HACKER Q&A
📣 dv35z

Recommendations for video games to learn to play music?


Hey gang - hope you're well.

Does anyone have suggestions for video games which are "Video game first, Music-learning second" (as opposed to game'ified music lessons, which seem pretty popular)

As a background: I've decided to learn piano (I've never attempted anything musical before), and bought a MIDI keyboard, and started lessons using Yousician (a Duolingo-style app to learn music). It's fun, but I was thinking, "If there are piano lessons which are gamified (e.g. points, unlocking levels, etc), are there video games which are... music'ified?" I know from experience how much I can get INTO a game mode - grinding away hours etc., so I was thinking what would it take for me to feel the same urgency/interest in practicing piano, without it necessarily feeling like a boring chore.

I'm imagining: * Street Fighter-style games where your character must use chords and song bit "combos" to beat a variety of enemies, each requiring more complicated song bits until the "big boss". This would be fun as a multiplayer/remote experience too: You and a friend could be "accountability partners" by spending time playing the game / practicing piano, taking on enemies/songs/chords/etc together. * RPG-style games where your character use music performances to unlock doors, fight certain types of enemies by completing song parts, sustain a difficult part to "charge up" your powers, etc. The character would have skill trees based on completing mini lessons (e.g. if you learn an arpeggio, your character now has +5 more life, etc)

I am certain there are much better ideas than mine, but I'm a bit at a loss to find them. Can anyone suggest games which capture this "playing a game by learning piano"-type feeling? I want to feel that same rush that you get when in the game zone, but while playing piano!

Thanks all!


  👤 725686 Accepted Answer ✓
Not what you want, but I have been using https://sightreading.training/ for practicing sight reading, and it is fantastic for the intended purpose, though quite boring and terrible to listen to. I actually use it with no sound, just the MIDI for instant feedback. It would be great if it created some decent sounding combinations, keep your statistics, progress, etc, but I have improved my sight reading by leaps and bounds in a couple of weeks.

I have just noticed that the project is open source (https://github.com/leafo/sightreading.training) so come on fellow geeks, pitch in some of your talent....