Piano Shoot'em Up game

I'm working on developing an "educational" game for practicing the piano. I am trying to design a game I would want to play. (Piano practice can be boring.) I looked at the current offerings and saw nothing appealing. 

I wanted a game for practicing piano that did not resemble a typical rhythm game. I wanted something that strongly resembled an arcade game. I also wanted it to sound like a real piano and not a 1980s toy Casio. Donkey Konga is a good example of what I'm looking for, but with piano instead of drums.

Known issues:

• The player needs better "early detection" for knowing which columns blocks are coming from.
• The columns don't line up with the keys. Spacing may never look right, because pianos have unevenly spaced keys.
• The web version has performance issues. Quality sound fonts are large (and I've already compressed them)
• The blocks are spawned randomly. The goal is to spawn them in a melodic fashion or common practice patterns.
• Timing still needs to be designed. Timing in terms of accuracy, note duration, sustain, etc. 

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This is my 3rd prototype. I did not upload the 1st (a Mario style platformer that did not work right) or the 2nd (an ugly shoot'em up.) Both were in Unity, which I don't care to revisit. I am now working on a 4th prototype (a 3D version.) It will be uploaded soon.

My 4th prototype is using perspective to help with "early detection", but that introduced a new problem. Column alignment is made worse when rendered in perspective.

I think this style of game isn't common among piano games, because making an arcade game interface has turned out to be a rather difficult design problem.

TODO:

• Scoring system, accuracy ratings, achievements, statistics.
• Detection of timing, synchronization, sustain.
• Chord detection.
• Source notes from sheet music.
• More baddies and more weapons.
• Consider how dynamics detection and scoring might work.

MAIN GOALS:

• Arcade style feel. Game experience is number 1 priority.
• Quality piano (or synth) tones.
• Practice patterns and chords. Potentially learn songs.
• Fully functional piano synthesizer usable in free practice mode.
• Option to show/hide sheet music while playing.