Mobile Application to Train Chord-playing on Keyboard Instrument

Music played by a band is mostly annotated in chord charts, unlike complete notations for classical music. Beginner keyboardists playing in a band often struggle to catch up with only chord charts as reference because a single chord can be played in multiple ways on a keyboard instrument. To improve, practice is needed. However, the problems with practice chord-playing are the lack of training material, swayed practice goals as well as the immobility of instrument. Hence, the project has the objectives to: explore the multi-touch capabilities of tablet devices for music training, develop a structured and goal-oriented virtual keyboard mobile application to achieve chord-playing training; conduct a user perception study for the developed application on potential users; and conduct a usability study on the developed application. The application is targeted at beginner keyboardists to improve their existing skills in playing basic chords single-handedly, through a two-octave keyboard interface. The application was successfully developed with 4 prototype iterations. The user perception study showed that beginner keyboardists generally accept using mobile technology to train their chord-playing skills. The usability study showed that the developed application is quite a usable application.