[Jean-David Beyer]

Paul wrote:
On May 4, 4:26 pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:
On Mon, 04 May 2009 18:05:12 GMT, Jean-David Beyer
wrote:
I am no expert, but I tried something very simple on my digital (Yamaha
P-85) piano and a cheap Yamaha string upright. And they are very different.
Hold down some keys (e.g., C-E-G); either press them down very slowly so
they do not sound, or let the sound die away.
Then press some other keys, including c-e-g, loudly and release them.
On the real string piano, those keys being held down will be sounding
because they resonated with the keys you played.
On my P-85, the keys held down do not sound.
This is not surprising to me. Now perhaps on very expensive digital pianos,
they do, but it would be fairly tricky to accomplish this.
Now with many compositions, this either does not arise, or does not matter.
But I am by no means sure that it never comes up, and it may well be that
the effect is wanted by the composer. I am pretty sure that when this effect
is wanted or needed, you could tell the difference.
Well spotted. If you want that effect, use a real piano.
I wonder sometimes. In John Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948), which is
really meant to be played on a toy piano, in the first movement the G and A
keys in the left hand are held down for about 12 measures.

Now a toy piano does not have any pedals because it cannot use them. There
is only one tone rod for each note so the "soft" pedal cannot work by moving
the hammers away from one of the strings. And there are no dampers so the
middle and right pedals cannot work either.

And later on on page "-5-", he requires the G and A to be held down for 5
measures, with the notation "(play without sounding)" I can think of only
one possibility he

1.) He is joking (Cage did have a sense of humor).

This is because on a toy piano, holding the keys down does not release the
dampers from the tone rods because a toy piano has no dampers. Whether the
non-sounded rods produce sound or not (those on my toy piano, a Schoenhut
379M) do produce sympathetic sounds) it has nothing to do with whether keys
are held down or not. And I am certain John Cage knew it.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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- Show quoted text -


Sympathetic sounds are so low, they are negligible.

They did not sound negligible to me. I held down a chord on a Yamaha upright
piano (with real strings) slowly so they did not sound. I then played the
same chord an octave higher and let go. During this time I did not depress
any of the pedals. The unsounded chord continued to sound for quite a while;
not as loud as had I actually played it, but buy no means negligible. I bet
a concert grand would have done better than that.

Sounds like a sorry way for a composer to be original or
different.

Some people like the work of John Cage, and some do not.


--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
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[Paul[_13_]]

On May 11, 6:17*pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
geoff wrote:
Depend on one's standards of what's alright I guess. *Admittedly pretty
damn good, and likely to continue improving as processors get faster and
memory size is less of an issue and cost.

My guess is when they put 88*3 digital signal processors in the machine,
each one running a model of one of the strings accurately enough that they
sound right, and respond to the rate of travel of the key, noting the
operation of the left-most pedal, as well as the other two, and allowing for
the coupling between all these, then we will be there. I do not know if we
have the mathematical model for a real piano string accurate enough to do
this even if someone could afford 264 suitable digital signal processors
that are fast enough to do these computations. But what if, when all is said
and done, that the DSP model of a piano costs more than a traditional one?
Then the only advantage of the digital one is that it might not need tuning.


Sounds like WAY overkill to me.

How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will
make acoustic piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 12, 12:26*pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
Paul wrote:
On May 4, 4:26 pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:
On Mon, 04 May 2009 18:05:12 GMT, Jean-David Beyer
wrote:
I am no expert, but I tried something very simple on my digital (Yamaha
P-85) piano and a cheap Yamaha string upright. And they are very different.
Hold down some keys (e.g., C-E-G); either press them down very slowly so
they do not sound, or let the sound die away.
Then press some other keys, including c-e-g, loudly and release them..
On the real string piano, those keys being held down will be sounding
because they resonated with the keys you played.
On my P-85, the keys held down do not sound.
This is not surprising to me. Now perhaps on very expensive digital pianos,
they do, but it would be fairly tricky to accomplish this.
Now with many compositions, this either does not arise, or does not matter.
But I am by no means sure that it never comes up, and it may well be that
the effect is wanted by the composer. I am pretty sure that when this effect
is wanted or needed, you could tell the difference.
Well spotted. *If you want that effect, use a real piano.
I wonder sometimes. In John Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948), which is
really meant to be played on a toy piano, in the first movement the G and A
keys in the left hand are held down for about 12 measures.

Now a toy piano does not have any pedals because it cannot use them. There
is only one tone rod for each note so the "soft" pedal cannot work by moving
the hammers away from one of the strings. And there are no dampers so the
middle and right pedals cannot work either.

And later on on page "-5-", he requires the G and A to be held down for 5
measures, with the notation "(play without sounding)" I can think of only
one possibility he

1.) He is joking (Cage did have a sense of humor).

This is because on a toy piano, holding the keys down does not release the
dampers from the tone rods because a toy piano has no dampers. Whether the
non-sounded rods produce sound or not (those on my toy piano, a Schoenhut
379M) do produce sympathetic sounds) it has nothing to do with whether keys
are held down or not. And I am certain John Cage knew it.

--
* *.~. *Jean-David Beyer * * * * *Registered Linux User 85642.
* */V\ *PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A * * * * Registered Machine * 241939.
* /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey * *http://counter.li.org
* ^^-^^ 17:55:01 up 41 days, 9 min, 3 users, load average: 4.26, 4.70, 4.51- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

* * * Sympathetic sounds are so low, they are negligible.

They did not sound negligible to me. I held down a chord on a Yamaha upright
piano (with real strings) slowly so they did not sound. I then played the
same chord an octave higher and let go. During this time I did not depress
any of the pedals. The unsounded chord continued to sound for quite a while;
not as loud as had I actually played it, but buy no means negligible. I bet
a concert grand would have done better than that.


But how musical is this gimmick? And that's all it really is,
a little piano gimmick, to make up for lack of real composing talent.




* * * Sounds like a sorry way for a composer to be original or
different.

Some people like the work of John Cage, and some do not.



Sympathetic sounds are not needed.....

[Geoff]

Paul wrote:


How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will
make acoustic piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Well they haven't yet. So what is missing ?

geoff

[Jean-David Beyer]

Paul wrote:
On May 11, 6:17 pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
geoff wrote:
Depend on one's standards of what's alright I guess. Admittedly
pretty damn good, and likely to continue improving as processors get
faster and memory size is less of an issue and cost.
My guess is when they put 88*3 digital signal processors in the
machine, each one running a model of one of the strings accurately
enough that they sound right, and respond to the rate of travel of the
key, noting the operation of the left-most pedal, as well as the other
two, and allowing for the coupling between all these, then we will be
there. I do not know if we have the mathematical model for a real piano
string accurate enough to do this even if someone could afford 264
suitable digital signal processors that are fast enough to do these
computations. But what if, when all is said and done, that the DSP
model of a piano costs more than a traditional one? Then the only
advantage of the digital one is that it might not need tuning.


Sounds like WAY overkill to me.

I do not think so. If you truly want to produce the sound of a real piano,
playing real music, (but not "prepared piano"), I think you would need
something such as I proposed. I do not think it is overkill at all. This
does not mean that I think it makes financial sense in 2009. And our
mathematical models of a grand piano may be inadequate at the present time.

I am reminded of when Bell Labs tried to make a speech synthesizer for a
text-to-speech system by using the phonetic descriptions of American Words
from a dictionary and a mathematical model of the vocal tract (including the
nose). It was lousy, certainly worse than custom made synthesizers of the
time. In that case, the mathematical model of the human vocal tract was
fairly good, but the phonetics of the words in the dictionary were
grievously inadequate.

I suspect if we tried to model a grand piano right now, with unlimited
processing power but with our current understanding of a real grand piano,
we would also get poor results, certainly compared with the digitally
recorded grand piano sounds that even my P-85 can do. And the P-85 may be
state of the $600 art these days (I am not prepared to claim that), but for
more money, digital pianos can almost certainly do way better.

It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress). But were I good enough,
or vain enough, to wish to be a concert pianist, I imagine within a year or
so, I would need something better.

How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will make acoustic
piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Be careful with those analogies. While digital technology fills a large part
of the need for photographs, certainly those to be displayed on a computer
monitor, it is still inadequate for much fine-art photography. Digital
photography continues to improve, and I have no doubt analog photography
could also continue to improve if there were an effective demand for it. I
imagine the same is true for digital pianos. But just as I doubt digital
photography will ever totally supplant analogue photography, so I doubt
digital acoustics will ever totally supplant analogue pianos, or analogue
organs, or ... . They may become suitable for commercial purposes, and a lot
of pianos are used for that. But for fine-art musicianship, it may be a lot
longer.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 21:00:01 up 49 days, 3:14, 3 users, load average: 4.67, 4.52, 4.49

[Jean-David Beyer]

Paul wrote:

I wonder sometimes. In John Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948), which is
really meant to be played on a toy piano, in the first movement the G and A
keys in the left hand are held down for about 12 measures.
Now a toy piano does not have any pedals because it cannot use them. There
is only one tone rod for each note so the "soft" pedal cannot work by moving
the hammers away from one of the strings. And there are no dampers so the
middle and right pedals cannot work either.
And later on on page "-5-", he requires the G and A to be held down for 5
measures, with the notation "(play without sounding)" I can think of only
one possibility he
1.) He is joking (Cage did have a sense of humor).
This is because on a toy piano, holding the keys down does not release the
dampers from the tone rods because a toy piano has no dampers. Whether the
non-sounded rods produce sound or not (those on my toy piano, a Schoenhut
379M) do produce sympathetic sounds) it has nothing to do with whether keys
are held down or not. And I am certain John Cage knew it.

Sympathetic sounds are so low, they are negligible.
They did not sound negligible to me. I held down a chord on a Yamaha upright
piano (with real strings) slowly so they did not sound. I then played the
same chord an octave higher and let go. During this time I did not depress
any of the pedals. The unsounded chord continued to sound for quite a while;
not as loud as had I actually played it, but buy no means negligible. I bet
a concert grand would have done better than that.


But how musical is this gimmick? And that's all it really is,
a little piano gimmick, to make up for lack of real composing talent.

I certainly do not claim to be a composer; I can barely play the piano at
all. But that gimmick as you call it is not meant to be a composition, but
an experiment to see just how great the sympathetic vibrations in un-played
strings with the dampers up really are. And they are considerable.



Sounds like a sorry way for a composer to be original or
different.

Whether you like the music of John Cage or not, I think most people admit
that he was truely original.

Some people like the work of John Cage, and some do not.



Sympathetic sounds are not needed.....

True. And an electronic piano that produces only the fundamental sine-wave
from each note, or the original Hammond organ, is all that is necessary to
communicate the technical information of what keys were played and how hard.
But this greatly reduces the musical enjoyment of listening to the thing.
And why do any of this if it does not produce the enjoyment that is wanted?

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 21:20:01 up 49 days, 3:34, 3 users, load average: 4.19, 4.13, 4.23

[Doug McDonald[_3_]]

Paul wrote:



It might be harder to be expressive on the piano, yes.

But the technical problem of replicating a piano is
much simpler than simulating a guitar.



Huh? A piano is a much larger instrument than a guitar.

Especially in a small room, there are effects due to teh fact that different
frequencies are generated from different parts of the innards
of a piano, so that they radiate in different directions. That makes
the room ambience important. This is even more important for recordings, where
some producers seem to like to put the mikes inside the piano!

Doug McDonald

[Doug McDonald[_3_]]

Paul wrote:

Sympathetic sounds are so low, they are negligible.
They did not sound negligible to me. I held down a chord on a Yamaha upright
piano (with real strings) slowly so they did not sound. I then played the
same chord an octave higher and let go. During this time I did not depress
any of the pedals. The unsounded chord continued to sound for quite a while;
not as loud as had I actually played it, but buy no means negligible. I bet
a concert grand would have done better than that.


But how musical is this gimmick? And that's all it really is,
a little piano gimmick, to make up for lack of real composing talent.

Actually, no. Real classical composers expect a piano to
sound a certain way, and that most certainly includes the sympathetic
effects. Players expect the same. The art of piano playing depends on the extremely small
nuances of how the playing with each finger effects the whole,
as do the pedals. Absolutely everything in the acoustics
figures in, even, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the fact that
different frequencies come preferentially from different parts of the innards.

Now all this is not in the notation. It is in the experience of the
players and listeners.

Doug McDonald

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Wed, 13 May 2009 01:18:09 GMT, Jean-David Beyer
wrote:

It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress).

Be very careful! Adult beginners frequently make amazing progress in
the early lessons. Then comes a long period of consolidation when
progress will be subjectively slow. Children tolerate this as just
one more aspect of education - you do it because you do it. Adults
get discouraged, excuses start being made about missing practice and
they give up.

Slow and steady, and don't make it your ONLY project! A regular
performance commitment helps a lot - an achievable goal EVERY week.
Easy for other instrumentalists who can join a beginners' band or
orchestra. May take a little more ingenuity for a pianist!

[Jean-David Beyer]

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 May 2009 01:18:09 GMT, Jean-David Beyer
wrote:

It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress).

Be very careful! Adult beginners frequently make amazing progress in
the early lessons.

Yes: I have been surprised at this, as when my teacher opens a book and says
"play this." Something I have never seen before. And now I can sometimes do
it without too many mistakes, other that screwing up the tempo when
unfamiliar chords come up, for example. I would have thought it would take
longer to get to this level. But I cannot do Eleanor Rigby on the toy piano
yet even though I have Toby Twining's arrangement of it for toy piano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMXVlJoHUSw

My toy piano is like the one behind Margaret Leng Tan in the video. She
plays Eleanor Rigby on an upright (each toy piano sounds different, so she
selects the one she feels most suitable for each piece). She sometimes plays
two toy pianos at once, and for several works, she plays grand piano with
the left hand and the right hand on a toy one. I imagine that is fairly
difficult because, unlike playing an organ where the manuals are one above
another, these are next to one another and at approximately right angles.

Then comes a long period of consolidation when
progress will be subjectively slow.

I know I will have to deal with this, and it is something I have difficulty
with in other fields. I assume it will be just as bad here.

Children tolerate this as just
one more aspect of education - you do it because you do it.

Children these days tolerate this? I know only a few, but they tolerate it
just barely for such stuff as math, social sciences, and other formal
"school" stuff, but they do not seem to tolerate it for what I would call
"the arts" including reading (they know how to read, but the do not enjoy it
much). It is immediate gratification all the way. And I think a lot of this
is the fault of the education system with its emphasis on passing tests, as
contrasted with achieving understanding and learning how to think. When I
see what and how they try to teach a 12-year old friend, I am revolted.

Adults
get discouraged, excuses start being made about missing practice and
they give up.

True, but so do kids.

Slow and steady, and don't make it your ONLY project!

I guess it depends on what you mean here. I did not really want to be a
pianist at all, but it seems a necessary step in learning to play the toy
piano that is my real interest. So perhaps I could consider it two projects.
The instruments are different enough that the technique seems to be
different too. The keys go down only about 1/8 of an inch, and the touch is
much lighter than my P-85 (that is about the same as a cheap Yamaha
upright). I have no intention of making a living at this, but I do want to
be good enough that I will enjoy hearing what I am doing. The repertoire for
toy piano is quite small. I wonder if I have half of it already (I hope
not). And I can play some items from piano "level 2" books, that seem to be
watered down versions of mostly classical stuff, on the toy piano. It is
tricky to fit things into 37 notes, which is the number my toy piano has.
(Schoenhut 379M)

A regular
performance commitment helps a lot - an achievable goal EVERY week.

I am working through Czerny's Op. 599 at the moment, and they are certainly
much more interesting than Hanon. The editor (Buonamici) does not seem to be
very good, though. My teacher says she will pick up a better edition in
Moscow when she goes back there later this year. I am also working on "Level
2 of Bastien's "Favorite Classic Melodies" to improve my ability at reading
music. Derived from sometimes great works, but watered down considerably,
which distresses me as I often know the music in the original (not how to
play it, though). I add one or two of each of these almost every week.

Easy for other instrumentalists who can join a beginners' band or
orchestra. May take a little more ingenuity for a pianist!

True. I was in my grade school orchestra (trombone) about 60 years ago, but
playing one note at a time is very different from playing a bunch at a time
on a keyboard instrument. At least this way, I am spared the embarrassment
of having others (other than my teacher) hear my mistakes. I am a bit shy
about that.


--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 09:05:01 up 49 days, 15:19, 3 users, load average: 4.21, 4.28, 4.61

[Melodious Thunk[_2_]]

On May 13, 6:53*am, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

snip

By the way, your curiosity over a Cage notation came to mind while I
was reading about Baroque notation. Cage may have meant to reinforce
the sustained note (by playing it again) during the long hold. That
was common in Bach's time and before.

Have you ever tried making contacts at Wesleyan (where his papers
are), to see if there's any discussion by Cage about the toy piano
work?

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 12, 4:50*pm, "geoff" wrote:
Paul wrote:

* * * How about this for a bold prediction: *Digital pianos will
make acoustic piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Well they haven't yet. So what is missing ?

geoff


Not yet, but more and more people have digital.....

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 12, 6:18*pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
Paul wrote:
On May 11, 6:17 pm, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
geoff wrote:
Depend on one's standards of what's alright I guess. *Admittedly
pretty damn good, and likely to continue improving as processors get
faster and memory size is less of an issue and cost.
My guess is when they put 88*3 digital signal processors in the
machine, each one running a model of one of the strings accurately
enough that they sound right, and respond to the rate of travel of the
key, noting the operation of the left-most pedal, as well as the other
two, and allowing for the coupling between all these, then we will be
there. I do not know if we have the mathematical model for a real piano
string accurate enough to do this even if someone could afford 264
suitable digital signal processors that are fast enough to do these
computations. But what if, when all is said and done, that the DSP
model of a piano costs more than a traditional one? Then the only
advantage of the digital one is that it might not need tuning.

Sounds like WAY overkill to me.

I do not think so. If you truly want to produce the sound of a real piano,
playing real music, (but not "prepared piano"), I think you would need
something such as I proposed. I do not think it is overkill at all. This
does not mean that I think it makes financial sense in 2009. And our
mathematical models of a grand piano may be inadequate at the present time.

I am reminded of when Bell Labs tried to make a speech synthesizer for a
text-to-speech system by using the phonetic descriptions of American Words
from a dictionary and a mathematical model of the vocal tract (including the
nose). It was lousy, certainly worse than custom made synthesizers of the
time. In that case, the mathematical model of the human vocal tract was
fairly good, but the phonetics of the words in the dictionary were
grievously inadequate.

I suspect if we tried to model a grand piano right now, with unlimited
processing power but with our current understanding of a real grand piano,
we would also get poor results, certainly compared with the digitally
recorded grand piano sounds that even my P-85 can do. And the P-85 may be
state of the $600 art these days (I am not prepared to claim that), but for
more money, digital pianos can almost certainly do way better.


i have a P-85 too, and it's a very good unit.


It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress). But were I good enough,
or vain enough, to wish to be a concert pianist, I imagine within a year or
so, I would need something better.

How about this for a bold prediction: *Digital pianos will make acoustic
piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Be careful with those analogies. While digital technology fills a large part
of the need for photographs, certainly those to be displayed on a computer
monitor, it is still inadequate for much fine-art photography. Digital
photography continues to improve, and I have no doubt analog photography
could also continue to improve if there were an effective demand for it. I
imagine the same is true for digital pianos. But just as I doubt digital
photography will ever totally supplant analogue photography, so I doubt
digital acoustics will ever totally supplant analogue pianos, or analogue
organs, or ... . They may become suitable for commercial purposes, and a lot
of pianos are used for that. But for fine-art musicianship, it may be a lot
longer.


Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 12, 7:38*pm, Doug McDonald wrote:
Paul wrote:

* * * *It might be harder to be expressive on the piano, yes.

* * * *But the technical problem of replicating a piano is
much simpler than simulating a guitar.

Huh? A piano is a much larger instrument than a guitar.

Especially in a small room, there are effects due to teh fact that different
frequencies are generated from different parts of the innards
of a piano, so that they radiate in different directions. That makes
the room ambience important. This is even more important for recordings, where
some producers seem to like to put the mikes inside the piano!

Doug McDonald


String bending on a guitar is WAY more complex than the
mechanism of a piano....

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 12, 7:56*pm, Doug McDonald wrote:
Paul wrote:
* * * Sympathetic sounds are so low, they are negligible.
They did not sound negligible to me. I held down a chord on a Yamaha upright
piano (with real strings) slowly so they did not sound. I then played the
same chord an octave higher and let go. During this time I did not depress
any of the pedals. The unsounded chord continued to sound for quite a while;
not as loud as had I actually played it, but buy no means negligible. I bet
a concert grand would have done better than that.

* * *But how musical is this gimmick? *And that's all it really is,
a little piano gimmick, to make up for lack of real composing talent.

Actually, no. Real classical composers expect a piano to
sound a certain way, and that most certainly includes the sympathetic
effects. Players expect the same. The art of piano playing depends on the extremely small
nuances of how the playing with each finger effects the whole,
as do the pedals. Absolutely everything in the acoustics
figures in, even, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the fact that
different frequencies come preferentially from different parts of the innards.

Now all this is not in the notation. It is in the experience of the
players and listeners.

Doug McDonald


If you think sympathetic effects are big, then composers
should also specify what brand and model of piano you should use!

[Scott Dorsey]

Paul wrote:

If you think sympathetic effects are big, then composers
should also specify what brand and model of piano you should use!

Some of them do.

Beethoven on a fortepiano sounds VERY different than Beethoven on a
Steinway. Even the technique changes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[GregS[_3_]]

In article , Paul wrote:
On May 12, 7:38=A0pm, Doug McDonald wrote:
Paul wrote:

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0It might be harder to be expressive on the piano, yes.

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0But the technical problem of replicating a piano is
much simpler than simulating a guitar.

Huh? A piano is a much larger instrument than a guitar.

Especially in a small room, there are effects due to teh fact that differ=
ent
frequencies are generated from different parts of the innards
of a piano, so that they radiate in different directions. That makes
the room ambience important. This is even more important for recordings, =
where
some producers seem to like to put the mikes inside the piano!

Doug McDonald


String bending on a guitar is WAY more complex than the
mechanism of a piano....

The frequency dependant harmonic content is more complex on a piano.
Its pretty hard to bend the piano. Hard to hold also.


greg

[Jean-David Beyer]

Melodious Thunk wrote:
On May 13, 6:53 am, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

snip

By the way, your curiosity over a Cage notation came to mind while I
was reading about Baroque notation.

Are you referring to figured base?

Cage may have meant to reinforce
the sustained note (by playing it again) during the long hold. That
was common in Bach's time and before.

Where he wrote "play without sounding"? Or early in the first movement where
the performer presses the g and holds it, followed by the a and holding it
too, and leaving the keys down for about 13 measures?

I have heard the piece played by several toy pianists, and they follow his
music pretty exactly; two of them in videos on Utube. They do not press the
keys repeatedly. And while on a normal piano, holding the specified keys
down removes the dampers from the strings, _there are no dampers_ on a toy
piano. Once the rod has been struck by the hammer the rest is determined.
The note fades out. But, _whether or not you hold keys down_, sympathetic
vibrations will excite other notes. On my Schoenhut 379, the highest F on
the keyboard excites the lowest F to a considerable extent (I kind-of wish
it did not). It is less noticeable with the other keys.

Have you ever tried making contacts at Wesleyan (where his papers
are), to see if there's any discussion by Cage about the toy piano
work?

No, I never thought to do that.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 14:30:01 up 49 days, 20:44, 3 users, load average: 4.26, 4.35, 4.42

[Jean-David Beyer]

Paul wrote:

Sounds like WAY overkill to me.
I do not think so. If you truly want to produce the sound of a real piano,
playing real music, (but not "prepared piano"), I think you would need
something such as I proposed. I do not think it is overkill at all. This
does not mean that I think it makes financial sense in 2009. And our
mathematical models of a grand piano may be inadequate at the present time.

I am reminded of when Bell Labs tried to make a speech synthesizer for a
text-to-speech system by using the phonetic descriptions of American Words
from a dictionary and a mathematical model of the vocal tract (including the
nose). It was lousy, certainly worse than custom made synthesizers of the
time. In that case, the mathematical model of the human vocal tract was
fairly good, but the phonetics of the words in the dictionary were
grievously inadequate.

I suspect if we tried to model a grand piano right now, with unlimited
processing power but with our current understanding of a real grand piano,
we would also get poor results, certainly compared with the digitally
recorded grand piano sounds that even my P-85 can do. And the P-85 may be
state of the $600 art these days (I am not prepared to claim that), but for
more money, digital pianos can almost certainly do way better.


i have a P-85 too, and it's a very good unit.

I think it is surprisingly good for what it tries to be, and for what it costs.

It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress). But were I good enough,
or vain enough, to wish to be a concert pianist, I imagine within a year or
so, I would need something better.

How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will make acoustic
piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.
Be careful with those analogies. While digital technology fills a large part
of the need for photographs, certainly those to be displayed on a computer
monitor, it is still inadequate for much fine-art photography. Digital
photography continues to improve, and I have no doubt analog photography
could also continue to improve if there were an effective demand for it. I
imagine the same is true for digital pianos. But just as I doubt digital
photography will ever totally supplant analogue photography, so I doubt
digital acoustics will ever totally supplant analogue pianos, or analogue
organs, or ... . They may become suitable for commercial purposes, and a lot
of pianos are used for that. But for fine-art musicianship, it may be a lot
longer.


Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

I happen to use a Wisner 4x5 Technical Field. But I find the response curve
of film (the D/H curve) is quite different from that which I see (but have
not measured) on digital cameras, such as my sister's Panasonic Lumix
DMC-FZ28K. Also, the image quality (not sure what I mean by this in
technical terms) of the two are quite different. I think that part of the
explanation is that the grain in the film (actually, the spaces between the
grains) have a different character that is quite visible to the eye,
compared to the regular pattern of the picture elements in a digital camera.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

For commercial, advertizing, purposes, that time is about now. For artistic
purposes, I imagine some people will prefer the new and some the old. Some
people coat their own platinum printing paper because it is no longer
commercially available (though I do not).

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 14:40:01 up 49 days, 20:54, 3 users, load average: 4.14, 4.15, 4.27

[Neil Gould]

Paul wrote:

Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

Baloney. Film is a different medium from digital, and is no more "dead" than
paint or other artistic media. The size of the market is significantly lower
than when there were no practical alternatives to film, but that is a very
different statement. If all one needs is short-term use of an image, e.g.
for publishing in the newspaper or a website, then digital is the way to go.

But, for archival purposes, digital sucks big rocks compared to film.

--
Neil

[[email protected]]

In rec.audio.pro GregS wrote:
: The frequency dependant harmonic content is more complex on a piano.
: Its pretty hard to bend the piano.

Thus nobody does it, thus it's easier to model than the guitar.

[Geoff]

Paul wrote:
On May 12, 4:50 pm, "geoff" wrote:
Paul wrote:

How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will
make acoustic piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Well they haven't yet. So what is missing ?

geoff


Not yet, but more and more people have digital.....

More and more people have iPods too. Does that make them hi-fi ?

geoff

[[email protected]]

... I remember more than ten years ago being
amazed by the Yamaha VL1...

I remember being amazed with Casio VL1

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 13, 1:28*pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:

* * * * Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

* * * * But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

Baloney. Film is a different medium from digital, and is no more "dead" than
paint or other artistic media. The size of the market is significantly lower
than when there were no practical alternatives to film, but that is a very
different statement. If all one needs is short-term use of an image, e.g.
for publishing in the newspaper or a website, then digital is the way to go.


It's dying for certain. Even Kodak is abandoning film.


But, for archival purposes, digital sucks big rocks compared to film.


Baloney. Film celluloid degrades over time. A digital "1"
will
always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

Assuming your storage format for your digital data is of good
quality, and under reasonable conditions, your digital photo will
be EXACTLY the same hundreds of years from now. Your film will
be withered and aged....

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 13, 11:54*am, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
Paul wrote:
Sounds like WAY overkill to me.
I do not think so. If you truly want to produce the sound of a real piano,
playing real music, (but not "prepared piano"), I think you would need
something such as I proposed. I do not think it is overkill at all. This
does not mean that I think it makes financial sense in 2009. And our
mathematical models of a grand piano may be inadequate at the present time.

I am reminded of when Bell Labs tried to make a speech synthesizer for a
text-to-speech system by using the phonetic descriptions of American Words
from a dictionary and a mathematical model of the vocal tract (including the
nose). It was lousy, certainly worse than custom made synthesizers of the
time. In that case, the mathematical model of the human vocal tract was
fairly good, but the phonetics of the words in the dictionary were
grievously inadequate.

I suspect if we tried to model a grand piano right now, with unlimited
processing power but with our current understanding of a real grand piano,
we would also get poor results, certainly compared with the digitally
recorded grand piano sounds that even my P-85 can do. And the P-85 may be
state of the $600 art these days (I am not prepared to claim that), but for
more money, digital pianos can almost certainly do way better.

* * * i have a P-85 too, and it's a very good unit.

I think it is surprisingly good for what it tries to be, and for what it costs.


Yes, and i almost prefer to play it over a real piano.

Action is much smoother than 99% of the pianos out there.








It is good for my needs (that are quite modest, since I am only up to my
11th piano lesson so far -- though I have upped them from 1-hour at a time
to 2 hours at a time so as to make more progress). But were I good enough,
or vain enough, to wish to be a concert pianist, I imagine within a year or
so, I would need something better.

How about this for a bold prediction: *Digital pianos will make acoustic
piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.
Be careful with those analogies. While digital technology fills a large part
of the need for photographs, certainly those to be displayed on a computer
monitor, it is still inadequate for much fine-art photography. Digital
photography continues to improve, and I have no doubt analog photography
could also continue to improve if there were an effective demand for it. I
imagine the same is true for digital pianos. But just as I doubt digital
photography will ever totally supplant analogue photography, so I doubt
digital acoustics will ever totally supplant analogue pianos, or analogue
organs, or ... . They may become suitable for commercial purposes, and a lot
of pianos are used for that. But for fine-art musicianship, it may be a lot
longer.

* * * * Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

I happen to use a Wisner 4x5 Technical Field. But I find the response curve
of film (the D/H curve) is quite different from that which I see (but have
not measured) on digital cameras, such as my sister's Panasonic Lumix
DMC-FZ28K. Also, the image quality (not sure what I mean by this in
technical terms) of the two are quite different. I think that part of the
explanation is that the grain in the film (actually, the spaces between the
grains) have a different character that is quite visible to the eye,
compared to the regular pattern of the picture elements in a digital camera.


I've got a Crown Graphic 4x5.

But try putting a 4x5 digital back on these! I will bet the
results
will be better than scanning the 4x5 film! One less generation
loss.....





* * * * But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

For commercial, advertizing, purposes, that time is about now. For artistic
purposes, I imagine some people will prefer the new and some the old. Some
people coat their own platinum printing paper because it is no longer
commercially available (though I do not).


But the film manufacturers need to make a profit, and if
there is not enough commercial demand, they will drop it. Then
even the artists won't use it.

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 13, 11:21*am, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Paul wrote:

* * *If you think sympathetic effects are big, then composers
should also specify what brand and model of piano you should use!

Some of them do.

Beethoven on a fortepiano sounds VERY different than Beethoven on a
Steinway. *Even the technique changes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. *C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


Obviously.

Sympathetics are negligible.....

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 13, 3:23*pm, "geoff" wrote:
Paul wrote:
On May 12, 4:50 pm, "geoff" wrote:
Paul wrote:

How about this for a bold prediction: Digital pianos will
make acoustic piano's obsolete, just like analog film is a dinosaur.

Well they haven't yet. So what is missing ?

geoff

* * * Not yet, but more and more people have digital.....

More and more people have iPods too. Does that make them hi-fi ?

geoff


It means they are good enough for the job they do.

[Scott Dorsey]

Paul wrote:

But the film manufacturers need to make a profit, and if
there is not enough commercial demand, they will drop it. Then
even the artists won't use it.

A century ago, there were hundreds of piano manufacturers in this country,
and a lot of them were geared up with assembly lines for high volume
production.

These days, the demand for pianos is not what it once was, and so there are
a few companies building pianos, almost entirely by hand. Because the market
has changed, the economics changed, and the manufacturing methods have
changed.

The same thing is in the process of happening to film. Kodak, who was
geared up for high volume production (and which had a lot of very
specialized production lines that could make only one special-purpose
product), isn't really able to deal with an era where photographic film
is becoming a limited-demand item.

This means that there is an increased market for smaller manufacturers like
Ilford and Orwo to get into the market with small lines that can make small
batches economically, and which can rapidly be switched from one product
to another. Not only that, but we have now a market for handmade printing
paper and sheet film that didn't exist before and a bunch of cottage
industrial types getting into that.

We see the same thing with analogue tape..... thirty years ago there
were probably a hundred factories making 1/4" tape... today there are
three of them. What is exciting is that one of those three is a company
that didn't even exist ten years ago, and another one of them a small
company that has radically upgraded in order to make a higher quality
product to fill the remaining market demand. I don't see the market ever
expanding, but I don't see it going away any time soon either.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Anahata]

On Thu, 14 May 2009 11:28:53 -0700, Paul wrote:
A digital "1"
will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the data.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

[Neil Gould]

Paul wrote:
On May 13, 1:28 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:

Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

Baloney. Film is a different medium from digital, and is no more
"dead" than paint or other artistic media. The size of the market is
significantly lower than when there were no practical alternatives
to film, but that is a very different statement. If all one needs is
short-term use of an image, e.g. for publishing in the newspaper or
a website, then digital is the way to go.


It's dying for certain. Even Kodak is abandoning film.

I take it that you are not aware that Kodak has introduced new film within
the last month or so?

But, for archival purposes, digital sucks big rocks compared to film.


Baloney. Film celluloid degrades over time. A digital "1"
will
always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

On what medium? Therein lies the problem. There is no practical digital
medim that is truly archival.

Assuming your storage format for your digital data is of good
quality, and under reasonable conditions, your digital photo will
be EXACTLY the same hundreds of years from now. Your film will
be withered and aged....

There is no available digital storage format that will survive for as long
as film, and any degradation can mean a total loss of your data. OTOH, there
is film that is over 100 years old, and is still in decent condition.

--
Neil

[Paul[_13_]]

On May 14, 1:21*pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:
On May 13, 1:28 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:

Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

Baloney. Film is a different medium from digital, and is no more
"dead" than paint or other artistic media. The size of the market is
significantly lower than when there were no practical alternatives
to film, but that is a very different statement. If all one needs is
short-term use of an image, e.g. for publishing in the newspaper or
a website, then digital is the way to go.

* * * *It's dying for certain. *Even Kodak is abandoning film..

I take it that you are not aware that Kodak has introduced new film within
the last month or so?

But, for archival purposes, digital sucks big rocks compared to film.

* * * *Baloney. *Film celluloid degrades over time. *A digital "1"
will
always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

On what medium? Therein lies the problem. There is no practical digital
medim that is truly archival.

* * * *Assuming your storage format for your digital data is of good
quality, and under reasonable conditions, your digital photo will
be EXACTLY the same hundreds of years from now. *Your film will
be withered and aged....

There is no available digital storage format that will survive for as long
as film, and any degradation can mean a total loss of your data. OTOH, there
is film that is over 100 years old, and is still in decent condition.


But you can backup on many formats, and have redundancy.

Film is only one copy.

[Geoff]

Anahata wrote:
On Thu, 14 May 2009 11:28:53 -0700, Paul wrote:
A digital "1"
will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the
data.

Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where every
sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

geoff

[Richard Crowley]

"geoff" wrote...
Anahata wrote:
Paul wrote:
A digital "1" will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the
data.

Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where every
sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

I've been viewing the Blu-Ray boxed set of James Bond flics.
They had a demo of the release masters vs. what they put on
the BR disc. They were able to scan the original camera negs
(4K resolution, 4 FPS) and re-edited the footage per the original.
The results are very nice for film from 1963 (Dr. No)

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Thu, 14 May 2009 16:43:00 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"geoff" wrote...
Anahata wrote:
Paul wrote:
A digital "1" will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the
data.

Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where every
sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

I've been viewing the Blu-Ray boxed set of James Bond flics.
They had a demo of the release masters vs. what they put on
the BR disc. They were able to scan the original camera negs
(4K resolution, 4 FPS) and re-edited the footage per the original.
The results are very nice for film from 1963 (Dr. No)

Another perspective is that of the famous President Clinton/ Monica
Lewinsky glance-in-the-receiving-line photo. ****loads of
photographers took similar photos of the same glance at the same
time, but the guy who got the BigBucks (I, and maybe you, could retire
on...) got 'em BigBucks because his was an old analog film picture
that he had no incentive to "delete". Everybody else was too
bold and had long ago deleted their six-figure .JPG .

Digital is wonderful, but we're in Early Days, and need to remember
to remember to be modest. It's The Cowboy Way.


Much thanks, as always,
Chris Hornbeck

[Misifus[_2_]]

Paul wrote:



I've got a Crown Graphic 4x5.

But try putting a 4x5 digital back on these! I will bet the
results
will be better than scanning the 4x5 film! One less generation
loss.....




Have you priced a 4x5 digital back? You could pay for a lot of film,
processing and scanning for that.

-Raf

--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com

[Neil Gould]

Paul wrote:
On May 14, 1:21 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:
On May 13, 1:28 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Paul wrote:

Film is dead, except for maybe larger format cameras.

But even then, it will only be a matter of time.....

Baloney. Film is a different medium from digital, and is no more
"dead" than paint or other artistic media. The size of the market
is significantly lower than when there were no practical
alternatives to film, but that is a very different statement. If
all one needs is short-term use of an image, e.g. for publishing
in the newspaper or a website, then digital is the way to go.

It's dying for certain. Even Kodak is abandoning film.

I take it that you are not aware that Kodak has introduced new film
within the last month or so?

But, for archival purposes, digital sucks big rocks compared to
film.

Baloney. Film celluloid degrades over time. A digital "1"
will
always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

On what medium? Therein lies the problem. There is no practical
digital medim that is truly archival.

Assuming your storage format for your digital data is of good
quality, and under reasonable conditions, your digital photo will
be EXACTLY the same hundreds of years from now. Your film will
be withered and aged....

There is no available digital storage format that will survive for
as long as film, and any degradation can mean a total loss of your
data. OTOH, there is film that is over 100 years old, and is still
in decent condition.


But you can backup on many formats, and have redundancy.

And, none of them are archival, so one winds up spending a good deal of time
in a never-ending loop if archiving is one's intention.

Having spent the last 30+ years working with digital media, the best I can
suggest to you is to do some homework before you get sorely disappointed by
losing something important to you.

Film is only one copy.

Well, this is also wrong. If you need more than one copy of film, it is
quite easy to dupe it with minimal or no perceptable degradation.

--
Neil

[Neil Gould]

geoff wrote:
Anahata wrote:
On Thu, 14 May 2009 11:28:53 -0700, Paul wrote:
A digital "1"
will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".

If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the
data.

Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where
every sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

How many digital stone tablets of your music to you have? And, how about
that reader? ;-)

Notions can differ significantly from the real world.

--
Neil

[Anahata]

On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:16:45 +1200, geoff wrote:

Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where every
sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

Yes, you *can*, and also you have to as the technology keeps changing. It
requires constant refresh activity to keep it usable. The digital
libraries of the future will be forever copying all their data to new
storage media to keep it accessible.

How easy it it now to read data on a floppy disk from a CP/M system of 30
years ago? What in another 20 years? 50? 100? ...and it a safe bet that
not all the 1's and 0's on that floppy are still the same, nor are they
stable on a typical CDR burned less than 10 years ago.

In contrast, we can still read a book that's been untouched on a shelf or
in a box for over 200 years.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

[Jean-David Beyer]

Neil Gould wrote:
geoff wrote:
Anahata wrote:
On Thu, 14 May 2009 11:28:53 -0700, Paul wrote:
A digital "1"
will always be a "1", as will the digital "0".
If only...

And hundreds of years from now, the problem will be how to read the
data.
Yo can back up digital onto many different forms of media (even stone
tablets) with zero generation loss each time. Unlike film, where
every sequential transcription gives some deterioration.

How many digital stone tablets of your music to you have? And, how about
that reader? ;-)

Stone tablets are not that great anymore, by the way. I knew a composer
(Ernst Lévy) who had a gargoyle from Notre Dame cathedral in his apartment.
It was barely recognizable. It had been removed because the acid rain in
Paris at the time (mid 1950s) had dissolved too much of the limestone. But
it was not 500 years old, but only about 40 years old, having been replaced
around the time of WW-I. These limestone monuments are dissolving all the
time now, so even if the cathedrals lasted about 600 years, the increase of
industrialization (and, therefore, acid rain) has compromised even "stone
tablets" as a medium of long-term storage.

Notions can differ significantly from the real world.



--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 08:05:01 up 51 days, 14:19, 3 users, load average: 3.93, 4.03, 4.04

[Scott Dorsey]

Misifus wrote:
Paul wrote:

I've got a Crown Graphic 4x5.

But try putting a 4x5 digital back on these! I will bet the
results
will be better than scanning the 4x5 film! One less generation
loss.....

Have you priced a 4x5 digital back? You could pay for a lot of film,
processing and scanning for that.

I've played with the Leaf back, and the resolution is phenomenal, but it's
somewhat slow and cumbersome still, and the grey scale isn't anywhere near
as good as Super-XX. Then again.... the same goes for T-Max....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."