Nice, France — When Patrick Smith bought a piano, he soon realised one thing: he was quite rusty at playing. He forget how intimidating an instrument it is,especially if he haven’t practiced in years. This is when he began to wonder: surely they must be a good way of giving piano players a little extra help without the tedious music lessons?

He discussed the problem to his son Alex, who builds synthesisers for a living, and together they began working on a solution. A year later, RainPlay was born.

As Alex says “You can think of it like a beautiful visualiser for sheet music, It works like Guitar hero, but for the piano and in real-life”.


Making use of hundreds of cascading LED lights, RainPlay indicates which keys to press next. Encased in an elegant brushed aluminium panel, the lights look beautiful as an addition to pianos and players can change the speed for complete control over their performance.

“The biggest challenge was turning the songs into lights,” Alex continues. “Luckily, I had enough experience working with hardware to know the easiest solution.” His answer was to use the MIDI format and let players transfer songs to an SD card before to feed them to RainPlay, much like a smartphone or a digital camera.

“The MIDI format is great because there are thousands of free songs available online, so players can find pretty much any piece of music they want to learn”.
!The next step was to take the RainPlay for a test drive. They let accomplished players and complete beginners have a go. “Children love RainPlay because it turns piano-playing into a game,” Alex says. “And the best way to learn an instrument is to make it fun in the first place.”

And what about Patrick? Equipped with his new gadget, he began playing. And playing. And playing some more. “My wife and I spent entire evenings learning new pieces – and none of us can read sheet music,” he says. “It was more than triggering my muscle memory for the piano. I felt like I had become an overnight pianist. It’s really magical”.

Contact Information:

Alex Smith
Email: alkex1982@gmail.com

Patrick Smith
Email: smith.patrick691@gmail.com

Website: www.kickstarter.com