

Steinway’s New Piano Can Play a Perfect Concerto by Itself - scottcha
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/steinways-new-piano-can-play-perfect-concerto/

======
sandworm101
Anyone else get sense the desperation in this?

Once upon a time every middle-class home had to have a piano. Now they are
relics. Sales of home pianos have tanked. Steinway sells to the pros, a small
market, and the very rich. But those very rich who were raised with pianos in
every home are getting older. Their kids don't want to spend $$$,$$$ on a
great piano and the maintenance it requires. So Steinway is injecting
technology in hopes of keeping the rich onside.

Pianos, the good ones, last for decades. But what will this ipod-dependant
thing look like in 2030 or 2060? Will they join their brethren in concert
halls, or lie forgotten in grandma's storage locker? An old Steinway is a
useful device capable of doing the same job today as it did when built. An
network-enabled ipad accessory will not age so well.

------
thejew
Not to be that guy, but. You can't play a concerto by yourself because a
concerto is when you play as a soloist with an orchestra. And you can't really
say "a perfect concerto" like "a perfect arpeggio". Would make more sense to
say "Can play a sonata by itself perfectly."

~~~
balabaster
_You_ can't, and near as I can tell, _this_ piano can't. However, some
Clavinovas on the market [e.g. Yamaha], could theoretically be used to play a
perfect [or extremely close to perfect] Concerto by themselves.

I agree however that the headline was sloppy. Someone wishing to cast the
impression of being an audiophile should have taken more care.

Not to take away from this piano though, I enjoyed listening to it. If I had
$120,000 to throw away on an expensive piece of furniture that I could play
myself from time to time, I'd really enjoy looking at this every day.

------
khdjsgkl
This is not new. Steinway has these systems for years; only news is the piano
can talk to an ipad now ...

The first systems that could reproduce dynamics are from 1904:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weltemignon.ch%2Fweltemignon.ch%2Fweltemignon%2Fwelte_info.htm&sandbox=1)

There are actually lots of old piano roll recordings from great artists like
Rachmaninoff, Gershwin any many others around. Some people actually scanned
them and converted them to MIDI:
[http://www.pianola.co.nz/public/](http://www.pianola.co.nz/public/)

These files can now be played on a Yamaha Disklavier, or the Steinway CEUS or
now this new one.

Or they can be played with software-modeled pianos like PianoTeq or sampled-
based software pianos. Really nice.

------
njloof
Piano rolls have survived for over a century. I wonder whether these
performances will have the same longevity.

~~~
D_ANGER
Yamaha has been doing this for at least a decade, recording performers for
their player grands. I don't know how intense the home market is but they've
used them for master classes and competitions remotely; pretty interesting as
a teaching tool.

Also, Jenny Lin is a fantastic pianist, check her out.

~~~
colomon
Yes, I find it really frustrating that the article doesn't contrast at all
with the previous state of the art. I seem to remember that the Yamaha pianos
you mention already had significantly better than MIDI reproduction
capabilities way back when. Getting all excited about the new system without
mentioning how much of an improvement it is makes this sound like a press
release rather than a well-researched article.

~~~
balabaster
Having played quite a large number of the Yamaha Clavinovas over the years, I
can concur. Knowing this makes this read exactly as if it were a press
release, or at least an article written by a Steinway Fanboy... of course, I
can't blame someone for being a Steinway Fanboy, there's just something about
a Steinway that stands on its own.

------
MrBra
I can't see the player. I also tried with ublock disabled.

------
concerto
I approve

