I saw there's a Repeat button, and then I saw the song answer choices.

If I were you, I'd do something like:

-Make the Song Answer Choice buttons bigger and/or brighter.

-Bring the Play and Repeat buttons closer to the answer choices and the piano.

-Change the instruction to click "Replay" to be consistent with the word "Repeat" (or change "Repeat" to "Replay").

-Hide the statistics, songs and other buttons from the main interface; instead, have them accessible with Show/Hide buttons or tabs.

I know there's a tutorial video, but I think you could still alter the interface to make it easier for people who don't want to watch videos (for example: me. I'm on a relatively slow connection right now and YouTube videos take ages to buffer.).

You might also like to grab random people, put them in front of it, and watch what they do, see what confuses them, etc.

I think it could be really successful! Maybe post it to Hacker News separately as a "review my app" kind of post.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jimmyrcom on Monday July 13, 2009 @01:50AM (#701167)
Thanks for the thorough feedback and correction for repeat. I do plan to make a simplified version eventually but for now I'm still adding features and trying to document the most recent ones.

For now there's video tutorials there that guide through the basics of using the ear trainer and further instructions on the help page. There's a few things that are counter intuitive but are far more efficient that way. For example when you click the wrong answer the correct associated song starts playing. Clicking star wars and having it play here comes the bride might seem confusing but it's necessary for improving the song associating with the correct interval. Also automatically playing a new interval when you're correct is confusing at first but the more clicks saved the more efficient training can be.

I can't guarantee anything if they don't watch the tutorial or read the help page for now. Making it beginner foolproof would be great but not if older users have to make 5 - 10 clicks when starting up to get it back to the most efficient settings. I tried a version with elements hidden but in the end it's better just make another version and call the current one the 'advanced version'. The song buttons are packed because they're dynamic in length. The songs can be named anything in the song editor. Also if you select all chords or scales in the first dropdown it already overflows the expected area. There can be a lot of answer choices.

Thanks again for the detailed comment, It'll try and reciprocate my time if I notice somewhere I can or if you tell me something you want feedback on.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by hikari17 on Sunday July 12, 2009 @09:07PM (#700837)
My wife is a beginning fiddler and currently uses www.learntohear.com. [She cares a great deal about ear training and music theory.] She likes how your site lets you choose songs that correspond to specific intervals.
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jimmyrcom on Sunday July 12, 2009 @09:15PM (#700847)
thanks for checking it out. if you guys have any questions feel free to contact me. the songs are the main benefit. I couldn't master the higher intervals until i associated songs
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by plinkplonk on Sunday July 12, 2009 @09:35PM (#700871)
This is completely awesome and something I've been looking for, for a few years. Thanks!
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by Radix on Sunday July 12, 2009 @10:00PM (#700901)
Looks like you were wrong, people do seem to care. There must be plenty of band kids out there that would find this useful.

Popular by Nada Surf is down, have you heard of grooveshark.com? http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Popular/21866669

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jimmyrcom on Sunday July 12, 2009 @10:23PM (#700943)
Thanks for the updated link. The site gets about 200 new visits and 200 returning visits a day. While this is good it's a low turnout compared to how much I've linked it everywhere possible.

On the other hand my retarded anime episode crawler at crawlanime.com gets several thousands hits for a half ass'ed effort with curl. my roleplay site at Eliteskills.com/rp is crawling with people making god damn twilight roleplays at a depressing rate. I'm rewarded more often for making stupid shit than for making well designed sophisticated apps for improving actual skills.

That's where my frustrated statement comes from.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by Radix on Sunday July 12, 2009 @10:40PM (#700961)
Ah, twilight could get anyone down.

Well, your intro video is very good, a good script. And, you jargon disclaimer is hilarious. Most good intros need a good disclaimer to remind new users that the ideas behind the jargon are simple and the real goal. The ideas are the forest, the jargon are the trees.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by gruseom on Sunday July 12, 2009 @08:15PM (#700770)
I do. I'll give it a try.
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by sil3ntmac on Sunday July 12, 2009 @08:58PM (#700821)
I've used it, it rules. jimmyr.com is pretty cool too, used to be my homepage.
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jimmyrcom on Sunday July 12, 2009 @09:03PM (#700830)
what beat it
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by sil3ntmac on Thursday July 16, 2009 @03:16AM (#707490)
news.ycombinator.com, hah. that was most of what i read anyways so i just switched over one day
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by TheSOB88 on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:06AM (#701071)
Your site is very, very visually busy. Can you reduce the clutter? This includes the app itself. Maybe you could widen the content area, encroaching upon the whitespace.
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by TheSOB88 on Monday July 13, 2009 @01:11PM (#702065)
Sorry for trying to help.