Slashdot Mirror
Old and New Technology in the Land of None
ninthwave writes "The Guardian has this article on the adventures of piano tuners in the Amazon. I think it is a nice lesson in the age of technology to see the perceived hardships of using technology in areas where the natives are quite happy without. More impressive is the old wooden piano seems to survive better than the new synth but that is horse of a different colour."
Who in their right mind needs a piano in the amazon? I'd be concerned with bug repellant than hearing Mozarts 5th.
I almost didn't get to read this story on old technology, one of the tubes in my computer died.
Trolling is a art,
The piano? Or the guy who delivers a baby grand piano into the Amazon...
"More impressive is the old wooden piano seems to survive better than the new synth but that is horse of a different colour."
I found this statement a little lacking in depth. The 'synth' isn't there to replace the piano specifically, it's there to provide a wide range of sounds. The keyboard interface is a very practical one for a classically trained musician to pick up and play. If it were here to replace the piano, it would have to not only faithfully recreate the sound, but it'd also have to provide the same feedback a piano does. When you play a piano, you can feel the hammers hitting the strings. This kind of feedback make it more natural to play. That's why it still has it's place.
Sorry for the rant, I just found the comparison a little silly. Kind of like comparing an alarm clock to the clock in Windows.
My comment about the 'keyboard interface that any musician can pick up' reminded me of something kind of interesting. Have any of you seen how the sound for the Simpsons is mastered? The sound guy has a guitar hooked up to a computer. He uses it to time when sounds take place. I thought that was a very unusual use for a guitar, but that's what he could play! I thought that was pretty cool.
Anyways, I might as well try to say something half-ways intelligent...
We often take technology for granted, assuming that lack of understanding is some sort of mental or cultural deficiency, whereas our general and almost complete in ability to survive if left in the middle of a rain forest without help is somehow a noble mark of civilization. Those who hunt and provide for their own food are somehow throwbacks in a technological society.
To ensure that this ties into News for Nerds, I'd like to point out that the juxtaposition of high and low technology is one of the central concepts to Firefly. I find it funny when people complain about the rediculousness of low-tech firearms on a spaceship... on the frontiers of civilization.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
The case was full of insect eggs; she thought that perhaps cockroaches had done the damage and spent a few minutes chasing one adult through the innards.
Can you imagine when someone plays Beethoven's 5th?
DONG DONG DONG (squish)
It only has to WORK WELL, with whatever is at hand.
Inuktitut writing looks cryptic. Yet it was devised by whites, and designed to work well with the writing implements available to the inuit: bones and stones. They weren't forced to use the roman alphabet which they could not transcribe properly.
Good design and engineering works by using what's available, not shoving down foreign and/or scarce technologies.
But if any of us had been expecting half-naked, blowpipe-wielding savages, we were disappointed. The American missionaries who converted the tribe in the 1950s taught them Christian modesty, and they now favour shorts and T-shirts, largely supplied by visitors and aid agencies. The footwear of choice is the plastic flip-flop.
A tribe that small, in that remote of a location, and Christians still feel the need to impose their religion on them. Quite sad.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I wonder about people when they consider a people who care for music, and treat an instrument properly "savages", yet the piano in my college residence is ruined with misuse and ugly graphiti carving.
Who are the savages? Do people in the Amazon write on public pianos too? "For a good time call Zanthia." --- "Hey Zanthia, wanna have a good time!"
--"NO. And stop calling for me!"
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The American missionaries who converted the tribe in the 1950s taught them Christian modesty, and they now favour shorts and T-shirts, largely supplied by visitors and aid agencies. The footwear of choice is the plastic flip-flop.
No comment necessary?
"And like that
I remember reading an article years ago about people in Japan donating old pianos, mostly to southeast Asia (There had been a boom in piano sales in Japan a while back, when many parents were signing their kids up for piano lessons, but with the boom over, most of these pianos sat unused in Japanese homes).
The problem was that pianos made for sale in Japan didn't handle the humid climate of southeast Asia and often became warped, as the one in the Amazon did.
I think it also mentioned some kind of treatment that can be done to the pianos at the manufacture time, to help strengthen them in humid climates.
People want PIANOs that can produce a wide range of sounds. That's why synths exist. Here are some features on modern day keyboard that prove my point:
weighted keys: so that it feels the same as a piano. You can't feel the hammers hitting the strings, you can only feel how hard it is to press the keys. Modern synths have this.
touch sensitivity:Harder hit means more sound...like a piano.
88 keys:There's no reason that a synth should have so many keys, since it is usually portable, and thre isn't a lot of synth-only music (meaning that the range could be dictated by the instrument). Unless, of course, its a replacement for the piano.
This doesn't apply to all keyboards because all of these features are rather expensive. But most good keyboard players get their keyboards with all of these features. Saying they're not the same is like saying that a piano wasn't a replacement for the harpsichord (which could only play one volume).
Interesting how we name our keyed instruments - based upon whatever feature they have that the previous instrument didn't. Pianos where originally called "forte-pianos," and synths...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I'm sorry, but you are mistaken in saying that the feedback of hammers hitting the strings cannot be reproduced. While I might be healthcare, i also play classical music on the piano, and for 2500 you can get a digital piano that has as good if not better feedback as your standard uprights in the same price range. Granted a grand piano is better, but what percentage of people are able to afford a 15k to 20k grand piano?. A digital piano such as a korg for instance never requires tuning, has excellent feed back and record and play back. I suppose you may have been talking just about synths that have keys but no feed back, but i wanted to respond to the misconeption that you can't get great feed back with digital.
So our intrepid travelers return and are greeted be the villagers that have apparently just been shopping at Target. Flip-flops, shorts, and even the occasional T-Shirt that has the phrase, "I'm a lion hunter. If you see me running, try to keep up," on the back.
The cheap-clothing aside, the veteran piano-tuning-commando-squad makes the exhausting 8-mile trek through the jungle to finally visit the prize instrument and to taste the sweetness of the evolved musical talent that should have developed over these past years.
What they found is that the piano that was donated has almost cracked in half due to the fact the generous donation turned out to be little more than someone deciding not to sell the thing for $5 at a garage sale. (They must have decided they didn't want to move the thing out the front door every Saturday for a month while trying to get rid of it.) The instrument itself was infested with insects and their eggs, probably due to the fact that they generally kept the piano in a storage shed until visitors with cameras decided to show up. This explains all the Target type clothes since it appears that they are really cannibals that would eat visitors without cameras and take their clothes.
In the end, the savages did learn how to belt out a few Bach and Beetles tunes, but then just wanted a fricking Korg keyboard, "Like we asked for in the first place." I don't see why they didn't just ask for a PC and a net connection so they could just use Kazaa and download all the Bach and Beetles MP3s they wanted!
I was expecting an interesting read about how this tribe had taught themselves to play a piano, improvising melodies and chord progressions based on their indigenous musical heritage. Coming up with unorthodox techniques, etc..
... taking a piano into the jungle is interesting. Taking a Korg is dumb. IMHO.)
Instead, it's the story of a bunch of British folks playing Beatles songs with the villagers, who have been Catholicized and are wearing American t-shirts and plastic flip-flops.
How sad. And mildly offensive.
(Oh
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
OK, I'll bite.
I used to watch Lost In Space when I was a kid. I knew it was hokey, but as long as I accepted it on its own terms, it was good enought for TV.
Then one year I came home from college, and I was channel surfing, and I stumbled across an old episode. The Robinsons were trapped on some alien space craft, and they were shooting their way out, firing those laser pistols they always carried, and then one of them starts lobbing grenades...and I'm just sitting there thinking...
in the morning! And in the "old days" we didn't have to waste time and money *adding* lights to our computer cases.
You want "eerie glow?" I got yer eerie glow right here buddy.
Plus you could use them to keep your bagel warm and nicely soft.
Of course you couldn't use them to mill grain like you could with a Babbage machine. There are always downsides to new technology.
KFG
I live in Belem, the largest city within the Amazon Rainforest, with two million inhabitants. For about nine years, i also played piano and almost became a classical pianist. But then i left in order to have more time to spend at the computer.
There are two piano tuners in my city. One has serious hearing problems, which is weird. The other one looks weird, because hes not brazilian, but russian. But i heard hes a good tuner.
Keeping a piano is a challenging task. The climate has much air humidity, the wood helps changing its sounds. Also, we have problems with the extreme heat... But anyway, thats not impossible.
There were two piano factories in brazil, and the most popular, Essenfelder, got bankrupt. The remaing, Fritz Dobbert, still exists. There are in my city two music schools, Carlos Gomes and the Federal University of Para Music School (EMUFPA). I used to study at the later one. They still have a really beautiful Yamaha piano there. When they were about to buy, i've heart they had to make a poll to choose whether to buy a white or a wooden one. Thank god, the wooden is there.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against people who think theyre trendy about white pianos, but sure Def Leppard making a Video with a white piano is a shame
Why are you offended? Give the natives some credit for their ability to make rational choices. They aren't museum exhibits or zoo specimens.