Theone Piano Yes: The intelligent play of musical instruments

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Theone, founder of the smart Piano Yes is a continuous entrepreneur, also in the investment, Tsinghua Electronics department graduate. He joked that his fellow alumni were a minority in the field of music, such as Gao. So he does the Smart Piano project is also normal.

December 21, in the Tiger Sniffing FM Festival, the Intelligent Life Museum, I and Yes conducted an interview dialogue, talk about the Smart Piano project. Recently, I saw this product haunt in the activities of many Internet circles, which shows that it is a more popular product, of course, there is a reason for fun. One of the biggest reasons for cutting into this area, Yes says, is that a common feature of such instruments is "easy to use and difficult to master", so it simplifies learning methods and time by using smart hardware.

The Theone Smart Piano can help users learn to play the piano in addition to following the key indicators faster, through Android, iOS, and online VOD. Theone Main is teaching, Yes said products out, sell well, the cumulative volume has been shipped through million. It's a really good result for such a big thing.

Here's a dialogue between the intellectual stuff (public number: zhidxcom) and Yes:

Guoren: What's the starting point for the idea that Theone piano was originally created?

Yes: I myself am a music lover, like to listen to songs, but I have not learned any musical instruments since childhood. Actually comes from saying to the music this thing likes, because the music everybody likes very much. So in the mobile internet age, how to help in the mobile internet can make music learning easier.

Many people think of the piano that this is a very big thing, but we hope that the piano can be combined with everyone's daily life, can make this piano with everyone, so this is my starting point.

Guoren: It's true that everyone has a musical instrument dream, but why choose the piano as a starting point?

Yes: The piano This instrument uses the Internet word, is an "easy to use, difficult to master" instrument, because unlike other instruments, such as the violin, the pitch to the right, it takes a year or two to press this right, but the piano does not exist, because it is a more digital keyboard, Each of its keys, with the sound is standard, so, as long as you put the key to the right, out of the tune must be right.

We have this indicator, as long as the indicator light to play, you can put this bomb right, this thing is easier, let beginners to build the first confidence. Piano as a musical instrument also has a characteristic is difficult to master, we do this product, mainly let you very quickly perceive this instrument's wonderful place, the place of fun, but you want to improve it, it takes a lot of time, so in the process, we also do online education, can let you constantly improve.

Guoren: What kind of team and technology are we relying on?

Yes: Because I am a continuous entrepreneur, the original Internet industry, did investment, began to do hardware. I myself is Tsinghua Electronics department, so the challenge is relatively large. You see this is just a piano, but in fact it is divided into several pieces, the first hardware. Software, because we do online education, software to support Android, support iOS, need to do, it is in fact related to teaching, and then to do a lot of content. This is only to finish this product, there is a big chunk behind it, is e-commerce, because we want to sell this product today, so that users can go to all kinds of channels to see, this business aspect of the characteristics to do, because we today's this, although currently small companies, but in fact we this includes hardware, software, Content and electricity quotient, these four quick, this need to do well in fact is needs the team's combination to be possible.

Guoren: Back to the piano itself, is the instrument of intelligent, fool, you think is a kind of just need it?

Yes: I feel absolutely just need, say, every time I go to do ppt or introduction, I will have that picture, what is the picture, is that we have seen in the past few months in Xiamen Gulangyu's Piano Museum, we call 100 years ago the smart piano, it is pure mechanical, and then through the pedals, Then I'll teach you how to play the piano. This demand, is more than 100 years, all the piano-learning people have the need, just say 100 years ago, these craftsmen are purely mechanical way to achieve such a, help people to solve this demand. So today is the internet age, we use mobile internet technology to solve this thing, so from this point of view, we do smart hardware and a lot of now probably the most popular, we do not study too much, we really useful.

Guoren: From the product itself, the basic principle of sound, it belongs to the electronic organ of the voice, or the traditional way of the sound of the triangle piano?

Yes: It's actually mixed, like its standard category should be classified as an electric piano. Piano as a musical instrument, its core technology has two points: one is the touch of the keyboard, must be knocked up a certain degree of strength, and then according to my intensity. The second, the sound of this voice, is its timbre, the timbre of a certain piano, the sound of the traditional trigonometric piano we use.

Guoren: How to use this electronic sound to imitate the sound of the triangle piano, to distinguish from the keyboard?

Yes: There are two pieces of technology, the first is on the keyboard, this is the same as the piano, as long as the button down, the need for the strength of a large number of pianos, so you can guarantee the piano this normal feel, and then according to the strength of your percussion, because we through the sensor, we know you hit the strength, And then through the back of the chip to sound, it sounds the principle is probably part of the electron, but in the back of the sound, we are from the sound of this triangle piano collection.

Guoren: This position is called the intelligent piano, the intelligence mainly manifests in which aspect?

Yes: In the teaching of intelligence, for example, we feel that the piano is very far away from me, the first is expensive, a piano price may be ten thousand or twenty thousand Yuan, and then the cost of learning every day may also be ten thousand or twenty thousand, to a very long time, so learning this easy is 50,000 to 100,000 or even higher costs. The second, traditionally, you have to learn the piano, people feel very very painful, play a little bit in the ear, acceptable and acceptable.

Guoren: Maybe the smart piano changes the way traditional piano practice, this painful cycle, to the family around the torture, but this will weaken the staff, the music theory of this mastery?

Yes: In the art and technology of this learning level, can pop tunes, can enjoy the joy of art, the process, the piano to play well, or to learn. We don't go for the crash, the piano can't crash, but we can make it more fun and fun. We're in it, we do the spectrum, we listen to the volume, we practice the tools of collaboration, and the tools are interacting with the mobile Internet, for example, I have a staff note, and then you hit it right through the keyboard. and the traditional piano, it actually does not have this kind of intelligent means, is completely mechanical training.

Guoren: What if the practice goes to a piano with no known indicator light? Is the child still functioning properly?

Yes: In our systematic learning process, our LEDs are just an assistive tool that instructs the user to get started. So in our video after the piano, is not required to light. So our product how to succeed, said to help all users in a traditional environment, can pop his favorite tunes, this is the way we teach, in fact, we this is one of the means, in fact, there are more things in the whole teaching link inside.

Guoren: Before, on the iOS platform there are many piano applications, your product is not from a software product to extend to the hardware of such a train of thought?

Yes: In fact, when we do this product, we find that in piano teaching or musical instrument learning, many people have done a lot of work, including companies like Japan and the United States, they do a lot of apps, including online teaching video, including a variety of teaching aids, but no product, Integrate all the software, hardware, and content together. The final result is that when you have started to learn the piano, you will find that there are a lot of tools in their own together, can be helpful to you.

Guoren: Like this app, with the combination of soft and hard instruments, in other types of instruments, can also try to combine it?

Yes: I believe we should say there is always a process, first of all, we're still called startups, so I'm still going to spend quite a lot of time on the keyboard itself, and then as for the instruments such as guitars and drums, it's possible, for example, to become intelligent, and I think it's possible, But I think at the moment we see some of the entry point, may not do well enough we still have to think about this matter, and then do something else.

Guoren: Are other instruments more difficult to compare to the piano?

Yes: Let's just say, "Easy to start, difficult to master", in fact, this is the best access, "easy to start" The representative is said, everyone come up to be able to experience its fun place, rather than say, play for half an hour, I still think this matter with me, right. So for example, guitar, guitar is relatively simple, but the guitar it's a chord, you have to put it into reality, in this case, you might be over half a year, right, so it looks like, so even if someone tells you to just press the three strings, it's probably going to take a lot of time on this thing, It's possible to get help from apps or other help. And from another angle, when you can hold that chord down, when you can play a tune, your idea of going to school is not that strong, so it leads to the point that it's not as easy to start as the piano, but it's not as hard to master as the piano, so I think from this perspective, we're not going to think about it for the time being. , that's why.

Guoren: From the use of products, initially is a sparring partner, from our user data, which group is the piano as a phased practice tool?

Yes: In this case, we started from the beginning, because the traditional piano, mostly from children, adults learn piano, the total number of less than 10%, so we start to think, our users who, after six months of trial, including sales, found that the user's target audience than we think of a broader, because he has to buy children, but also the adults themselves play, and many adults play, and even the elderly in the family play, we are very happy, the broader extent of the market than our imagination.

Guoren: If we follow the channel you said just now, what are the channels that sell better?

Yes: We're still in the early stages, we should now be, where we expand to where there is our business department, the original people who used to buy the piano, and vice versa, such as the Wal-Mart channel, he may be what we say, new market, incremental market, these people, He may have never thought of it, he may not have been to the piano, he may be Wal-Mart to see the piano is fun, and then think of their own children can play in the home, and then go to buy. So, if you want to ask me, who our users are, we are currently such a number of channels, their volume is actually much larger than we think, there are a lot of work to do.

Guoren: What is the cumulative volume of a shipment now? How long?

Yes: We now have about 3000 shipments per month. We are growing every month now, we start from September to do this network of piano class first, then October, November, became the entire Internet instrument ranked first.

Guoren: As a brand new product, how is this supply chain and production handled?

Yes: First of all, in fact, China has a very good advantage, is that we are closer to the supply chain, so we choose the piano Generation Factory, in fact, is a world's largest keyboard class generation factory, so the whole, it music industry, the world's 70% keyboard instruments are from this factory out of the So why is the product coming out today, it has a very good keyboard feel, including timbre. And then we might be more concerned with the customization of the design we need, the whole inside, and the parts of the device that we're dealing with, which we're doing better.

Conclusion：

The above more than 10 questions have already summed up the Theone piano This intelligent hardware project many key aspects, also may see these several characteristics: 1, the piano is a starting point, the main teaching. 2, the whole software, hardware, content to integrate together, learning more convenient. 3, there will be some new play, add other instrument ensemble.