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Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 1 of 19
The Role of Physical Impedance Matching inMusic Playing
(v.7 2014-02-04)
Nicola [email protected]
Conservatorio di Musica “C.Pollini” – Padova
Stockholm, Sound is Motion Symposium, 11/02/2010
Copyright c© 2010 Nicola Bernardini <[email protected]>This work comes under the terms of theCreative Commons c© BY-SA 2.5 license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 2 of 19
Dare to be naıve.
R.Buckminster Fuller
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 3 of 19
Why some work and some don’t?
Why some musical instruments are successful and othersare not?
How is it that some of them contribute greatly to thehistory of music, while others are quickly forgotten as“interesting experiments”?
Before conjecturing, a few examples. . .
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 4 of 19
Piano vs. other keyboards (1)
The piano is the most obvious example: a complicatedtechnology. . .
CordaSmorzatore
Martelletto
TastoPilota
Scappamento
Arresto
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 5 of 19
Piano vs. other keyboards (2)
. . . versus simpler (albeit functional) mechanical structuresof cheaper keyboards. . .
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 6 of 19
Piano vs. other keyboards (3)
. . . or, for that matter, of fortepianos and/or clavichordsCorda
Smorzatore
Tasto
Martelletto
Pilota
the success of the piano cannot be solely ascribed to itsbetter fitting social function
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 7 of 19
Saxophone vs. Sarrusophone (1)
Adolphe Sax was convinced that hisinvention would be less successful thanthat of his friend Sarrus
Single–reed vs. double–reed
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 8 of 19
Saxophone vs. Sarrusophone (2)
Little did he know that “jazz”was about to become one of themost successful music universesof the twentieth century, openingthe path of success for theSaxophone
Again, the success of this instrument cannot be ascribedsolely to purely functional reasons (otherwise theSarrusophone would have made it too)
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 9 of 19
Alphanumeric Keyboards (1)
Now for a funny (but fitting example): typewriters vs.computer keyboards
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 10 of 19
Alphanumeric Keyboards (2)
Old style mechanicaltypewriters have oftenbeen (ab)used by musiccomposers in manycontemporary musicworks (Cornelius CardewScratch Orchestra, forex.)
That is: they considered the typewriter playable, and theemitted sound results musical
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 11 of 19
Alphanumeric Keyboards (3)
Today everybody plays in a laptop orchestra. . .
. . . but we all know that the computer keyboard is verylimited in its musical expression
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 12 of 19
More funny combinations. . .
Successful Problematic
synthesizer theremin
percussion glass harmo-nica
turntables tangible in-terfaces
. . . . . .
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 13 of 19
Finally: the voice (1)
Of course, the voice by itself isknown to be a wonderful musicalinstrument
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 14 of 19
Finally: the voice (2)
But what is so musical in the voice. . .
. . . that cannot be found, say, inour hands?
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 15 of 19
So?
All these examples (and many more can be found), outlineone essential issue:
Haptic interaction per se is not a sufficientexplanation for the musicality of an instrument
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 16 of 19
The Conjecture (1)
Proper physical impedance matching is what ac-tually makes the difference between a successfulmusical instrument and a non–successful one.
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 17 of 19
The Conjecture (2)
The impedance of the instrument must be tuned to thecapability of the physiology of the specific body part orparts that are involved in playing it (fingers, lips, arms,mouth, etc.)
The result is the ability to learn to be extremely fast andprecise in playing by calibrating the exact balance of forcesrequired by the performance
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 18 of 19
The Conjecture (3)
Possibly, these “regions of matching” behave in a more orless linear way, while their boundaries becomesubstantially non-linear
And it is precisely this non-linearity that makes up for an“extra” expressive touch in many cases (think of“over-blowing” or “flautando” playing, for example)
Why?
Keyboards
Woodwinds
Typewriters
And More
Voice
Conjecture
End
Impedance in Music Playing Stockholm, 11/02/2010 19 of 19
Conclusion
Proper impedance matching (which seems to be also amore general basis for enaction) between local humanphysiology and musical instruments is possibly a goodmotivation behind the success of musical instruments
How to study these “mapping areas”? Can asynthesis–from–analysis method be devised?
Please note: in contrast with all the trends in interfacedesign and HCI, musical instruments are hardly designedto be “friendly”; rather, they are designed to achieve thebest fit with a highly skilled human physiology
