Topic: DSi musical photos?

[bosshogx]

I don't know if this has been found already yet, but I noticed a cute little Easter Egg in the DSi's camera function today.  Try taking a picture of anything and then open up the "edit" function.  Choose the "graffiti" option and clear the screen.  Open up the symbol types and choose the music note.  Start placing them anywhere on the screen.  Here the sound that accompanies it?  Pretty cute touch right, but did you know that it's not random?

Try this, clear the screen again.  Now place the stylus in the lower left corner of the touch screen and slowly drag it all the way to the right.  This should yield eight notes that are escalating as you move to the right.  Now place the stylus in the middle left and do the same thing.  Now it's gone up an octave.  Finally, place the stylus in the upper left and drag.  Once again, you've gone up an octave.  Cool, huh?  Clear the screen again, and place the stylus back in the lower left corner again.  Now drag up the stylus straight up.  You should get six notes.  Each pair of notes represents one level of octave.  The middle acts as the starting octave and the ones above and below it represent higher and lower octaves.

I did some experimenting and found that the notes are laid out in a certain sequence that mirrors a piano's layout.  If we assume that we have three zones of octaves with eight notes going across, that would give us twenty-four locations for notes.  Here is a visual example of what I'm talking about:

C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C
C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C
C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C

The "C" on the far right matches the "C" on the far left on the octave above it.  Try it out for yourself.  Touch the "C" location on the middle right and then touch the "C" location on the upper left.  See, same sound.  The same goes for the "C" on the lower right and the "C" in the middle left.

Now for the fun part.  Get out a piece of paper, or use something on your computer, and draw out a 3x8 grid and fill it in with the above letters.  Now take your DSi and take a picture of the grid so that it fills the touchscreen perfectly.  Once you have the picture saved, open it up and choose the graffiti option.  If you took the picture right, your screen should have twenty-four squares each with a letter in them.  Tap the stylus on the squares to listen to the proper notes.

Now, try playing this and guess what it is:

(starting on the middle octave) D-D-D, G, !D, C-B-A, !G, !D, C-B-A, !G, !D, C-B-C, A

**The "-" means play it quickly and the "!" means use the higher octave.**

Highlight for the answer: The beginning of the main theme of Star Wars

But wait, there's more!  If you hold up or down on the D-Pad while touching a note, it will apply a sharp (up on the d-pad) or a flat (down on the d-pad) to the note.  Using this new technique, try playing the following:

(starting in the middle octave) B, B, B-B-B, B-A, B-B, B-B-B, B-A, B-B, B-B-B, B-F-F, F-F-F, F-F-F, F-F

**All of the "B" and "A" notes are flats.  The "F" notes are normal.**

If your gamer sense is tingling, you should get the beat almost immediately.  If you still don't know what it is, highlight the answer here: The intro to the Legend of Zelda.

Now go out and find some sheet music and tap out some of your favorite songs!  Here are some good resources that helped me figure it all out:

The Basics of Reading Sheet Music
Sharps, Flats, and Natural Notes
The Empire Strikes Back Music Sheet
The Legend of Zelda Music Sheet (pdf)

I hope you guys find this as cool as I did.  Have fun tapping out music to your pictures...with the slightly obnoxious picture music in the background.

[bosshogx]

Here's a video I made demonstrating it in action:

Musical Photos

Pretty cool, yes?

[Caliban]

Sweet. Can't wait to try it out once I get a DSi.

Edit: That note chart... quite clever I say, quite clever.

[bosshogx]

Sweet. Can't wait to try it out once I get a DSi.

Edit: That note chart... quite clever I say, quite clever.

Thanks.  I made that chart in Excel in order to easily manipulate the cells to get it to fit right.  Looks like this got onto gonintendo.com.  Cool!  I've officially started my 15 minutes of fame.

[NWR_Lindy]

Too awesome.

[bosshogx]

Here's the picture I used in the video.  Save it to your CPU, transfer it to your SD card, then plug it into your DSi for maximum fun.

[Caliban]

Looks like this got onto gonintendo.com.  Cool!  I've officially started my 15 minutes of fame.

You're on Kotaku also, 5000 views and counting: http://kotaku.com/5208212/play-the-piano-with-your-dsi

[bosshogx]

The Internet never ceases to amaze me at how fast it moves.  The youtube page with the video on it has just passed 15,000 views.  Sick!  Here's hoping some of that traffic checks out my website as well.

[SirSniffy]

That is seriously awesome. <3 the DSi!

[blackfootsteps]

Pretty cool, great find bosshog.