Why I Hate Synthesia (Don't Learn Piano Like This!) 

Imagine that the only way for some people to play emotionally is by reading notation instead of using your own ear and feelings for intepreting how it should sound.

you forget the fact that people have different needs. people with cognitive disabilities tend to learn faster using visual cues. reading sheet music is simply not an option for them.

I've been using Synthesia for 1 year, and for serious musicians, it's just not worth it. But, as many say, for just playing pieces you like, it is really good. With years of experience in rhythm games, Synthesia was very intuitive for me. My goal was to sight-read pieces with Synthesia, which I achieved after months of daily practice. My muscle memory developed to react quickly to sight-read any note. I also turned on the note names (A-G) on both the falling notes and the piano keys, which improved my reading and reaction time further. Additionally, I used a custom background with lines to help recognize the portions of the piano on the screen faster. All these factors combined helped me develop a fast muscle memory to sight-read most basic to medium and some advanced pieces. It even helped me learn parts of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Nos. 2 and 3, Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Liszt, Liebestraum by Liszt, Clair de Lune by Debussy, etc. However, Synthesia has clear limitations. First, you need to learn hand and finger techniques from videos to understand the fundamentals. Once you have a strong base, you can guess most finger positions based on intuition and comfort, practicing slowly if there are complex passages. Rhythm and dynamics are aspects you can only grasp by listening to other interpretations of the piece. With experience, you learn to improve the sound every day, reinforcing it with music theory. In the end, Synthesia worked really well for me because it motivated me, was intuitive, very fun, and felt like a game, so I could use it every day. I have around 1000 hours with Synthesia, so I know what I'm talking about. After some time, you reach a level of sight-reading where you can play any piece on the first try, as long as it is 1 or 2 levels below the hardest piece you can play. For example, I retried Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 once a day about 25 times over 5 months. Even though there are many more songs or pieces in sheet music, MuseScore has enough MIDI files for at least 99% of the pieces I want to play. I have 2000 pieces in MIDI files in my Synthesia. It was a good starting point, and I'm now considering learning to read sheet music and improvise. Synthesia got me going, helped me develop a good connection with the piano, and gave me a lot of musical knowledge and creativity.

Some comments from a heavy Synthesia user. First, I agree with you that Synthesia is not a very good use of time for someone who wants to seriously learn piano. I also agree that many of the available Synthesia learning materials are bad and will teach bad habits. That said, Synthesia can be a lot of fun, and an engaging game in a way that normal piano practice generally isn't, particularly for beginners. For people who are not serious about piano, and just want to learn to have fun playing their favourite pieces, I think it has its place. The main area that I think Synthesia might be useful for someone seriously learning piano is in practising scales and arpeggios. The Synthesia falling notes notation, combined with finger hints, works really well for seeing where to put your fingers for playing scales. Many of the problems with Synthesia highlighted in the video don't really apply to scales. Further, playing scales in Synthesia, trying to beat your high score and play them as fast and smoothly and accurately as possible, makes what is otherwise one of the more boring parts of piano practice into an engaging, fun and effective practice routine. So I would encourage people not to reject Synthesia entirely - it may have its place along other learning methods.

Those videos are cool visualizations that definitely attract attention. But since they are basically Tetris with music, I don't understand how they are supposed to be "tutorials" for actually playing the piano 😅

i cant read sheet so synthesia way always my go to can you do a video that goes through the sheet basics and maybe do a tutorial on some music chopin ballade 1 would be cool, since im learning that right now

Im learning to read, if i come across a rhythm i cant count i throw it on my daw and might use synthesia to practice it if im struggling.

It's quite a lot of fun playing a bass drum in time to your hand movements.

Have to agree. As a guitarist who can't read sheet music to save my life I think quick and dirty synthesia notation has given me quite a few bad habits when I first tried learning the piano. Would have been better off just learning to read sheets in the first place! (not that I can even do it now haha)

"its like listening to an audiobook on algebra". you are a true artist lol, this is perfect

I've never actually used Synthesia so I'm not here to argue for or against it. What I will say is that our arcane, centuries old system of reading music as dots on a staff or ledger line is extrordinarily complex. I'm glad you found it easy. Or perhaps you've forgotten your years of struggle as a child, trying to make sense of key signatures, accidentals, sharps, flats, double-sharps, and double-flats, trying to figure out which accidental went with which note in a dense cluster. And the rule that through the length of possibly long measures, each accidental stays in effect till the measure ends. I still struggle with it and I've been playing since I was 8. I'm now 67. I don't have dyslexia yet I still struggle. Pity the poor sap who does. I LOVE the idea of a piano TAB. On guitar, for instance, I LOVE that I can play from TAB. Far more intuitive, and no confusion as to which note goes on which string.I hear your complaints of Synesthesia but I don't know of a single one that couldn't be addressed. If you were consulting with the company, I bet they could fix all those things. A prospective piano student faces two huge hurdles. The first is our music notation system. The other is how to play the actual instrument. Why not give that student a break by at least making the first part easier?

I don't get synthesia. It is so frustrating to learn from, especially those youtube videos. You need to constantly adjust playback speed and rewind the video. You basically can't tell what is coming up, so you end up constantly pressing play and pause on repeat. With sheet music even displayed on video, you can pause the video and work on the phrase on your own pace. Good luck doing that with synthesia, where you see just a couple of notes at one time, and it is really hard to tell from those incoming notes, where they will land. Okay rant over, I will now watch the video :D

I know these falling bars only from some YT pianists and they look funny, but I would have never imagined that there are people out there that would learn pieces like this and think this is superior to normal notation? This is mindboggingly stupid to think that slowly falling bars a better than a piece of paper (or maybe a tablet nowadays) where you can jump immediately where ever you want.

I agree 1000%! Reading music is so much easier than trying to figure out Synthesia "notation." 🙈