Author Archives: PJ Ottenritter

Player Piano

It’s no longer your grandfather’s player piano

https://youtu.be/U0JZszqC7mk?t=28s

Was this your last recollection of what a player is? While it might be entertaining, probably not what you’d envision in your own living room. At least not for more than a weekend.

Yamaha has been at the cutting edge of player piano technology for over a quarter century, transmogrifying the cartoon of our childhood memories into an elegant, subtle work of art that can recreate the favorite songs of your most beloved artists right down the velocity of the original keystrike.

Introducing the Disklavier: true acoustic pianos that incorporate fiber optic sensing systems, high performance solenoids, and state-of-the-art computer technology. These pianos can very accurately record piano performances and play back with all of the expression and nuance of the original performance. These instruments have many capabilities that provide a wide range of entertainment and educational uses.

The Yamaha Disklavier E3 combines technology with tradition to open up a whole new world of musical possibilities to explore. The E3’s innovative features help you find your own customized way to relax. When you pick up the remote control, you are instantly ready to enjoy new music over the Internet or listen to an old favorite from your personal CD collection. The E3 also comes with built-in speakers as well as exclusive Yamaha CD’s, allowing you to start listening right away without a complicated set-up process. And no matter where you live, when you connect the E3 to the Internet, you gain access to a treasure trove of musical performances from the finest musicians in the world.

To learn more about Disklavier pianos, click here.

It’s never too late to learn piano!

86 year old 1-1686-year-old piano student says passing grade one was a ‘pleasant surprise’

Read the article here

Or learn more about piano lessons for all ages here!

The Mystery of Bruce Springsteen’s Piano

via the Asbury Park Press

Marilyn Rocky of Little Silver is a little off-key when it comes to the house at 7½ West End Court in Long Branch.

You see, she owned the house when Bruce Springsteen was the tenant there in 1974 and ’75, and when she sold the house 20 years ago, something was lost in the transaction: the piano Springsteen wrote “Born to Run” on.

Springsteen saxophonist Clarence Clemons told Rocky that the band had signed the instrument under the lid.

“Hey Landlordess,” Clemons said to Rocky at a chance meeting at a Red Bank dentist. “After we finished ‘Born to Run,’ we all autographed it with the date, so it’s there for you .”

This was news to Rocky. She had left the piano, a small spinet Springsteen had brought when he moved in, with the house’s subsequent tenants. It had remained in the living room for 20 years. Meanwhile, “Born to Run” made the band stars and put the Jersey Shore on the musical map.

“I called the tenant and said, ‘Before you leave, I want to pick up the piano in the living room,’ ” Rocky said. “He says, ‘That’s a problem.’ He said, ‘I was getting rid of all the junk, and I put it on the curb with all the other junk. It’s funny because when I got up the next morning, all the junk was still out there, and the only thing missing was the piano.’ ”

Read More Here

One-handed pianist proves the critics wrong

One-handed pianist proves the critics wrong

NICHOLAS McCarthy was told as a teenager that he was wasting everyone’s time by trying to learn the piano with only one hand.

But the 26-year-old has proved the critics wrong, becoming the first one-handed pianist to complete their studies at the Royal College of Music and last month releasing his first album.

McCarthy, who was born without his right hand, achieved his ambition by playing music written specifically for the left hand, including works by the Austrian composer Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War.

He says a combination of “clever writing by the composer and fast passage work and footwork on the pedal” combine to create the illusion that there are two hands playing.

A 90-minute recital is physically exhausting and McCarthy reveals he must work out physically and well as put in hours on daily practice to perform to the high standard required of the world classical concert circuit.

“The stamina is the difficult thing I find and I do a lot of running to keep that stamina as high as possible so I can cope on stage,” he says.

Remarkably, McCarthy, who’s from Tadworth, Surrey, didn’t start piano until he was 14. “I come from a very unmusical family; my family are just normal hard working people,” he says.

“Classical music never crossed my mind as I hadn’t been exposed to it.

“Then all of a sudden at 14 I heard a friend of mine, who was a very accomplished pianist, playing Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata.

“I found it amazing and decided there and then I wanted to become a concert musician.”

He has never let his disability hinder his ambition and even at a young age showed determination in becoming the first child on his neighbourhood to ride a bike without training wheels.

“People would expect me not to bother or not succeed and I was always determined to prove them wrong. That part of my personality obviously helped me succeed with the piano.”

His advice to other people with disabilities is to believe that “anything is possible”.

“With hard work and determination they can achieve their goals by focusing and keeping that momentum going in their head and not listening to others saying they can’t do it.”

An ambassador for several music education charities, McCarthy will be making his Irish premiere this weekend at the Belfast International Arts Festival and also giving a workshop to young people.

“I like exposing young people to classical music because many, like I did, automatically think they don’t like classical music,” he says.

And his advice on teaching children piano?

“The biggest problem is keeping students interested and intrigued until they are at a standard where they can play more difficult pieces. Rather than force them to play Bach, if you can hone their technique through a piece they recognise and enjoy you are going to get them to go to the piano on their own accord and practice.”

McCarthy’s album, entitled Solo, offers a snapshot of the repertoire that exists for the left hand as well as paint a portrait of him as a future composer, with three of his own arrangements. He is keen to further develop this side of his music.

“I won’t be composing a symphony, rather writing music that people can relate to and music which makes them happy,” he says.

While already in talks about about a new album, McCarthy is content with his gradual rise to fame.

Read more here…

After 300 Years Of Evolution, Has The Piano Reached Acoustic Perfection?

via Gizmodo

The modern piano evolved rapidly in the first 150 years after its invention, but it is now so good, acoustically, that it probably won’t change much more in the future.

That’s the conclusion of acoustician Nicholas Giordano, dean of Auburn University’s College of Sciences and Mathematics in Alabama. He described his work last month at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Jacksonville, Florida.

Giordano’s interest in the instrument dates back to first learning how to play piano as an adult, when his teacher introduced him to Baroque composers like Bach. Giordano decided to build his own harpsichord so he could play Bach on a period instrument, thereby experiencing what the music sounded like in the composer’s era. He enjoyed the project so much that he kept at it, acquiring early pianos and rebuilding them in his spare time. His collection now numbers 21 instruments, the oldest of which is a close relative to the harpsichord, the bentside spinet, dating back to 1703 (when Bach was just a teenager).

After 300 Years Of Evolution, Has The Piano Reached Acoustic Perfection?

That experience has given him valuable insight into how the instrument has evolved from its earliest days.

Bartolomeo Cristofori, instrument maker to the Medici family in Florence, Italy, built the first piano 300 years ago. It was very similar to the harpsichord, except with a harpsichord the strings are plucked (like a guitar), and with the piano the strings are struck with a hammer. Christofori figured out how to control how hard the player could press the key, thereby varying the volume of each tone.

Instrument makers spent the next three centuries improving on this design. According to Giordano, the earliest pianos only had 49 notes, covering four octaves. It was good enough for Bach and his contemporaries, but Mozart might have found that range a bit too limiting; by his time, the range had expanded to five octaves.

By the time Beethoven rolled around in the early 1800s, he had a full six octaves (73 notes) to work with, and piano makers had also added the ability of vary the loudness of notes. The pianos of Beethoven’s era also had sturdier construction and higher string tension; Giordano told Gizmodo that these innovations “led to expressive possibilities not possible within the harpsichord to organ.” (You can listen to audio clips of a Mozart sonata being played on an old vs. modern piano here.)

Later composers like Brahms and Rachmaninoff composed for pianos “powerful enough to play with a full modern orchestra.” In addition, the modern piano design also has better “action” than those earliest instruments — that’s the mechanism that connects the key level to the hammer, which strikes the strings. It’s faster and more responsive today, which means the performer has much greater tonal control, further enhancing the expressive possibilities. Louder sounds meant more reverberation, and led to stronger cases: metal plates are now added to strengthen the case.

Modern pianos have seven octaves (plus a minor third, for a total of 88 notes), and that’s where it’s stayed for the last 150 years, even though the human ear is sensitive to a much wider range of frequencies than those covered by the piano’s keys. Giordano thinks this is because of how human beings perceive notes beyond the piano’s range. Below that range, most people hear the notes as decidedly un-musical clicks. Above the piano’s range, we can’t pick up combinations of two or more notes to form chords.

Read more here

 

Music makes you smarter…

Via WPSD

Want your kids to be smarter and do better in school? Maybe you should buy them a guitar for Christmas or a set of drums, especially if they struggle with math.

Amy Allen at Harmony Road Music School in Paducah says the earlier you start exposing children to music the better. She even has classes for newborn babies and their moms which are a combination of music and massage.

Local 6 visited the class “Toddler Tunes” for those 18 months to 3 years of age.

“We have instruments to play. We give them pianos to play a little bit. We move and use a lot of scarves. Anything that gets them actively engaged with the music,” Allen says.

And because everything about music is related to language, timing and beat, kids are learning how to count, how to process language and how to listen.

“Children who are in pre-school music have better memory skills and it’s been show they’re emotionally better off, socially better off. It helps with listening,” says Allen.

Katie Enlow who took piano lessons from Allen when she was a little girl, now has her two sons enrolled in pre-school music classes. She thinks both of them talked very early because of it.

But let’s take it to a college level. A recent report on college bound seniors found those with music training scored 50 points higher on their verbal SAT, and 36 points higher in the math portion.

Allen says it’s partly due to the discipline required to learn an instrument, but studies show music itself also shapes the brain, forming neural connections that make us smarter.

Read More Here or find out about lessons at Jordan Kitt’s Music here

This is what singing slime mold sounds like

When the term “slime mold” comes up in a non-scientific context, it’s usually meant as an insult that combines two disgusting-sounding words into one powerful put-down. But people might change their view of this organism if they learned it has a beautiful singing voice.

Artist Leslie Garcia of Tijuana, Mexico, captured the sounds of a slime mold called Physarum polycephalum, a microorganism found in temperate, tropical forests that lives on decomposed organic matter, and turned it into a synthesized song.

Garcia used an electronic musical instrument of his own design called the Energy Bending Lab. The instrument creates “a real-time sonification” of the microvoltage of the slime mold and amplifies it into a mellow, electronic symphony of sound patterns.

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This slime mold can make some beautiful music. Can microorganisms also sign recording contracts? Stephen Sharnoff/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis

The song the machine produces is a collaboration of sorts between the slime mold and the person operating the Energy Bending Lab. Garcia told Wired Magazine he hooked electrodes up to the slime mold in a petri dish and recorded the electrical activity. Then he ran that recording through a computer and used a voltage control oscillator to vary the oscillations of the audible sound so “the aesthetic is decided by us.”

Basically, the slime mold is the musician and Garcia is the producer, except he doesn’t try to steal any royalty rights away from the slime mold by secretly altering its contract or cooking the books.

Read more here…

Yamaha allows top Music Schools to audition online…

via fastcompany.com

Yamaha’s Player Piano Brings Auditions To The Cloud

Students audition for music schools on the other side of the world with cloud-connected pianos that record and re-create how they played.

Getting into a top music school like UCLA (where John Williams studied) or Boston College (where conductor Robert J. Ambrose studied) requires more than a demo tape. Tiny nuances distinguish the very top musicians from the merely great ones, and judges really need to hear and see an audition in person to tell the difference.

Piano maker Yamaha has convinced 20 U.S. schools, so far, to conduct in-person auditions without the actual person, using a line of Internet-connected player pianos called Disklavier. This allows students from as far away as China to audition for U.S. universities and conservatories, and use the same recorded performance—stored in Yamaha’s cloud network—for applications to multiple schools.

The Disklavier line of pianos may, at first glance, seem a bit gimmicky. It uses MIDI—a digital encoding system for musical instruments—to play back a performance recorded on another Disklavier (or on the same piano earlier). During playback, the piano keys depress and the pedals move up and down as if the instrument were possessed.

These pianos are extremely precise. On the top-end Disklavier PRO models (with list prices starting around $100,000), pedal positions are measured with optical sensors and reproduced with piston-like solenoids on up to a 256-level gradient (an 8-bit level of detail). The speed of the hammers striking the strings is measured and re-created at 1024 levels (a 10-bit level).

“A lot of intersecting musical parameters would result in a response from a listener,” says George Litterst, a music instructor who runs Yamaha’s online audition program, called Disklavier Education Network, or DEN. Take tempo. “Even when we perceive it to be steady,” he says, “there is a certain sense of ebb and flow.” Rubato—Italian for “stolen time”—refers to the slight speeding up or slowing of tempo for artistic effect.

While music schools are starting to use audio and video recordings to evaluate prospects who can’t afford to fly in for an audition, it’s hard to get a nuanced recording from a piano. “It’s just a difficult beast to record,” he says, requiring careful placement of microphones and adjustment of audio levels—not the kinds of things a typical student can do at home. The quality of the playback equipment at schools varies, too.

Yamaha’s DEN audition system also records a silent video of the player, which is synched to the MIDI file on the piano. “It becomes almost a virtual reality experience, as if you’ve beamed the student into your space and they are playing right in front of you,” says Litterst. “You very quickly lose track of the fact that the body of the performer is not on the stage.”

Read more here…

Former homeless ‘Piano Man’ plays National Anthem during NFL opener

via CBSsports.com

America is a land of second chances, of hope and football. There was no better combination than seeing homeless man turned viral sensation Donald Gould produce a delightful version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” before the Vikings-49ers game.

Gould became YouTube sensation when, while living on the streets of Sarasota, Florida, his piano playing went viral, generating millions of views.

The former veteran (Marine Corps) has since found himself on a slightly different stage: playing the National Anthem in front of thousands (not to mention the millions at home) for one of the opening Monday Night Football games of the 2015 NFL season.
Read more here…

Tech CEO on Yamaha Disklavier: The One Item I Cannot Work Without

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The Yamaha Disklavier (Phil Libin not pictured)

via Inc.com

Evernote’s Phil Libin began playing piano at age 41. Now, his company is more harmonious, too.

By Phil Libin, Co-Founder & CEO of Evernote

A new intern here recently asked me, “What’s the one item that you can’t work without?”

Can’t is too strong a word, but I did get something a few months ago that is helping my work more than I expected: an acoustic grand piano with a robot crammed into it, the Yamaha Disklavier E3.

Am I a musician? No. Do I know how to play the piano? Not exactly. Do I use the Disklavier at the office? No way. So how does it help me work? Well, here’s the thing: It’s an acoustic grand piano. With a robot crammed into it.

I spend about an hour a day sitting in front of the piano, teaching myself music theory and trying to play the sad theme from the end of the Incredible Hulk ’80s TV series. Trying to learn a big new skill, at the age of 41, is exhausting. And astonishingly brain stretching.

The Disklavier presents a completely new axis of learning. You can play, see your mistakes played back, download lessons and videos, play again. You can feel synapses firing and new connections being made. The best part is being completely stymied by a particular segment, giving up in frustration, and then coming back the next day and playing it through on the first try.

When you learn a new skill, you learn new patterns. And then you start seeing these patterns interwoven into the familiar world. The impenetrable becomes less so. Things you always knew, you now know better.

For instance, many musical pieces follow a common structure: a short preamble to set the stage, followed by a tonal phrase or “tonic,” then elaboration of a theme, and finally a return to the tonic at the very end. That return makes the piece feel psychologically complete. It provides a satisfying finish.

I never really grokked this until I started fiddling around on the piano. Now I see it everywhere: in speeches, in magazine articles, in successful software design, in compelling presentations, in a well-planned dinner menu. And now that I see it, I can make use of it. A small increase in my musical ability–from nonexistent to imperceptible–has given me a bigger lever with which to try to move the world.

Plus, I feel the effects at the office. I’m smarter than I was a few months ago, with new ways of seeing things, a new mental vocabulary, and greater cognitive dexterity. I feel more creative than ever, and I get more done every day.

Read more here.