WTF-Beta

I still haven't read the full article... but when did that ever stop someone from commenting?

@Mary-Anna said:

The reason I don't get how it works is that my understanding of the physics of a piano is that the motion of the hammer is out of the pianist's control at the time it hits the string. We can control the speed with which it hits the strings

Well, given all the parts along the line of action from the finger to the string, isn't it possible that different kinds of touch (e.g., my comment above about flat fingers vs finger tips) would create different kinds of movement (vibrations??) in different parts of the action such that when the hammer connected with the string, there would be more factors at play (har) besides just velocity?

I don't have enough control to "certify" that my flat-fingered play and finger-tip were the same velocity, so maybe differences in velocity is actually what caused the sound difference.... But still, I feel like it makes sense, mechanically. You use your body differently, it causes the hammer to "be" different when it strikes the string.

I don't know. I'm out of my depth here if the focus is physics. But it's quite interesting to consider!

What are you playing these days?

Ok I lied (I'm still spamming)... So I can't remember where, but I am certain I have seen this author's name before (Shinichi Furuya), he is connected to Sony and something called the NeuroPiano Institute. (Maybe he was discussed in the BulletProof Musician's blog?)

Ok, looking at his Google Scholar page, I'm guessing that the BulletProof Musician is where I've seen his name.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IphDyJcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra

Such a cool research agenda, thanks for posting this @mary-anna

@Axtremus great minds think alike!

@Mary-Anna said:

I don't know how this could possible work, based on what I know about how a piano works.

Or maybe the way to think about is exactly the opposite? A piano works mechanically, by objects moving through space and time and connecting with other objects.

Why wouldn't the sound change if there were changes in how that movement or connection occurred?

Ok, I'll stop spamming your thread!

Ok that article @mary-anna linked was bugging me because it's so short on details, so I googled and found this, maybe this is what the article is referring to?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2425073122
Motor origins of timbre in piano performance

I haven't read it yet, but I'll C&P the abstract and significance summary.

Abstract: Creativity in the arts, such as painting and musical performance, hinges on the ability to produce a wide spectrogram of perceptual experiences. In music, it has long been believed that the timbre of tones can be altered by nuanced movements of performers. Previous studies have described relationships between fundamental elements of auditory perceptions (e.g., loudness, tempo) and physical movements (e.g., force, speed), but it remains unknown whether and how delicate features of perceptual experiences such as tone timbre are manipulated through dexterous motor skills. Here, we bridge this gap using a twofold experimental approach. First, our listening test revealed that the timbral qualities pianists intended to express in piano playing were perceived as intended by both pianists and musically untrained individuals, with pianists showing a greater perceptual sensitivity to different timbres. Second, through a motor behavioral experiment using a noncontact, high-resolution sensing system, we identified five specific movement features in piano touch that were intricately linked to three categories of perceived timbre; weight, clarity, and brightness. Furthermore, the direct manipulation of a specific key movement feature resulted in systematic changes in perceived timbre, providing evidence for a causal relationship. The result indicates that pianists share common motor skills to modify perceived tone timbre by manipulating specific movement features. Our findings underscore the pivotal roles of subtle physical gestures in creating the rich timbral palette of piano tones, advancing our understanding of the intersection between motor control and artistic expression.

Significance: Understanding the mechanisms by which artists create nuanced perceptual experiences, such as tone timbre in music, has remained a longstanding scientific and artistic challenge. While it has been debated whether pianists can manipulate timbre through touch over a century, empirical evidence linking dexterous motor actions to specific timbral qualities has been lacking. Furthermore, appreciation of music performance is largely influenced by visual information, questioning auditory perceptibility of nuanced tones. A listening experiment demonstrated that the timbral qualities pianists intended to express could be reliably perceived by listening tones. Motion analyses identified a set of key movement features that allow pianists to modulate tone timbre. Our findings revealed the critical role of motor dexterity in shaping artistic expression in music performance.

Fascinating!!

This is new to me, @mary-anna thanks for posting it!

Last semester, while working on one of my pieces, my teacher had me play one specific melody note with either a fairly flat finger, so that the finger pad is what connects with the key, or with a more traditional hand shape (like, where a ball could fit under your hand), so that it's the finger tip that connects with the key.

We both felt making that physical change in hand shape and in which part of the finger connected to the key made a huge change in the sound.

Probably a casual listener wouldn't notice it, or if they thought one way sounded better, they wouldn't be able to say why or even pick out the note that was different. But I think those slight changes are probably what professional pianists do all the time...

On the topic of why people quit piano... well and re the Payam "make it fun approach" ... I think it's relatively easy to make piano fun in the first 6 months to a year. As piano gets harder, this approach becomes increasingly less effective at encouraging or motivating people to continue.

What I thought was missing in the Payam video was that middle part. He talked about beginnings, and they showed more intermediate students. But not those struggling in the in-between stages.

@Bernard , re the focus on the drop out rate, could part of that be because there are so many adults who wish they could play the piano, and either regret stopping or regret that they never started?

@wtg re this:

I wonder if people who are immersed in music, have a brain wired for it, and who devote a lot of time and energy to it, see this as the equivalent of cheap wine in the world of piano lessons, and somehow not up to their standards. We need to remember that for some people, cheap wine is totally OK and even enjoyable!

Maybe Payam will get folks into playing, enjoying, and spreading piano music widely. I think that's a good thing.

I am well aware that many people would probably say that the kind of music I play is the equivalent of cheap wine...

I decided long ago that I wanted to play the piano, and I would figure out a way to do that even through grad school and career changes etc. The way that I did that, and the way that I have been successful at just continuing to play, is to play easy music. So I am huge proponent of accessible music, of getting people playing and enjoying music.

But my original reason for the negative reaction to Payam was that I just don't think we benefit by giving people the expectation that learning won't have difficult parts or "unfun" parts to it. I won't rehash what I posted above (probably a week ago now), but I don't think criticizing the Payam method necessarily means we want to reserve piano only for those who are "serious" about it (i.e., only for the "connoisseurs").

Anyway, as I said above, I'm happy about anything that creates buzz about piano, so in that regard, this isn't totally bad.

If nothing else, it underscores how many people wish they could play the piano.

Maybe this will trigger a big push for people (kids and adults!) to take up piano. Wouldn't that be something!

@wtg said:

disclaimer: I have no allegiance to the Payam Method; I just posted the 60 Minutes piece because it was about pianos!

And I appreciate that you did! I think it's very interesting how much attention this whole thing has gotten. Yes, I'm contributing to that but I mean more specifically the rebuttal videos and all the chatter online, esp. on the different FB piano groups I follow, everyone is up in arms!

It seems that we're morphing into fact checking...

I'll let someone else do that. I don't have any reason to doubt the South Shore Piano School guy, after watching his whole video, he seems sincere and between what he presents and what I saw in the CBS video itself, I'm comfortable criticizing the reporting (or lack thereof) in the 60 Minutes segment.

@wtg said:

@ShiroKuro said:

Because it sounds like 60 Minutes and the Payam backers made a coordinated effort

Where did you get that info? (I didn't have your video link to watch, so sorry if it was in there.)

@wtg it's in the video you linked above (after I mistakenly left the link out of my original post). Anyway, just in case, here is the video link again:

@jon-nyc Thanks for posting this, I'm just now seeing it on FB. I had wondered why he seemed to fade away.

@jon-nyc said:

She has the same haircut 67 years later and it looks great in both pictures.

That is a life skill I would like to emulate!

@wtg said:
Why do you think it is gross?

Because it sounds like 60 Minutes and the Payam backers made a coordinated effort to do this big marketing push, the segment is disguised to look like one of their regular segments (which should be based on investigative journalism) but is actually just a big fat infomercial, all the while dissing the piano teaching profession in unfair ways and further contributing to the current view of learning and teaching as transactional, commercial endeavors.

I think that’s all pretty gross.

@wtg and @bernard my apologies! It’s the one that WTG linked (by South Shore Piano School)

But it sounds like the other video may be pointing out similar issues.

Here come the rebuttals!!

This video is long (over 40 minutes) but I watched/listened to it while doing chores and it was quite interesting!

The TL;DR version: 60 Minutes failed at investigative journalism on this one, it was one big infomercial. The Payam Method is not just the Code.com guy backing it but also Mark Cuban, and the day after the segment aired, they announced their big product launch.

Gross.

Oh and that doesn’t even include all the piano-specific details that the video refutes. Nice!

Ok having read the article… that’s very interesting and somewhat disconcerting. It seems to me that the quality and reliably of AI output has continued to improve, but this will be a persistent problem, especially when AI is used for more important tasks.

@wtg ah, so LLMs are truly becoming more like humans then…

(Ok I’ll go read the article now…

@wtg said:

A book about a piano tuner.

Thanks, I added it to my list.

This reminds me of something I listened to as an audiobook. The title is unfortunately a bit generic, but I really enjoyed it.

Love Is Blind, by William Boyd

The description makes it just sound like a cheesy romance, but as I recall, there's a lot about piano tuning and music in there that elevated it beyond that.

When he is hired as the personal piano tuner for a brilliant pianist, Brodie Moncur suddenly finds himself swept up into a life of luxury that he could never have imagined. But while accompanying his new employer on tours from Paris to St. Petersburg, Brodie falls madly in love with the Russian soprano Lika Blum: beautiful, worldly, seductive—and forbidden. Though seemingly doomed from the start, Brodie’s passion for Lika only grows as their lives become increasingly more intertwined, more secretive, and, finally, more dangerous. A tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavor and the illusions it can create; of the possibilities that life offers and the cruel speed with which they can be snatched away, Love Is Blind is a dazzling work of historical fiction that unfolds across fin de siècle Europe.

@wtg good grief. I’m glad it was ultimately dismissed. Nit it should have never gone that far. I think the officer should apologize to her.

@wtg said:

Once they find a bunch of plants and get going, they will keep after that patch and potentially eat everything to the ground.

I was checking today and it didn't seem like there was any new damage/eaten bits.

@wtg said:

You really are down to a choice between an ugly fence or no flowers.

Most likely. And if so, it will be no flowers because there's no way I'd put up a physical barrier here.

@Axtremus said:

they have to make the tuner crack safes.

Ok but I watched the trailer and now I want to see it!!