Subject: Re: Talking piano From: Prof Leslie Smith <l.s.smith@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 23:28:50 +0100 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Dear all: 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 (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. Actually, I once heard a jazz pianist play some sounds that sounded distinctly like speech: but I cannot recall her name, unfortunately. --Leslie Smith (another piano-player) On Fri, October 9, 2009 10:56 pm, Tony Miller wrote: > Pierre- > > The demo is real. The Wein Modern is Venice's contemporary music > festival. 3sat is German public television. Peter Ablinger, who > created the MIDI controlled mechanical device that strikes the piano > keys, is a well known Austrian contemporary music composer. > > -Tony > > On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Pierre Divenyi <pdivenyi@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Hi Ani, >> >> Being both a pianist and a speech guy, I must express my doubts in the >> acoustic veracity of the demonstration. There seem to have been sounds >> that >> were speech-like but which I have never heard a piano utter. Sorry -- I >> need >> more than this video to believe. >> >> -Pierre > -- Prof Leslie Smith Head, Department of Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland Tel (44) 1786 467435 -- The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010 The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.