Here is pretty good free software for anyone who wants to try this.
It allows choice of the timbre for the reproducing instrument(s) but has no response to onset time variance.
http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~araki/amazingmidi/
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Carlyon"
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AUDITORY] Talking piano: Sparky debate on the auditory list
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:11:37 +0100
Is it just me who was reminded of Sparky's Magic Piano?
Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3etiNLAFi0
and start the video after about 3 mins 15 seconds....
bob
PS. Before anyone asks, no I was not around in the 1940s when
this came out first....
Markus Noisternig wrote:
Dear All,
Peter Ablinger is a well known Austrian composer who is working on the
spectral aspects of music since a long time. I had many chances
listening to this computer-controlled piano live and I can fully assure
you the veracity of the demonstration.
The automatic piano has been developed by Winfried Ritsch, associate
professor at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics in Graz
Austria; the analysis software was mainly written by Thomas Musil. Both
are very active members in the computer music and pure data community.
Can I suggest, from looking at the machine,
that it will be able to make sounds a human piano-player cannot: it
appears to be able to hit all 88
notes simultaneously if required, each with a different strength
That's completely true and the only limitation in speed so far are the
mechanics of the piano.
(i) this is a great many more notes than a
pair of human hands can play at once (limited to about 12 or
altogether), and equally importantly) it can
play notes over the whole range of the piano simultaneously, allowing a
much richer set of sounds
(ii) The machine can also adjust the precise strength with which it
hits notes individually
As a result, it can make sounds that a human pianist really cannot
make.
I may direct your attention to a musical study for a talking piano,
Peter has realized at the IEM - "Voices and Piano" ! Peter has
spectrally analyzed short speeches from Guillaume Apollinaire to Orson
Wells as basis of short pieces for piano solo and playback. Nicolas
Hodges performed the premiere in Graz. We did some recordings of the
premiere but I'm not sure if they are released yet? Further information
can be found at: http://ablinger.mur.at/voices_and_piano.html
Even a human pianist cannot compete with an automatic piano in terms of
speed and range of notes I was deeply impressed by the acoustic outcome
of Nicholas' play.
"The Audience", the 7th act of his opera is a composition for two
ensembles and two computer-controlled pianos and was premiered at the
Steirischer Herbst festival in 2005. He refers to the term "Klangrede"
for reproducing city noises, speech, and instrumental sounds. Further
informations and sound examples can be found at:
http://ablinger.mur.at/docu15engl_act7.html
With best wishes,
Markus
On 10 oct. 09, at 13:37, Aki Pasoulas wrote:
From: Peter Meijer
<feedback@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 10 October, 2009 9:11:19
Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Talking piano
...
And pianists: don't despair, I can imagine that a further
simplification to
10-finger piano speech might also work well enough, by analogy to the
3-tone
sinewave speech results... :-)
....
Or use 2 pianos and 8 hands; many symphonic works of the 19th C. were
transcribed for 8 hands.
Aki
-----------------------------------
http://aki-pasoulas.co.uk
--
Dr. Bob Carlyon
MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit
15 Chaucer Rd
Cambridge CB2 7EF
England
Tel: +44 1223 355294
Fax: +44 1223 359062
www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/hearing