Could HoloLens be your next piano teacher?

Laurent Giret

Teomirn HoloLens app

Since Microsoft introduced its HoloLens headset back in 2015, the company has been exploring various professional use cases for mixed reality apps. As an example, NASA has been experimenting with the headset to provide hands-free remote assistance to astronauts, using holograms to display augmented instruction manuals to station crews.

But what if holograms could also be used as a learning tool for other technical subjects, such as musical instruments? That’s what some Japanese developers are trying to do with Teomirn, a HoloLens piano-tutoring app which is currently in development (via UploadVR). The developers are thinking about different use cases: you could just watch the hologram of a piano teacher playing on a real piano in free viewpoint, but you could also practice along the teacher’s finger-motion that appears as a hologram above your keyboard.

While the concept is definitely promising, HoloLens’s currently limited field of view could be an issue for users. More importantly, imitating what you see without having a basic understanding of what you play may not be the best way to learn how to play an instrument. According to the report, the developers of Teomirn are currently looking for partners and investors to push the app to the next level, and we’ll see there is a market for music teaching apps for the HoloLens.