electronics replacing pianos

[Porritt, David]

Ric and all the others who worry about the acoustic piano going away:
One of the things that we hear in an acoustic piano is the resonance of
the other strings on the piano when a chord (or single note) are being
played and the pedal is lifted.  Lots of other sounds enter the picture.
The CPU cycles needed to duplicate these effects and the programming to
calculate them when the sustain pedal is in use are tremendous.  I
discussed this with the head of our Electronic Music department and he
didn't think this would happen in his lifetime (and he's much younger
than I).  

I think digital instruments will become a bigger and bigger part of the
music market but I don't think I'm young enough to live until solo piano
recitals are played on a digital keyboard.

dp

David M. Porritt
dporritt at smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On
Behalf Of RicB
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 12:26 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: electronics replacing pianos

All of which only goes to underline one of the main points I see in all 
this.  The replica does not really need to ever fully reproduce the 
sound of the acoustic to be able to take over.  It only needs to become 
good enough so that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks enough the the 
buying public... which as Stephane so eloquently points out are already 
so very willing to accept a vulgarization of the instrument, are seduced

into buying the replica instead of the acoustic.

Its a sad development in so many ways to be sure.  Just today I was 
sitting most of the day with Edward Griegs old B having technical 
responsibilities for a recording session with Simax, and English 
recording studio.  These thoughts this discussion deals with went 
through my mind several times this morning during the initial tuning, 
and I thought to myself.... my my my...  when THIS so intimate 
connection between human and acoustic instruments disappears, what a sad

day that will be... if it be.

Ok... so I am afeared and and many others are far more optimistic.  But 
in the end.... well... who was it that said there is no magic in our 
work, no soul to a piano ?

If they ever do manage to fully imitate the acoustic world (and I rather

believe sooner or later they will)... they do indeed have a major task 
in front of them.

Cheers
RicB


    I confess, I have no idea what a clavinova costs.  The point is the
    same.  My guess is that a lot of consumers would pay more for
    technology.  Schools know the costs, they have done it for years. 
    The 30 year old piano is sitting there and the school is on their
    4th keyboard in 15 years.  They spent a lot on replacement to save
    tuning costs.  People buy it because they want it.  The schools
    mission statement mentions the teaching of technology, some
    pricipals have asked music teachers to use their keyboards as part
    of the technology education.  We buy stuff everyday that has no
    value the next and know that we have to upgrade.  The larger point
    of the Yamaha ad is that I was astonished that they really left no
    room for the acoustic piano.
    Phil Mosley


        A complete new Yamaha grand action plus fancy keyboard for $2K?
        Seems hard to imagine..
        Farrell