Rhythm exercise question

vincent.croquette · Post by **vincent.croquette** » Jul 19, 2006 5:55 am

Hi and thanks for making this helpful ear training software.

A question concerning rhythm reading, why does the following configuration score 84% only?

it's really hard to do better using the computer keyboard, could a midi keyboard give better results?

Thanks in advance

Vincent

Bojan · Post by **Bojan** » Jul 19, 2006 11:47 am

Hi Vincent, if you pay close attention to how precise these notes you entered are, you’ll see that you can’t get 100% for it, because there is one yellow flag, meaning you missed a bit. I don’t know if you are familiar to all the advanced options in EarMaster, but you can set how strong (severe) the evaluation of the entered notes will be. Chose customized exercises, go to some rhythm exercises and select one of the three given options under Evaluation: a) kind, b) normal or c) severe. The default option is normal.
About using the keyboard to enter rhythm: first of all, you ought to have a quality sound card to ensure that there will be no or very little latency time, then you can use computer keyboard easily. I use a USB mouse to enter notes, and it’s very precise, better then keyboard. But I think that the best method is to use midi keyboard, provided that you have good sound card. Hope this helps.

vincent.croquette · Post by **vincent.croquette** » Jul 20, 2006 2:12 am

Thanks Bojan

I understand that I did not deserve 100% but was just surprised by 84

like in the following example for which I scored 80%, but I hardly find 20% error in my answer, for this kind of question, it's almost impossible to score more than 85 using the keyboard:

I think I'll purchase a small midi keyboard

vincent.croquette · Post by **vincent.croquette** » Jul 20, 2006 6:01 am

Whereas for this one:

for which I admit my blatant mistake, my score is 99!

Waigin · Post by **Waigin** » Jul 20, 2006 5:46 pm

More distant you are more points you loose. Pending how severe you put the test more you can loose

Bojan · Post by **Bojan** » Jul 21, 2006 7:35 am

Vincent, I’m surprised with these results you get. I get way better results in a similar situation. If this continues, maybe you should inform Hans (the author of the program) about this, he should be able to tell you more about this.

But first of all, we should check a few things:
- is your computer perhaps an old one, or without enough processor power?
- does your sound card have some latency time?
- finally, are you using the latest version of EarMaster (build 593 at this time) ?

Check the last thing by going to Help menu, and choose Check for Updates function. Check if there is any latency time with your sound card by choosing Tools/Program settings/MIDI devices/Synchronize rhythms and press Begin. If you don’t hear the clapping sound at the same time that the square is flashing, your sound card is too slow, and you’ll need to fix this by adjusting the delay time. As for your computers power, I’m not sure, as there are no precise system requirements listed on the website, (except that you need to have 800x600 screen resolution, some 14 MB free, and following operating systems: Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP), but I think that EarMaster 5 requires at least 500 MHz.

Most importantly, were you using one of the Tutors or Customized exercises? In the tutors the evaluation strength should be normal by default, so I don’t see how this could happen. If you were using Customized exercises, the results are greatly affected by the chosen option. Severe evaluation really is extremely severe, so I don’t use it. And kind evaluation too easy.

vincent.croquette · Post by **vincent.croquette** » Jul 24, 2006 2:32 am

Thanks Bojan

My PC is quite recent (2.4Mghz, 1GB ram...) so I don't think that's the issue
The sound card is not really powerful (OEM soundmax device) so that could be the issue but I performed the synchronization before the exercises
I'm also using the latest version

I'm only doing the tutors at the moment

I will try to upgrade the sound card drivers and keep you informed

Thanks
Vincent

vincent.croquette · Post by **vincent.croquette** » Jul 24, 2006 6:29 am

Tried to change the latency... still facing the same problem:

for a poor 85%

EarMaster understands my input right but it seems like it's not in 'normal' mode, it's really hard to have 90% for such cases

Witch Doctor · Post by **Witch Doctor** » Aug 03, 2006 7:04 pm

If you look carefully at the starting position of the duration line, you will see that although the note was given a green check mark, the actual start of the duration marker is not perfectly under the middle of the note. Looking at the 3rd bar second note you are dead on. However, in the last bar the duration starting point is not directly under the middle of the note.

I believe this may have something to do with the score you received. I am guessing that to get a score of 100% each of the notes duration starting points may need to be "perfectly" under the middle of the note. Perhaps it is the begining of the note.

Personally, from where I started having a 85% is great! Then again when I started it was less than 50%.

From a programmers point of view it would be very helpful if the program marked exactly where the beat is with a small thin vertical blue line. This would allow practice playing ahead or behind the beat.

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