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First Virtual Piano Competition

Posted by timothy on from the tickling-ivory-from-afar dept.

bluegreenone writes: "The New York Times has an article on what may be the first 'virtual' piano competition. One of the judges for the contest being held in St. Paul will actually be in Japan. He will evaluate the performances as relayed by Yamaha's Disklavier system. This has some interest from a technical standpoint, and also raises new questions about what a "live" performance is."

6 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What is 'live'? by beckett · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You've got 88 keys plus 3 pedals that are hit and released at precise times with a given force. The number of variables is limited and pretty straightforward. A sensor under each key could record the performance accurately, and a regular piano with a bunch of robotic plungers could play it back.
    it doesn't sound like you've played a lot of piano. The whole idea of the piano is in it's full name: pianoforte. this means that you can vary the intensity of each note played by varying how hard you strike the key. the piano was leaps and bounds ahead of the harpsicord that only could pluck the string one way. the piano uses a set of hammers to vary the intensity of the sound. where a disclavier might fall short is in recording the nuances of pressure applied: it just might not be exact enough. if you play the the purely electronic Yamaha keyboards you really miss out on the dynamic range of an authentic, stringed, piano. it's not as simple as sequencing in midi. When the piano is played masterfully there is a liason between each note that joins the whole composition together.
  2. Re:What is 'live'? by iangoldby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are a few things that might not be captured, such as the speed at which a damper is replaced on the strings when a note or the pedal is released. I don't know if the system accurately reproduces this. Certainly MIDI wouldn't.

    I suspect the main difference between a live performance and a performance from a Disklavier is that a live performer is constantly adjusting his touch to account for the individual characteristics of the piano, whereas IFAIK the Disklavier system does not have this feedback loop.

    So it would only sound exactly the same if the piano used to play back the performance was identical in touch and tone to the piano that recorded the performance.

    Mind you, I doubt if I or many others would notice the difference.

  3. Re:What is 'live'? by fruey · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The whole point is nuance. The piano player will actually react to the nuance of the piano he is playing. If he feels the upper octaves are quieter, he will adjust the strength he hits the keys. The harmonics generated by the strings will change based on those that are vibrating, but also by other external factors (a very very small nuance).

    In the case of the other piano, elsewhere in the world, there will be subtle differences in the instrument itself. Even if you can (and this is arguable) reproduce 99% of the nuance of the actual key velocity, you're not taking into account the fact that the musician is feeling and reacting to a separate instrument with a key action which must be different, affecting his touch, and with possible harmonic and amplitude differences across the piano keyboard range even given the same key velocity.

    But first and foremost this is most certainly NOT live music. It's reproduced mechanically, and that is no different from playing a CD (reproduced optically). Just because it's a real piano you're hearing, it's not the same piano the artist was playing. And he/she's not even there.

    --
    Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
  4. Re:What is 'live'? by Huge+Pi+Removal · · Score: 5, Informative

    But the pianist will be responding to the touch and feel of the piano (s)he's actually playing: I know, I'm a pianist. So unless they have an *identical* piano, in *identical* humidity, etc (which is impossible, given the subtleties a really good piano contains), they can't possibly have a 100% accurate reproduction.

    The question is, is it accurate *enough* for this purpose? I would claim "no", but I've never seen the system in action.

    --
    - Oliver

    The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
  5. Kurt Vonnegut got this right... by TekkonKinkreet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...in Player Piano, in 1955 or so. A recording, no matter how faithful, is a recording, it captures a performance, not a performer. The Disklavier is a player piano, a really good one. It makes the hammers hit the strings in (insert meaningless technical quibble here) the same way the pianist's fingers did. But until it captures Glenn Gould's humming, Stevie Wonder's head-bobbing, or Tori Amos' (essentially) fucking the piano stool, I will not be fooled into thinking that I am experiencing a live performance.

    (Been playing since I was four, and I prefer Steinways to Yamahas, but that's another matter.)

  6. Jelly Roll Morton's Piano Rolls by jamie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    One of the CDs I picked up recently was Piano Rolls by Jelly Roll Morton. He was one of the kings of ragtime back in the days before the electric microphone had been invented. He was a powerful, arrogant, flashy player who would often make a living by moving from town to town in Louisiana and challenging local players to a "duel." (No RIAA back then! I'm not quite sure what the revenue model was for having a hoedown with some honky-tonk player, but apparently he made it work.)

    No really good-quality audio recordings of his best work exist, he was born too soon. But we do have digital recordings: piano rolls he cut for player piano while he was at his prime. Five years ago or so, some smart people found some of those original piano rolls, scanned them into the computer, and converted them to MIDI files. Any adulterated roll-holes that the publisher might have added were removed -- at the time, player-piano publishers often took a razor blade and cut extra holes to make it sound like their artists had more hands. And subtle dynamic variations were added by hand to each note, since a player-piano roll has only one note attack volume (which at the time was often crudely modulated on playback anyway). As the liner notes say: "Converting Morton's old 78 recordings to computer data, we were able to study them from myriad standpoints of tempo, melodic shaping, accentuation, swung rhythms, chord voicing, and pedaling."

    Then they played the files on a Disklavier in a concert hall.

    It's eerie to listen to. It's this guy who was born in 1885, actual recordings he made in 1920, and it sounds... brilliant. You're not used to hearing jazz pianists from that era in CD quality on a great piano. Suddenly you realize that the 1920s did not sound like the 1920s to the 1920s. It's like seeing photographs a hundred years ago in color -- your mind knows better, but your senses go: whoa.