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A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

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Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#31

Post by baddox »

mullr wrote: post #11

I'm very suspicious of this and related products. The thing that's really great about all our acoustic musical instruments is that when you push on them, they push back . I don't mean this simply in the normal force sense. Consider a guitar. You've got a string which you press over a fret with your left hand. This can be naively emulated by a switch. But with the guitar, the timber and pitch change depending on how y…

> It should be noted that computer synthesis (procedural or sampled) of keyboard-based is very convincing. They same cannot be said for any other instrument.

I agree that keyboard instruments are the most convincing, and certainly the easiest virtual instruments to play (since playing a digital piano is the same as playing an acoustic piano), but there are some pretty expressive and convincing virtual instruments out there:

Bass guitar (acoustic and electric): http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/trilian-audio.php

Drums: http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30

Acoustic guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q...

Electric guitar: http://www.vir2.com/instruments/electri6ity

Orchestra (perhaps not the best solo instruments, but pretty great results for a whole symphony): http://www.vsl.co.at/en/67/702/703/413.htm and http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra and http://www.garritan.com/products/personal-orchestra-4/

And, just to mention it, the best piano virtual instrument I've heard so far: http://www.synthogy.com/demos/grandpiano.html

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#32

Post by canibanoglu »

guelo wrote: post #25
canibanoglu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jump from the harpsichord to piano was a huge one but the key profile didn't change as much as this. Integrating new technologies with instruments is all good and dandy but we're now fabricating the sounds with computers. We're changing the way these instruments function and we're changing the way we interact with them. My concerns may be similar to those of 18th century people but the changes that we're experien…

I'm not a musician, and I don't like going around the internet calling people names, but I'm sorry, you come off as stodgy. From reading your comments and watching a couple of Jordan Rudess videos I'm pretty sure that I'd rather watch him playing than you. Just saying.

That was far from my intent to be honest. Between me and Jordan Rudess, I'd rather watch him as well. But between Jordan Rudess and Martha Argerich I'd watch her playing. This is just another form of labelling stuff. Just because a well known and talented performer is backing something doesn't mean it's going to be useful. Then again my comment was only concerned with how this relates to classical music.

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#33

Post by canibanoglu »

b1daly wrote: post #28
canibanoglu wrote: post #17

Seen this one a couple days ago and I honestly can't understand what the hype is all about. I've been playing the piano for 11 years now and I can't see myself or any classical pianist using this product. I'm aware that this is most likely not intended for classical musicians but still, I fail to see the reason to change the design of an instrument that's been around for a very long time in one form or another. Chang…

OMG, are you taking the piss with this comment? As if "classical" music, whatever that is, is a perfected form, the terminal point of all musical development. Ironically, it is terminal, as in culturally fading, passed by by the unstoppable rivers of human creativity.

The current musical trends still have a lot of ground to cover to catch up with that "terminal point of all musical development". I don't consider classical music to be the terminal point of all musical development by the way. Those were your words, not mine. You could say that classical music is getting less culturally relevant but you could say that about sculpture or painting.

I understand how my comment has been misunderstood and I didn't want to say that this was useless, just that it was useless for classical music. But your comment is by far the most... hmm... interesting so far.

This is getting out of hand though. If all of you guys want to discuss and throw shit at me and try to convince me that this is the best thing ever, go ahead and create a new submission about technology and classical music or whatever. I have no wish to derail the submission.

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#34

Post by klodolph »

canibanoglu wrote: post #21
klodolph wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. I've been playing piano for... over two decades now, and additional ways of modulating synthesized sound are welcomed with open arms. There are songs I play where I wish so hard that I had polyphonic aftertouch on my keyboard, but alas, it has monophonic aftertouch only. I play a lot of classical, and I even want modulation there. Your concerns... they are carbon copies of the same complaints people had about t…

The jump from the harpsichord to piano was a huge one but the key profile didn't change as much as this. Integrating new technologies with instruments is all good and dandy but we're now fabricating the sounds with computers. We're changing the way these instruments function and we're changing the way we interact with them. My concerns may be similar to those of 18th century people but the changes that we're experien…

> For classical music, the music is the composer's, s/he composed the music with the limitations of his/her era and re-interpreting their music with new technologies in ways they didn't even imagine. This is not making their music live on as far as I'm concerned.

You're drawing a line in the sand, and saying that technological changes are okay for classical music as long as they don't cross that line, but I'm not sure you realize exactly where that line is drawn. Have you ever played Bach or Beethoven? You might be shocked to learn just how different the modern piano is from the devices that these composers worked with.

Bach composed within the limitations of the harpsichord: harpsichords lack modulation of timbre and volume, except perhaps with an una corda pedal or by use of a separate manual, both of which are extremely crude methods. It is neither practical nor desirable to emulate this on the piano: the piano is capable of dynamics, and so we play Bach's pieces by inventing dynamics for them. (I'm not going to discuss trills, talk to a musicologist if you like.)

Beethoven composed within the limitations of the piano, as it was around the year 1800. You might find such an instrument for sale somewhere, but I doubt it. The piano action has not changed, but the instrument has still evolved considerably from a musical standpoint. I am speaking, of course, of the sustain pedal. Sustain pedal technique is an essential part of classical pianists' training, but it is not historically accurate for classical pieces. Old pianos did not have nearly as much sustain as even cheap modern pianos, and it turns out that pianists in the day would just hold the sustain pedal down. Imagine what that would sound like on a modern piano: a muddy mess of notes.

Just as keyboard dynamics were not part of the music of Bach's era, sustain pedal technique was not part of the music of Beethoven's era. You'll find similar discrepancies with other instruments, such as the enormous difference between modern violin bows, which are of Italian descent, and baroque German violin bows.

Then there's the question for some keyboard pieces of what instrument they were actually written for. There are theories that certain organ pieces were actually clavinet pieces, for example.

Footnote: Yes, Beethoven and Bach composed for other instruments too.

> We don't have the technology to replicate the acoustic sound of a piano.

That's simply incorrect: the keyboard instruments are the easiest to replicate. Go listen to some samples from Synthogy's website, for example. The problem of "how do we make a computer sound like a piano" has been solved for quite some time now.

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#35

Post by coldtea »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

I assume it's the way it was shot that not all of the notes that are being played start or end with movements and/or touches of the keyboard. (not being snarky, its just noticeable is all) I think its great that people are doing alternative instruments like this. For a while we've had synthesizers providing the tone generator for recreated inputs (like the laser harp) but this gives us more input options. There is an…

>I assume it's the way it was shot that not all of the notes that are being played start or end with movements and/or touches of the keyboard. (not being snarky, its just noticeable is all)

So you noticed that but you didn't notice that there is a track playing, and the performer lays another on top of it?

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#36

Post by hamai »

klodolph wrote: post #20
canibanoglu wrote: post #17

Seen this one a couple days ago and I honestly can't understand what the hype is all about. I've been playing the piano for 11 years now and I can't see myself or any classical pianist using this product. I'm aware that this is most likely not intended for classical musicians but still, I fail to see the reason to change the design of an instrument that's been around for a very long time in one form or another. Chang…

Sigh. I've been playing piano for... over two decades now, and additional ways of modulating synthesized sound are welcomed with open arms. There are songs I play where I wish so hard that I had polyphonic aftertouch on my keyboard, but alas, it has monophonic aftertouch only. I play a lot of classical, and I even want modulation there. Your concerns... they are carbon copies of the same complaints people had about t…

I'm mainly a guitar player but spend most of my time on piano lately, and this instrument reminds me a bit of both. You can slide and vibrate like a guitar, but with the clear musical vision of piano.

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#39

Post by canibanoglu »

klodolph wrote: post #34
canibanoglu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jump from the harpsichord to piano was a huge one but the key profile didn't change as much as this. Integrating new technologies with instruments is all good and dandy but we're now fabricating the sounds with computers. We're changing the way these instruments function and we're changing the way we interact with them. My concerns may be similar to those of 18th century people but the changes that we're experien…

> For classical music, the music is the composer's, s/he composed the music with the limitations of his/her era and re-interpreting their music with new technologies in ways they didn't even imagine. This is not making their music live on as far as I'm concerned. You're drawing a line in the sand, and saying that technological changes are okay for classical music as long as they don't cross that line, but I'm not sur…

As a matter of fact I have indeed played Bach and Beethoven among others. Currently, I'm working on the 21st piano sonata of Beethoven for a performance. The example you have given is very accurate, in the 14th piano sonata, Moonlight Sonata as it's affectionately known, Beethoven instructs the performer to hold down the pedal for the whole duration of the first movement. That simply won't work on modern pianos. What do we do now? We try to replicate the sounds Beethoven himself would have gotten from his own piano. There are books written about pedal techniques.

And I worded that wrong. Technology is and should be a part of classical music performances. I just don't see the relevance of this product from a classical music standpoint.

And I did look at Synthogy's website. They have a good product but if you're saying that that product does replicate the sound of a real grand piano, we have to agree to disagree. They have solved some good problems, like half-pedaling. Harmonic resonance modeling is impressive. But in I can't say that these replicate the sound of a true acoustic 100%.

Small note: Dynamics were part of Bach's era. Bach himself was a very talented organ player and there are dynamics in organs. Piano is a descendant of harpsichord, true, but it's also a descendant of organ.

And as I said in my other comments, this is getting pretty off-topic and I don't want to derail the thread. I'll be more than happy to discuss this with you klodolph through mail or whatever.

Re: A new type of piano keyboard: The Seaboard

#40

Post by canibanoglu »

canibanoglu wrote: post #17

Seen this one a couple days ago and I honestly can't understand what the hype is all about. I've been playing the piano for 11 years now and I can't see myself or any classical pianist using this product. I'm aware that this is most likely not intended for classical musicians but still, I fail to see the reason to change the design of an instrument that's been around for a very long time in one form or another. Chang…

And just as a closing note for my own comment, I'm amazed by how hostile people can get over a comment. The fact that I don't see this used for classical music (the music that I enjoy and perform) should be free to express here. What should I have said? Oh great, cool stuff, this is the future of music? I just don't see it that way. It will be useful to some, and will have no effect on others.

When I wrote the first comment, I couldn't understand what the hype was about this and now, on top of that, I can't understand the way people acted over the comment.

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