The implementation of technology into the curricula of selected independent piano studios.

Of the 225 returned surveys, 76 independent piano teachers with 12 or more students reported using one or more forms of technology in their curricula: 47 used computers in their teaching, 47 used keyboard technology, 44 used accompaniment disks, and 16 used the Internet for teaching. Sixty-two percent of the 76 teachers employed two or more forms of technology in their studios. Digital keyboard technology was the primary teaching tool for 36% of the 47 keyboard users. Computer-assisted instruction software received much wider usage (91% of 47 computer users) than notation, sequencing, and accompaniment application software (51%). Although 93% of 47 teachers had Internet access, only 36% taught with the technology. Most of the 76 teachers reported the positive pedagogical impact of technology use in their curricula and listed workshops/seminars and colleagues as the foremost resources for acquiring knowledge on music technology.A 51-item questionnaire was sent to 400 independent piano teachers from the Music Teachers National Association's (MTNA) membership list to seek information on the implementation of technology into their curricula. The survey covered topics such as the purposes and methods of using different types of technology, successes and limitations in the use of technology, and factors hindering the incorporation of technology into independent piano studios.The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the extent to which selected independent piano teachers with 12 or more pre-college students incorporated technology into their curricula including the use of computer and keyboard technologies, software, accompaniment disks (MIDI/CD), and the Internet. A secondary purpose was to provide information on teachers' attitudes toward the use of technologies in private piano curricula. The conclusions and recommendations presented, along with the annotated bibliography of Internet resources and a list of software program features, serve as a reference for independent piano teachers currently teaching with technology or interested in incorporating technology into their curricula.Future research could benefit from further investigation of the pedagogical use of digital reproducing pianos and accompaniment disks, as well as the achievement of students who are involved in curricula that incorporate various forms of technology

Beyond key velocity: Continuous sensing for expressive control on the Hammond Organ and Digital keyboards

In this thesis we seek to explore the potential for continuous key position to be used as an expressive control in keyboard musical instruments, and how preexisting skills can be adapted to leverage this additional control. Interaction between performer and sound generation on a keyboard instrument is often restricted to a number of discrete events on the keys themselves (notes onsets and offsets), while complementary continuous control is provided via additional interfaces, such as pedals, modulation wheels and knobs. The rich vocabulary of gestures that skilled performers can achieve on the keyboard is therefore often simplified to a single, discrete velocity measurement. A limited number of acoustical and electromechanical keyboard instruments do, however, present affordances of continuous key control, so that the role of the key is not limited to delivering discrete events, but its instantaneous position is, to a certain extent, an element of expressive control. Recent evolutions in sensing technologies allow to leverage continuous key position as an expressive element in the sound generation of digital keyboard musical instruments. We start by exploring the expression available on the keys of the Hammond organ, where nine contacts are closed at different points of the key throw for each key onset and we find that the velocity and the percussiveness of the touch affect the way the contacts close and bounce, producing audible differences in the onset transient of each note. We develop an embedded hardware and software environment for low-latency sound generation controlled by continuous key position, which we use to create two digital keyboard instruments. The first of these emulates the sound of a Hammond and can be controlled with continuous key position, so that it allows for arbitrary mapping between the key position and the nine virtual contacts of the digital sound generator. A study with 10 musicians shows that, when exploring the instrument on their own, the players can appreciate the differences between different settings and tend to develop a personal preference for one of them. In the second instrument, continuous key position is the fundamental means of expression: percussiveness, key position and multi-key gestures control the parameters of a physical model of a flute. In a study with 6 professional musicians playing this instrument we gather insights on the adaptation process, the limitations of the interface and the transferability of traditional keyboard playing techniques

Measuring Expressive Music Performances: a Performance Science Model using Symbolic Approximation

Music Performance Science (MPS), sometimes termed systematic musicology in Northern Europe, is concerned with designing, testing and applying quantitative measurements to music performances. It has applications in art musics, jazz and other genres. It is least concerned with aesthetic judgements or with ontological considerations of artworks that stand alone from their instantiations in performances. Musicians deliver expressive performances by manipulating multiple, simultaneous variables including, but not limited to: tempo, acceleration and deceleration, dynamics, rates of change of dynamic levels, intonation and articulation. There are significant complexities when handling multivariate music datasets of significant scale. A critical issue in analyzing any types of large datasets is the likelihood of detecting meaningless relationships the more dimensions are included. One possible choice is to create algorithms that address both volume and complexity. Another, and the approach chosen here, is to apply techniques that reduce both the dimensionality and numerosity of the music datasets while assuring the statistical significance of results. This dissertation describes a flexible computational model, based on symbolic approximation of timeseries, that can extract time-related characteristics of music performances to generate performance fingerprints (dissimilarities from an ‘average performance’) to be used for comparative purposes. The model is applied to recordings of Arnold Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment, Opus 47 (1949), having initially been validated on Chopin Mazurkas.1 The results are subsequently used to test hypotheses about evolution in performance styles of the Phantasy since its composition. It is hoped that further research will examine other works and types of music in order to improve this model and make it useful to other music researchers. In addition to its benefits for performance analysis, it is suggested that the model has clear applications at least in music fraud detection, Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and in pedagogical applications for music education

Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo

How do keyboards make music playable? Drawing on theories of media, systems, and cultural techniques, Keys to Play spans Greek myth and contemporary Japanese digital games to chart a genealogy of musical play and its animation via improvisation, performance, and recreation. As a paradigmatic digital interface, the keyboard forms a field of play on which the book’s diverse objects of inquiry—from clavichords to PCs and eighteenth-century musical dice games to the latest rhythm-action titles—enter into analogical relations. Remapping the keyboard’s topography by way of Mozart and Super Mario, who head an expansive cast of historical and virtual actors, Keys to Play invites readers to unlock ludic dimensions of music that are at once old and new

The reverse action Piano Harp : innovation and adaptation from Piano and Autoharp

The Reverse Action Piano Harp:Innovation and Adaptation from Piano and AutoharpThe piano is capable of controlling significant polyphony through the detail of voicing and sustain; a unique ability. However it remains a limited and frustrating instrument in terms of its ability to manipulate timbre. Contact with the strings is remote, and timbre inflection limited to note-onset within the capability of its mechanism; its musical output is often likened to visual studies in black and white. From the standpoint of design all musical instruments compromise musical capability in one form or another in order to align with human physical and sensory capability. A full range of expression may be sought by developing expertise on different instruments, but this is frustrating; in terms of expert performance interfaces such as guitar and piano are mutually exclusive — common theoretical structure must be relearned for comparable performance expression. This study explores the potential to create an instrument comprising a set of musical compromises comparable to that of the guitar, whilst remaining adaptive to pianistic technique. It begins with exploration of the autoharp and posits a keyboard variant of this instrument.Practice based research has been undertaken in the form of a prototype series and musical engagement upon the resulting instruments. Five prototypes have been developed, practice engages with aspects of automated design and manufacture, and in the latter stages, working with an exceptional industry based luthier. The resulting instrument has been patented. Musical practice encompasses genres from gypsy-jazz to contemporary experimental music. New works have been commissioned for the instrument and other musicians have played and studied it.Practice is supported through analysis of related forms of musical instrument (which influence the developing design) and the nature of change within musical technology. The result is a new, versatile instrument, with demonstrated capacity to gain traction and to propagate within the musical community

A survey of digital music technology implementation by graduate and undergraduate piano pedagogy faculty in American colleges and universities.

Distributions of 4 new summative scales revealed high usage of both generic and digital music technologies, with generally positive faculty attitudes toward digital music technologies. Respondents were placed into Rogerian adoption categories. Similarities were observed between these 5 types of technology adopters and Rogers' (2003) bell-curve model, but a more linear adoption-diffusion pattern was observed than was predicted by Rogers' S-curve model.The purpose of this study was to assess the current level of adoption and diffusion of specific digitally based instructional and music technologies by pedagogues in American graduate and undergraduate pedagogy programs. Data were collected from faculty members who listed piano pedagogy as an area of teaching interest in the Directory of Music Faculties in Colleges and Universities, U.S. and Canada, 2005--2006. The questionnaire sought information about faculty pedagogues, their attitudes toward and usage of generic and digital music instructional technology, and their categorization as Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards according to Rogers' (2003) model of technology adoption and diffusion.Based on 238 valid responses (34%), data results showed that the sample was 60.1% female. The majority (68.4%) belonged to 1 or more professional organizations, attended conferences annually (54.9%), with 42.2% attending at least 1 digital music workshop per conference. Respondents reported frequent usage of generic digital technologies but even greater use of digital music technologies. No significant gender effects were observed, but one-way ANOVA tests revealed that younger faculty members were significantly more likely to use digital music technologies (F = 2.9, p = .023). Significant correlations were observed between the usage of digital music technology and organizational memberships (r = .164), conference attendance (r = .157), and digital music workshop attendance (r = .492). Using correlation and regression tests, respondent attitudes were shown to be positively and significantly related to the use of generic digital technology and digital music instructional technology (r = .369, r = .664, respectively; p = .000)

Improvising pianists : aspects of keyboard technique and musical structure in free jazz - 1955-1980

The jazz avant-garde of the 60s and 70s has often been depicted as a movement that signalled the end of jazz as we had come to know it, a movement of unbridled musical energy and passion without the essential restraining influences of formal guidelines and reverence for - traditions. With the benefit of hindsight, from observing the almost neoclassical stance of jazz in the 80s, the notion that this music signified the genre's Armaggedon was patently a misconception. This thesis argues that free jazz was as much a style, concerned with finding its own voice and technical vocabulary, as any other period of jazz history. As an analytical and critical study of pianists and their use of the piano in free jazz and improvised music, this survey is designed to fill a gap in musicological research of this important artistic movement, which hitherto has been primarily concerned with biography and with related sociological issues. The study traces the piano through the turbulent years of radical experirnentalism in jazz and the subsequent refinement in free improvisation in Europe and the U.S. through the work of pianists central to the movement. Rather than adopting the chronological approach, this study considers the music under broad headings specifically related to technique; the instrument's position within the group, and the generation of form, motivic structure and 'language'. Chapter 1, by way of introduction, outlines the argument of what constitutes the 'freedom' in free jazz and looks at the early development of the avant garde as it arose in opposition to the prevailing traditions of bebop and contemporary notated music with special reference to three influential pianists: Herbie Nichols, Lennie Tristano and Thelonius Monk. Chapter 2 is concerned with new concepts in overall form, while Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the smaller components, or motifs, of modular improvisatory structure. Chapter 4 examines the physical nature of piano tones, their unique qualities of sustain and resonance and their changing patterns of distribution in this music; looking at 'space' firstly in the sense of the piano's natural resonance and the pianists whose work has explored this particular characteristic, and secondly, the physical space involved in the act of playing, the sense of movement or kinaesthesis. Chapter 5 will concentrate on the dynamic and percussive approach to free jazz piano. Chapter 6 turns from the physiological to the psychological processes of improvisation; how the opposing forces of habit and originality assert themselves in the improviser's art. Chapter 7 will form a brief conclusion