Flash Tracker and Sync Flash

Pitch and Rhythm Training Programs for Macintosh

Flash Tracker is a computer program and hardware package designed to assist music students with pitch and rhythm skill development. To evaluate a student's pitch abilities, the program "listens" to a performance of one of many available exercises and offers quantitative feedback.  

Every musician strives to eliminate wrong notes, poor rhythm and dynamic accuracy from his/her performances.   Flash Tracker offers a means to focus on those issues.   Pitch skills are tested using a keyboard percussion instrument that is fed into a computer.   The program tracks pitch accuracy.   Similarly, a student's rhythm skills can be tested using an electronic drum pad or microphone system.   Evaluated in milliseconds, rhythmic placement is charted by use of a graphic interface.   Students who play ahead or behind the beat can see precisely where their rhythmic tendencies lie.   Velocity execution is tracked and displayed using a graphing feature.

Upon opening the program, musical examples are displayed.   When the user clicks on a "Record" button a metronome click is heard and the recording process begins.   Students use either a drum (for rhythm exercises) or a keyboard instrument (for pitch exercises) to enter their performances into the system.   In Flash Tracker a blank screen is displayed between musical examples.   In Sync Flash the examples are displayed in continuous succession.   Upon completion a screen is displayed which shows three graphs, individually indicating pitch accuracy, rhythm accuracy and volume performance.   The results can then be stored in a data file.

Other features:

·Exercises are chosen from pull-down menus on the home screen.

·Tempo of exercises is variable using an on-screen slider control.

·Prerecorded comments are played back through the computer's speakers following each exercise.   Well-executed exercises generate positive responses, poorly played examples produce suggestions for improvement.

·The metronome click can be generated from the computer's audio output or from a MIDI synthesizer module.

·So a student can hear a precise performance of each exercise, a player option is offered.   Sounds can be generated from an external MIDI module or from the computer's internal sound card.

·Should a student want to retry an exercise a reset option is available.

·Stored files can be retrieved for future use.   Pitch, rhythm and volume information is stored along with analyses data (percentage of correct pitches, average time ahead of the beat, average time behind the beat, etc)

Currently, a working system is available to Arizona State University percussion students in Music Building room WB28.

There is potential for Flash Tracker and Sync Flash to be refined and expanded in ways that could ultimately make them marketable in the electronic music and music pedagogy marketplaces.   Possible utilizations:

·Design and construction of dedicated hardware that would allow students to plug a USB drum pad directly into a home computer without needing extensive external devices (as is required in the current system).

·Adaptation of the programs to a web-based program that would allow broad access, continued updates and variations in the materials.

·Creation of a cross-platform package that could be used in computer music labs and personal studios.

·Sophisticated data collection and analysis that could be useful to educational researchers.  

Flash Tracker was made possible by a grant from the Herberger College of Fine Arts Research Council.   Version 1 of the software was completed in May, 2002.

Screen Shots:

Music display, digital "flashcards"

MAX/MSP code for the recording process

Pitch, rhythm and velocity results posted in graphs