Fostering Piano Keyboard Proﬁciency Through Interactive Minigames

on a MIDI Controller

Andrea Tarondo, Susanna Brambilla

and Luca Andrea Ludovico

Department of Computer Science, University of Milan, via G. Celoria 18, Milan, Italy

Keywords:

Education, Gamiﬁcation, MIDI, Music.

Abstract:

This article presents a digital platform comprising eleven minigames aimed at deepening the use of a musical

keyboard by young learners. Speciﬁcally, the platform requires the use of a MIDI controller, and some games

aim to familiarize users with typical controls found on digital pianos, such as wheels and sliders. The platform

is freely available from an online repository. An initial experimentation involving nine users was conducted,

where two questionnaires were administered: the ﬁrst before the gaming activity for user proﬁling purposes,

and the second after the gaming activity to evaluate the experience. The tests carried out reveal positive results

concerning satisfaction, engagement, and skill improvement, simultaneously indicating a low level of tension

and annoyance.

1 INTRODUCTION

The acquisition of proﬁcient piano skills in young stu-

dents is a multifaceted challenge that demands inno-

vative and engaging educational approaches. In re-

sponse to this challenge, we have designed and devel-

oped a set of interactive minigames designed to foster

and enhance piano keyboard abilities in young learn-

ers. The key objective of our study is to make the

learning process enjoyable and effective, leveraging

the inherent appeal of interactive minigames to cap-

tivate the interest of users. By combining entertain-

ment with education, we strive to create an engaging

learning environment that encourages consistent and

motivated practice.

In traditional piano education, students often

face difﬁculties transitioning from theoretical under-

standing to practical application. Recognizing this

gap, our research aims to bridge it by creating a

computer application featuring a series of targeted

minigames. Central to our approach is the utiliza-

tion of a keyboard-like MIDI controller, a versatile

instrument that extends beyond conventional piano

keyboards by incorporating additional components

such as sliders and wheels. Thus, the minigames are

crafted to facilitate a comprehensive learning experi-

ence, covering not only the traditional piano keys, but

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7975-8724

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8251-2231

also incorporating the sliders and wheels found on a

MIDI controller.

This paper provides an overview of our re-

search methodology, the design principles behind the

minigames, and the potential impact of our approach

on the acquisition of piano proﬁciency among young

students. As we explore the speciﬁcs of our game-

based learning application, our goal is to shed light

on how the integration of MIDI controllers and in-

teractive gameplay can revolutionize the way piano

education is approached, offering a promising avenue

for the enhancement of musical education in young

learners. The rest of the paper is organized as follows:

Section 2 will cite some key approaches and relevant

scientiﬁc papers dealing with gamiﬁcation and music

education, Section 3 will provide the technical details

and a detailed description of the minigames collected

on the Midigames platform, Section 4 will report on

the results obtained in preliminary experimentation,

and ﬁnally Section 5 will draw the conclusions.

2 GAMIFICATION AND MUSIC

EDUCATION

The intersection of music and video games is a

promising idea for educational purposes within the

realm of music theory and practice. By allowing an

easy comprehension of musical concepts, the devel-

Tarondo, A., Brambilla, S. and Ludovico, L.

Fostering Piano Keyboard Proﬁciency Through Interactive Minigames on a MIDI Controller.

DOI: 10.5220/0012743200003693

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2024) - Volume 1, pages 597-605

ISBN: 978-989-758-697-2; ISSN: 2184-5026

597

opment of awareness toward music parameters, and

the acquisition of practical skills, this ﬁeld is gaining

signiﬁcant attention from researchers.

When students ﬁnd learning enjoyable and mo-

tivating, they tend to progress quickly and compre-

hend concepts more efﬁciently, rather than engag-

ing in repetitive tasks. An interactive approach that

merges music learning with video game interactiv-

ity maintains the motivation of the learner and en-

hances overall productivity. The term “gamiﬁcation”,

which denotes the integration of game-like elements

into a workﬂow to increase motivation and produc-

tivity by satisfying rewards, becomes relevant in this

context (Caponetto et al., 2014).

Gamiﬁcation proves beneﬁcial in addressing chal-

lenges associated with music notation comprehen-

sion (Samat et al., 2022). The inherent difﬁculty in

mastering the music notation often leads students to

lose motivation to study. However, the incorporation

of gamiﬁcation, particularly within sight-reading ex-

ercises, serves to improve student motivation and par-

ticipation in teaching and learning activities.

Music educators can start with an analysis of ele-

ments of ﬂow in video gaming (such as being trans-

ported, mortal danger, limitlessness) to help students

ﬁnd motivation in learning music (Csikszentmihalyi,

1990; Nakamura et al., 2002; Wagner, 2017). Accord-

ing to the research mentioned, the phenomenology of

ﬂow can be a useful lens to look at ways to motivate

students in their music learning.

A speciﬁc category of gaming experiences deal-

ing with sound and music parameters is that of audio

games, in which all information is conveyed mainly

or exclusively through sound. Consequently, play-

ers need to use their sense of hearing to accomplish

tasks and achieve goals. In addition to fostering sound

and music awareness, this process promotes concen-

tration, memory, fantasy, emotion, perception, data

management, and cooperation (Rovithis et al., 2018).

A case study conducted with 2

cycle students

focused on the adoption of multimedia materials de-

signed to provide support for instrumental and voice

practice. The design of a game in which students were

required to answer random questions to unlock de-

sired multimedia materials proved to be effective both

in promoting music-related topics and in developing

skills in other adjacent areas (Gomes et al., 2014a).

In terms of instrumental practice, proﬁciency re-

quires extensive training. Musicians participate in

various technical exercises to reﬁne their skills and

mastery of instruments. These exercises often entail

iterative tasks leading to repetitive actions essential

for achieving expertise in performance. Examples for

piano players include exercises on ﬁngering, musical

scales, and arpeggios.

Speciﬁcally focusing on gamiﬁcation and piano

education, research shows that the introduction of

game elements such as rewards, badges, and achieve-

ments positively inﬂuences students’ engagement in

technical exercises (e.g., scales, chords, arpeggios),

thus facilitating enhanced learning with reduced ef-

fort (Birch and Woodruff, 2017).

In this ﬁeld, innovative approaches based on im-

mersive environments and mixed reality are being

experimented with. An example is Musical jour-

ney, a virtual world gamiﬁcation experience for mu-

sic learning that allows students to freely explore the

most relevant sounds, musical instruments, and com-

posers, ranging from the ﬁrst century to the present

time (Gomes et al., 2014b). A more recent applica-

tion is HoloMusic XP, a multimedia tool designed to

help students learn the fundamentals of music theory

and how to play the piano (Molero et al., 2021).

As mentioned above, our proposal is centered on

the use of a MIDI controller. The applicability of

the MIDI protocol to educational activities has al-

ready been documented in the scientiﬁc literature (Lu-

dovico, 2017). Early research works focused on the

educational inroads forged by MIDI, described as “a

positive element and environment to music education

programs” (Hunter-Armstrong, 1996) and “a technol-

ogy [that] helps to open the once-closed door to tradi-

tional note-oriented composition for students, as well

as to offer limited opportunities for the composition of

music that could not be realized in a traditional, hu-

man, acoustic setting” (Beckstead, 2001). There are

studies on the potential of speciﬁc MIDI controllers to

target music goals, e.g. composing with MIDI (Airy

and Parr, 2001), improving singer training for live

performances (Chousidis and Lipan, 2016), and al-

lowing vulnerable users and people with disabilities

to create aural and musical effects (Barat

e et al., 2021;

Swingler, 1998). As clariﬁed in the next section, our

proposal differs from those listed above because we

are not using a MIDI controller to foster the develop-

ment of music abilities, but rather a gamiﬁcation ap-

proach to let users improve their proﬁciency on that

speciﬁc controller type, i.e. a MIDI keyboard. The

main advantages compared to a traditional piano are

the greater availability, the lower cost, and the in-

trinsic ease of letting a MIDI controller communicate

with a computer system.

3 THE MIDIGAMES PLATFORM

The approaches mentioned in Section 2 served as pos-

itive precedents in the development of Midigames, of-

CSME 2024 - 5th International Special Session on Computer Supported Music Education

598

fering promising prospects for an interactive gaming

experience fused with music education. Midigames

is a gaming platform that offers 11 short game experi-

ences numbered 0 to 11, specially designed to practice

the controls usually offered by a MIDI keyboard.

The taxonomy of digital musical learning re-

sources reported in (Mandanici et al., 2023) men-

tions three hierarchical tiers, namely Domains, Di-

mensions, and Nodes. Referring to such a taxonomy,

the platform can be classiﬁed as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Classiﬁcation of Midigames with respect to the

taxonomy reported in (Mandanici et al., 2023).

Domains Dimensions Nodes

Metadata Material Midigames

Contribution Case study

Date 2023

Technological Applications Desktop

Input Technologies MIDI

System Outputs Audio, Video

Musical Activities Performing

Pedagogical Learning Theories Constructivism

Users Primary school

Venues Lab, Home

A primary consideration in the development of

Midigames was the maintenance of high motivation

and low levels of frustration throughout the learning

process. These short experiences strive for simplic-

ity and intuitiveness, adopting a minimalist graphical

user interface. Each minigame is designed to be eas-

ily comprehensible yet inherently enjoyable, a pivotal

aspect in fostering effective education.

These games are mainly intended for educational

purposes, thus addressing young users and beginners,

but can also be adopted in physical or cognitive re-

habilitation contexts. Concerning the expected age

of users in the educational scenario, the platform ad-

dresses primary school children. For younger users,

the presence of a facilitator is strongly suggested. In

fact, minigame goals are presented through short sen-

tences and note names are spelled out according to

alphabetical musical notation, i.e. A to G. For a stu-

dent who is not able to read yet, minigames are not

fully self-explanatory. For other use cases, there are

no requirements about the player’s age. Anyway, it is

advisable to have an educator supervising game ses-

sions even when using the platform for cognitive re-

habilitation purposes.

Midigames offers three difﬁculty levels: normal,

intermediate, and professional. These difﬁculty levels

vary in the number of obstacles present, the time, and

the number of lives available to the player. In the nor-

mal difﬁculty setting, players have four lives, while

in the intermediate setting, they have two, and in the

professional setting, they have only one. Moreover, a

gameplay mode was developed speciﬁcally for train-

ing purposes but was not utilized during the testing

phase described in Section 4. In this training-speciﬁc

mode, players have access to more comprehensive in-

game information compared to other modes, along-

side the beneﬁt of inﬁnite lives. Additionally, there is

an endless mode available where players have inﬁnite

lives, allowing for continuous practice and improve-

ment.

Midigames has been compiled and distributed for

MacOS and Microsoft Windows. The platform can be

downloaded from https://silver978-dev.itch.io/midig

ames.

3.1 Technical Details

The platform is based on the Musical Instrument Dig-

ital Interface (MIDI), a standard communication pro-

tocol used in electronic musical instruments and de-

vices. MIDI allows different musical instruments,

such as keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, and

computers, to communicate with each other and con-

trol various aspects of music production. At its core,

MIDI is a language that enables electronic devices to

transmit and receive musical information. This infor-

mation includes instructions for playing notes, chang-

ing the sounds of instruments, adjusting the volume

levels, and controlling various parameters of sound

synthesis. MIDI messages can be sent and received

between MIDI-compatible devices via standard MIDI

cables, USB connections, or wirelessly using MIDI-

over-Bluetooth or other wireless protocols.

One of the fundamental applications of MIDI is

controlling a synthesizer from a keyboard. When a

key is pressed on a MIDI keyboard, it generates a

MIDI note message that includes information such

as the pitch of the note, the velocity (how hard the

key was pressed), and the duration of the note. This

MIDI note message is then transmitted to a MIDI-

compatible synthesizer, which interprets the message

and produces the corresponding sound. In addition

to note messages, MIDI supports a variety of other

messages that allow for control over different aspects

of musical performance and sound synthesis. For in-

stance, Control Change messages are used to adjust

various parameters of sound synthesis, such as vol-

ume, pitch bend, modulation, and ﬁlter cutoff, thus

they can be used to create dynamic and expressive

musical performances. Another fundamental message

is the Program Change, used to change the instrument

or sound patch being used by a MIDI-compatible de-

vice. Each instrument or sound patch is assigned

a unique program number, and sending a Program

Change message with the desired program number

Fostering Piano Keyboard Proﬁciency Through Interactive Minigames on a MIDI Controller

599

Figure 1: An example of a MIDI keyboard.

causes the device to switch to that instrument or sound

patch.

In order to easily set these music and sound pa-

rameters, in addition to keys, MIDI keyboard con-

trollers usually are equipped with other control de-

vices, including wheels with central return position (a

typical case is the pitch bend wheel used to ﬁnely de-

tune pitches), some sliders, and other rotating controls

(usable to set, e.g., channel volume, panning, cho-

rus, and reverb). An example of a MIDI keyboard is

shown in Fig. 1; in addition to velocity-sensitive keys,

the left side of the device has a pitch bend wheel, a

volume slider, and a modulation wheel.

The Midigames platform supports any form of

MIDI inputs and, in particular, both virtual and phys-

ical MIDI keyboards. Virtual MIDI keyboards are

software-based devices that allow users to play MIDI

notes using their computer keyboard or mouse. Vir-

tual MIDI keyboards can perfectly simulate the func-

tionality of physical keyboards and they even present

several advantages over the latter, including conve-

nience (many free products can be retrieved from the

Web), portability (they are software applications), and

versatility (they can embed a number of conﬁgurable

controllers). However, in this context, virtual key-

boards are useful mainly for test or demonstration

purposes and for the mere acquisition of basic mu-

sical concepts, e.g. the correct identiﬁcation of keys

associated with pitches. Since the experiences that

we propose are tightly connected with musical prac-

tice, the adoption of a physical keyboard is strongly

suggested.

3.2 Game Experience

In this section, we list the minigames on the platform,

provide a short description of their features, and high-

light their intended goals. Their graphical interfaces

are shown in Fig. 2

• Midigame 0 — This minigame presents a se-

quence of notes shown one at a time in the form

of a colored text indication. The input interface

to use is the piano keyboard. If the player presses

the right note, the next note is shown. The pro-

cess continues until the sequence is ﬁnished. The

educational goal of this minigame is to strengthen

associations between note names and the corre-

sponding keys;

• Midigame 1 — This minigame is based on the

same concept as the previous one, but notes are

presented all together, in a sequence that scrolls

on-screen. The input interface to use is the pi-

ano keyboard. To win this minigame, the player

has to press the notes in the correct order from

left to right. The total length of the pitch se-

quence is variable depending on the level of dif-

ﬁculty. The educational goal of this minigame

is, once again, to strengthen associations between

note names and the corresponding keys;

• Midigame 2 — This minigame presents two

groups of emoticons randomly scattered on the

screen: the former group aims to represent a

happy emotion, the latter an angry feeling. The

player is invited to press the keyboard keys asso-

ciated with the notes of the angry emoticons, with-

out pressing the notes of the happy ones, to make

them disappear from the screen. When the player

selects a note related to happiness, the minigame

fails. Even if this experience relies once again

on the associations between note names and keys,

in this scenario there is no predeﬁned sequence

to follow; moreover, a quick response from the

player is rewarded;

• Midigame 3 — This minigame introduces a char-

acter that, starting from the left side of the screen,

has to reach the goal on the right. The path is

blocked by two rocks that have to be lifted by

pressing a speciﬁc note on the piano keyboard.

Each rock can be traversed as long as the corre-

sponding key is pressed. Thus, in this minigame,

not only the note pitch but also its duration is rel-

evant for completing the game;

• Midigame 4 — This minigame shows a bird-like

character who has to ﬂy and avoid obstacles com-

ing from the right side of the screen. His vertical

position is controlled using the pitch bend wheel.

The ﬂight height is also linked to a sound whose

pitch depends on the wheel position. This experi-

ence differs from the previous ones as it is a sur-

vival game: the player has not to complete a chal-

lenge, rather she has to survive without touching

any obstacles until the time is over. The goals of

this experience are both to improve the ability to

use the pitch bend will and to better understand

the concept of micro-tuning typically connected

to its use in musical performance;

• Midigame 5 — In this minigame based on vertical

scrolling, the player controls a car that can move

CSME 2024 - 5th International Special Session on Computer Supported Music Education

600

Figure 2: The graphical interface of Midigames 0 to 10 (left to right, top to bottom).

Fostering Piano Keyboard Proﬁciency Through Interactive Minigames on a MIDI Controller

601

left and right using two speciﬁc notes that are

randomized each time the experience is restarted.

The game goal is to avoid any contact with the

enemy cars arriving from the top. This is another

case of a survival game that fosters the ability to

quickly alternate keyboard keys;

• Midigame 6 — The scenario of this experience

is a garden with plants that have to be watered

to grow, The initial position of plants is random.

Water is sprayed from a tube placed in the cen-

ter of the scene. To complete the task, the player

has to master one of the rotative controls or slid-

ers present on the MIDI controller, whose position

changes the direction of the water. Also in this

example, the practical use of the control tool is

reinforced by a musical meaning, e.g. volume set-

tings, vehiculated through MIDI Control Change

messages;

• Midigame 7 — In this activity, the goal is to

move a rectangle-shaped ﬁctional shield to defend

the Earth from space meteors. Like the previous

minigame, this experience invites the player to use

either a rotative or a slider control to achieve the

result;

• Midigame 8 — This minigame presents a group

of people asking for some candies; some of them

are hungry, others are not. The player is invited

to press the notes shown below to people who

want candies, avoiding the notes associated with

the other characters. This minigame is similar in

its goals and approach to Midigame 2;

• Midigame 9 — This activity proposes a list of

notes in ascending order to be played as a se-

quence within a given time interval. Since the

random sequence recalls a fragment of a musical

scale, the underlying goal is to foster the learning

of ﬁngerings;

• Midigame 10 — In this minigame, the player

has to defend her house against incoming rock-

ets. Each weapon is associated with a pitch and

the user has to press the corresponding key to neu-

tralize it. Once again, the idea is to encourage a

prompt response from the user on the keyboard.

Let us analyze the games from different perspec-

tives, summarized in Table 2. First, they encourage

the player to use different controls of a typical MIDI

keyboard: the keys, the pitch bend wheel, the slid-

ers, and other rotating controls. In order to keep

minigames simple from a physical and cognitive point

of view, such controls are never used together. One

deliberately overlooked aspect is the use of the pedal.

Although it is an essential component of a traditional

Table 2: Comparison between different minigames.

Game id Control Type Story

0 keys time no

1 keys time no

2 keys time yes

3 keys time yes

4 pitch bend wheel survival yes

5 keys survival yes

6 slider / rotating time yes

7 slider / rotating survival yes

8 keys time yes

9 keys time no

10 keys survival yes

or digital piano, it is not common to ﬁnd this control

associated with a MIDI keyboard controller.

All games have a limited play time in the range of

10 to 60 seconds. The number of seconds available

changes according to the difﬁculty level. But some

of the games are time challenges, i.e. the task has to

be completed before the time expires (the shorter the

time taken, the better the result), whereas others are

survival games, i.e. the player has to reach the end of

the challenge with no mistakes.

From the point of view of storytelling, some

games offer purely musical challenges, whereas some

others have characters or present extra-musical goals.

In our intentions, in a supervised experience, this mul-

tiplicity of approaches should allow the educator to

choose the most suitable experiences to encourage the

player, e.g. starting from fun scenarios like watering

plants or defending the Earth and gradually moving

toward note sequences, chords, and scales. In an un-

supervised gaming experience, heterogeneity should

improve engagement and avoid frustration, letting the

player choose the most suitable challenges with re-

gard to the goals to achieve.

4 EARLY EXPERIMENTATION

4.1 Test Protocol

The testing phase to evaluate the gaming platform

involved several key steps. Participants were super-

vised by an expert while they downloaded and played

the minigames. To ensure a level playing ﬁeld, par-

ticipants were provided with a comprehensive guide,

including instructions, which is beneﬁcial for those

unfamiliar with the mechanics and musical notes.

They then proceeded to engage directly on the key-

board, employing a trial-and-error approach to famil-

iarize themselves with the gameplay. Each gaming

session lasted approximately thirty minutes, during

which participants exclusively played in the normal

CSME 2024 - 5th International Special Session on Computer Supported Music Education

602

difﬁculty mode. To mitigate potential biases, the or-

der of the minigames was randomized.

The testing phase involved administering two

questionnaires, the former to be administered before

the game experience and aimed at proﬁling players

and the latter to be administered after the game expe-

rience and aimed at gathering user opinions and re-

marks. The test activity involved 9 users in total.

The ﬁrst questionnaire investigated aspects such

as the player’s gender, age, and level of musical ex-

perience. Proﬁling the participants allowed some as-

sumptions to be made in the analysis of the results

provided below.

The post-game survey followed the guidelines

proposed in the Game Experience Questionnaire

(GEQ) from the Eindhoven University of Technol-

ogy (IJsselsteijn et al., 2013). The structure proposed

by such a document consists of three modules and an

additional part:

• Core Module, which measures the game experi-

ence using various components. The most rele-

vant for Midigames are competence, ﬂow, tension,

and challenge;

• Social Presence Module, which analyzes the in-

teraction between the player and other social enti-

ties, like in-game characters or other online play-

ers;

• Post-Game Module, which takes into account

how the player felt after playing the game. This

part consists of four components: Positive Expe-

rience, Negative Experience, Tired- ness and Re-

turning to Reality;

• In-Game Version of the questionnaire, which

represents a more compact version of the core

module, presented to the player inside the game

itself.

The general schema was adapted to suit our goals,

particularly by limiting the Core Module to focus on

the most relevant components for our minigames. In

this adjustment, the component of Sensory and Imag-

inative Immersion, which is primarily related to the

aesthetic aspects of the game and less relevant in our

context, was omitted. The included components con-

sist of Flow, Competence, Negative Affect, Positive

Affect, Challenge, and Tension/Annoyance. Further-

more, being all the activities in Midigames single-

player games without virtual characters, the Social

Presence module was omitted, too. Finally, the nature

of Midigames suggested to avoid the In-game Version

of the questionnaire.

In order to gather objective evaluations, players

completed the questionnaires without being moni-

tored, thus reducing potential biases that could arise

from the presence of a supervisor.

4.2 Pre-Game Questionnaire Results

The gender was well balanced in the group, with 5

males (55.6%) and 4 females (44.4%). Concerning

age ranges, 1 participant was 17 or younger (11.1%),

1 participant was 18 to 20 (11.1%), 2 participants

were 21 to 29 (22.2%), 2 participants were 41 to 49

(22.2%), and 3 participants were 50 to 59 (33.3%).

It is important to highlight that the age distribution

is skewed towards older users, an aspect to keep into

account if the main target of these games is young

learners.

On a 5-point Likert scale, most of the participants

declared that they had no musical education (2 partic-

ipants, 22.2%), a low level (3 participants, 33. 3%),

or a medium level (3 participants, 33.3%); only 1 re-

sponder self-assessed her abilities as 4, no one scored

5. In this perspective, the characteristics of the ex-

perimental group are consistent with the intended au-

dience of Midigames. Among the 6 users who have

some experience in instrumental practice, 50% de-

clared playing the keyboard as the main instrument,

the others indicated guitar, drums, and wind instru-

ments.

All respondents declared to have some experience

with gaming. On a 5-point Likert scale where 1 means

“no experience” and 5 means “high experience”, 1

participant scored 2 (11.1%), 2 participants scored 3

(22.2%), 3 participants scored 4 (33.3%), and 3 par-

ticipants scored 5 (33.3%). The preferred category

was adventure games, but, noticeably, one vote went

to rhythm games.

The pre-game questionnaire also investigated par-

ticipants’ opinions on the adoption of video games in

an educational framework. Four respondents out of

9 declared to have the highest consideration toward

gamiﬁcation in education, whereas one of them was

completely against this approach. Finally, six partici-

pants stated that they had never participated in a gam-

iﬁcation activity.

4.3 Post-Game Questionnaire Results

As mentioned at the beginning of the section, this part

of the experimental activity focused on the Core Mod-

ule and the Post-Game Module of the Game Experi-

ence Questionnaire.

In order to present the ﬁndings of the GEQ, vio-

lin plots and box plots derived from all participants

in the study were employed. These graphical repre-

sentations serve to provide a depiction of the data dis-

tribution. The violin plot offers insight into the den-

Fostering Piano Keyboard Proﬁciency Through Interactive Minigames on a MIDI Controller

603

Figure 3: Violin plots, computed from the Core GEQ data

of all participants. Each plot focuses on one speciﬁc com-

ponent of the GEQ.

Figure 4: Violin plots, computed from the Post-Game GEQ

data of all participants. Each plot focuses on one speciﬁc

component of the GEQ.

sity estimation of the empirical distribution, while the

accompanying box plot delineates key statistical pa-

rameters including quartiles, median, maximum and

minimum values (whiskers), with outliers depicted as

individual data points.

The distribution of average scores among various

components of the core module is depicted in Fig. 3.

The median values of the ﬂow and positive affect

components are approximately 3.5 and greater than

4.5, respectively. This implies that the players were

immersed, enjoyed the game, and felt pleasure in the

experience. Conversely, the medians of the negative

affect and tension/annoyance components are 1, the

minimum value on the scale. The players did not

feel pressure or frustration, and negative experiences

were minimal. The competence component is close

to 2.5. This value suggests that players did not per-

ceive themselves as highly skilled. This is especially

true for less experienced players who had to under-

stand music-related requests and learn to play. It also

suggests that more initial training will be necessary

in the future. Similarly, the median of the challenge

component is around 2.5, indicating a moderate level

of challenge for the players.

For the Post-Game Module, the violins and box

plots are shown in Fig. 4. The components under anal-

ysis are positive experiences, negative experiences,

tiredness, and returning to reality.

As can be seen from the data, the positive experi-

ence component consistently yields a median exceed-

ing 4. Conversely, the medians of the negative ex-

perience and tiredness components hover around 1,

the lowest value permitted. These ﬁndings suggest

that the activities offered in Midigames were posi-

tively evaluated by the participants, and the notion of

presenting brief gaming activities likely mitigated the

fatigue of the players. Moreover, the process of re-

turning to reality was perceived as effortless, with a

median of approximately 1.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has described a platform to foster proﬁ-

ciency in the use of a MIDI keyboard, focusing on

different musical parameters and employing different

interaction tools typically offered by a keyboard-like

controller.

The software platform exhibits several advantages

that stem from its versatility, which caters to diverse

user demographics, including children without prior

knowledge of music, individuals with physical or cog-

nitive impairments, and those simply seeking recre-

ational enjoyment.

While the preliminary tests conducted so far on

the software platform may have involved a limited

number of users, their signiﬁcance lies in establish-

ing a robust investigation methodology and generat-

ing valuable insights through the application of estab-

lished evaluation guidelines such as the Game Expe-

rience Questionnaire. Moving forward, these ﬁndings

serve as a foundation for further research, iterative de-

velopment, and optimization efforts aimed at enhanc-

ing the platform’s usability, accessibility, and overall

user experience.

In the gameplay, aspects of reinforcement have

been integrated so that actions on the keyboard

achieve not only the apparent goal of the game (for

example, reproducing a sequence of gestures to over-

come an obstacle) but also aid in understanding the

musical parameters typically controlled through those

gestures. This integration of reinforcement mecha-

nisms serves to deepen the player’s engagement with

the game by aligning gameplay objectives with mu-

sical learning outcomes. By requiring players to in-

teract with the keyboard in ways that directly impact

musical parameters, such as pitch, tempo, or rhythm,

the gameplay experience becomes inherently educa-

tional. Players not only progress through the game’s

CSME 2024 - 5th International Special Session on Computer Supported Music Education

604

challenges but also develop a nuanced understanding

of musical concepts and techniques. Furthermore, by

linking gameplay actions to musical parameters, the

gameplay experience becomes more immersive and

meaningful. Players are not just pressing keys to

advance in the game; they are actively shaping and

manipulating musical elements, thus enhancing their

musical comprehension and appreciation.

However, it is important to acknowledge a known

limitation of our approach: the necessity of having

a physical controller capable of handling MIDI com-

munication. This requirement may pose challenges

for some users who do not have access to such hard-

ware or face barriers to its use. Moving forward,

addressing this limitation could involve exploring al-

ternative control methods or providing support for a

broader range of input devices, thus ensuring greater

accessibility and inclusivity in the gameplay experi-

ence.

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