Hello, Don, that is a very interesting reading. The time for the smaller reaction seem to be 30 ms and not 200 ms if I understand well. But, what seem funny in this thread is everyone seem to consider the act of playing a note like a simple move, I am persuaded it is a very complex operation, and relatively slow for what is worth, and it contains a lot of sequences. I can't imagine a pianist not listening with its finger, so there are certainly operations at the level of the reflex induced, and this can be trained to react faster. In the experiments, description, they did not say if the stimuli used to ask a change in the move was tactile, visual, or auditive, but they seem to state that all those moves where conscious controlled (if I read well) . For a pianist, playing piano is (almost ) the same reflex than breath. Best Regards friends. Isaac OLEG -----Message d'origine----- De : Don [mailto:pianotuna@accesscomm.ca] ms and not Envoye : mardi 31 aout 2004 04:33 A : Pianotech Objet : Re: Pinning on new flanges:a proposed experiment Hi Richard, Do enjoy this page on reaction times. If I am reading it correctly it takes 200 milliseconds to modify an already "triggered" synaptic event. "Research findings indicate (Rossetti and Pisella, 2003) that once a simple movement is triggered, the intention to stop the action cannot block its expression. The subjects are able to stop an ongoing action but only with reaction times above 200 ms. It seems that the blocking of an ongoing movement requires an intentional or conscious interference." Clearly voluntary control is too slow for "feed back" from the key to the brain of the player to be of much use. It would appear that consistancy of the touch of an action within the parameters of "not too heavy", and "not too free" is the most important factor. http://www.du.ahk.nl/mijnsite/papers/reactiontime.htm Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T. mailto:pianotuna@accesscomm.ca http://us.geocities.com/drpt1948/ 3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK S4S 5G7 306-352-3620 or 1-888-29t-uner
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