Not a whole lot to report. Trying to practice at least every other day, alternating with other exercises to improve my musical performance skills. I'm quickly learning the layout and the walls I'm hitting are more related to my own dexterity and finger independence rather than trouble finding my way around the keyboard. Nothing to do but practice, practice, practice.
Another problem with practicing is that there isn't an established method of learning Wicki/Hayden; nobody's written lessons for YouTube or written a book on the subject. There are a uppers of technique hidden around the web (coming mostly from Ken Rushton, John Moriarty, and what bits transfer well from concertina technique to a jammer), but that's mostly theory, not a systematic way of learning the instrument.
One solution that's been suggested (like so much else involving the jammer, by Ken Rushton), is using software geared toward learning piano that uses MIDI to rate your progress. One must, of course, ignore all fingering advice and all references to the black and white traditional keyboard, but you still get the advantage of seeing how well you've done compared to an ideal performance of the piece or exercise.
I've been using GarageBand's built-in lessons for the time being. They're nice, but quite short and there are only about 20 of them total. OK for now, but I can already see that I'm going to outgrow them quickly.
There are a few software solutions like Piano Marvel, but I've been unsuccessful in getting them to recognize the Axis keyboard. For some reason, they don't even want to see the raw output of the Axis, which is fully class-compliant MIDI data, so it's hard to blame the keyboard for how funky this software is acting.
The solution I'm excited to try is Rock Band 3's pro mode (which uses actual notes instead of the abstracted button pushes common to the rest of the rhythm game genre). There is an accessory that allows one to plug in a MIDI instrument to play their part. Again, one must ignore the keyboard notation, but it should be good practice for performing chords and scales in time with music. It's not a perfect teacher, I'm sure, but in combination with practice reading music and more "serious" exercises, I think it'll be a great help to my progress.
Which brings me to the topic mentioned in the title: another array-based midi instrument, this one ridiculously inexpensive. While reading up on Rock Band software, it became apparent to me that there were some great deals to be had with the waning popularity of rhythm games. Case in point: one can now buy the Rock Band 3 software (for XBox, anyway) with a Pro Guitar controller (which has a button for every string and every fret, making for something like 110 individual note triggers) for only $60. The game alone costs $30, making the guitar controller $30 as well, if you wanted the game too. This wouldn't be a stellar deal except when one considers the following:
- The pro guitar controller was released at a $150 price point
- The pro guitar controller is equipped with a 5-pin midi-out port and a robust midi implementation.
- The next cheapest guitar-style midi controller is something like $250 (although it's also higher quality), to say nothing of other array-style controllers aside from the Axis.
Seems like a bargain to me. I hope to acquire the game/guitar set in the coming weeks and will update the blog with details on both how well it works with the jammer as well as how well the guitar works as a MIDI controller. Exciting!
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