AR/VR Pioneer Co-Creating Piano Playing Instructional App for Magic Leap

HDPiano for augmented reality on the Magic Leap is one of the more noteworthy AR applications I've come across so far. For one thing, it's immediately understandable ("Oh, learn how to play piano in AR!"), and potentially cost effective. (What's the cost of IRL piano lessons, $50-75/hour?) For another, much like Jeri Ellsworth's approach to AR, it doesn't assume there's a market that's inherently interested in wearing augmented reality glasses, but goes after an existing market.

The project is the brainchild of Dan Collins, whose YouTube tutorials for playing piano has earned over 1 million subscribers. (Like I said, there's that existing market.)

"[When w]e think about the future of learning we see AR as a mighty force," Collins tells me. "This in mind, we sought out to 'see what's possible' today and plan for a future where every consumer has an AR wearable that might become a part of their time at the piano."

Fortunately for him, Collins (who's based in Wisconsin) Googled around for a local AR developer to help create this app, and found the perfect person nearby -- pioneering AR/VR developer Jon Brouchoud of Arch Virtual, who's been helping create music applications in virtual world/VR technology since at least back during his Second Life heyday: 

"I've long been fascinated with the intersection of piano and virtual technologies, since the earliest days in SL," Jon tells me. "In fact, during a recent visit to the Tech Museum in San Jose, I was thrilled to see that the Wikisonic project I designed in Second Life with Annie Ogden, which was then built and installed in real life is still functional after nearly 11 years! I had also experimented with a concept I called 'Architectural Jazz' in SL, and always enjoyed those early explorations with piano and virtual worlds in Second Life."

Since then, Jon has gone on to create VR-based training platforms, like this one running on Unity. "We have some ambitious ideas about where we can take [HDPiano for AR], and look forward to taking it to the next level," he says. 

Me too. If you have a piano (and presumably a Magic Leap) go here to sign up to request to be in the beta test.

Comments

[Lucus @ BioBalance]

Great techique and tool for sure!