Grand Piano Research Articles

Modal analysis of a grand piano soundboard at successive manufacturing stages

This paper deals with the development and validation of a finite element numerical model of a grand piano soundboard. The most important details of the manufacturing process are reproduced in this model. In particular, by modelling the gluing of the ribs and the bridges to the board, the curved geometry (the crown) and the residual stresses induced in the soundboard are taken into account.Experimental modal analysis results are presented at three stages of the manufacturing process of the same soundboard: (i) freely suspended soundboard before gluing the bridges, (ii) freely suspended soundboard including the two bridges, and (iii) soundboard attached to the piano frame. The experimental data at the first of these three stages are used to update the material properties of the finite element model, so as to minimise the difference between calculated and experimental vibration modes, in terms of both natural frequencies and mode shapes. The simulation of the other manufacturing stages is then performed without any additional tuning. Vibration modes obtained from experiments up to 400–450Hz are compared with those obtained through the numerical model.Point mobilities measured on the bridge at the different manufacturing stages are also shown and discussed. Above 200Hz, the mobilities measured on the bridge of the freely suspended soundboard and on the bridge of the soundboard fixed to the frame are very similar, thus showing that in this frequency range the effect of the soundboard local dynamic stiffness is predominant over boundary conditions. Finally, point mobility at the bridge is also calculated through the finite element model and compared to the experiments, with good agreement up to 4kHz.

Non-smooth dynamics for an efficient simulation of the grand piano action

Models with impact or dry friction, yielding discontinuous velocities or accelerations, have motivated research for appropriate numerical methods in the community of non-smooth dynamics. In this work, we apply such methods on the grand piano action. This multibody system has two properties of interest in terms of modelling and simulation: it is extremely sensitive to small misadjustements, and its functioning strongly relies on dry friction and stick-slip transitions—known to be crucial for the touch of the pianist. Using numerical methods of non-smooth contact dynamics, the non-smooth character of dry friction was conserved, in contrast to classical approaches based on regularization which additionally impose the somewhat arbitrary choice of a regularizing parameter. The use of such numerical method resulted in computations about a few hundred times faster than those reported in recent literature. For the first time, the presented predictions of the piano action's simulations are forces (in particular, the reaction force of the key on the pianist's finger), instead of displacements which filter out most of the dynamical subtleties of the mechanism. The comparisons between measured and simulated forces in response to a given motion are successful, which constitutes an excellent validation of the model, from the dynamical and the haptic points of view. Altogether, numerical methods for non-smooth contact dynamics applied to a non-smooth model of the piano action proved to be both accurate and efficient, opening doors to industrial and haptic applications of sensitive multibody systems for which dry friction is essential. Simulation-based videos Simulations of a keystroke: Your browser does not support the video tag. Comparisons between simulations and experiments: Your browser does not support the video tag. Experimental and educational videos High-speed captures of the piano key mechanism (Left: piano keystroke. Right: forte keystroke.) [A. Thorin and X. Boutillon, LMS@Ecole polytechnique / CEA LIST] Your browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. Explanations on how the mechanism works [A. Thorin based on O. Remez's drawing ] Your browser does not support the video tag. Tracking of the kinematics using J. Diener's implementation of KLT tracking algorithms: Your browser does not support the video tag.

Mapping the Klangdom Live: Cartographies for Piano with Two Performers and Electronics

The use of high-density loudspeaker arrays (HDLAs) has recently experienced rapid growth in a wide variety of technical and aesthetic approaches. Still less explored, however, are applications to interactive music with live acoustic instruments. How can immersive spatialization accompany an instrument already with its own rich spatial diffusion pattern, like the grand piano, in the context of a score-based concert work? Potential models include treating the spatialized electronic sound in analogy to the diffusion pattern of the instrument, with spatial dimensions parametrized as functions of timbral features. Another approach is to map the concert hall as a three-dimensional projection of the instrument's internal physical layout, a kind of virtual sonic microscope. Or, the diffusion of electronic spatial sound can be treated as an independent polyphonic element, complementary to but not dependent upon the instrument's own spatial characteristics. Cartographies (2014), for piano with two performers and electronics, explores each of these models individually and in combination, as well as their technical implementation with the Meyer Sound Matrix3 system of the Südwestrundfunk Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany, and the 43.4-channel Klangdom of the Institut für Musik und Akustik at the Zentrum für Kunst und Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. The process of composing, producing, and performing the work raises intriguing questions, and invaluable hints, for the composition and performance of live interactive works with HDLAs in the future.

The Bear and the Piano by D. Litchfield

Litchfield, David. The Bear and the Piano. Clarion Books, 2016.In this folio sized volume, David Litchfield presents a charming story and some amazing artwork. You first notice the light in the forest, where the bear finds a piano and begins teaching himself to play. Then as you follow his career as a concert pianist, you see the extraordinary light in the city, with a spotlight on his picture outside the theatre, above the marquee that reads “The Bear and the Piano.” Inside Litchfield captures the light and dark of an old tiered theatre, with the bear in a tuxedo seated at a grand piano. The music messages in the story are as charming as the images. Although the bear is very successful as a concert pianist, he misses the forest and his friends. When he returns home, he discovers that his friends have not forgotten him and when he plays for them he knows that they are “the most important audience of all.” The text and the images work well together. This book should be included in school libraries and public libraries.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Sean BorleSean Borle is a University of Alberta undergraduate student who is an advocate for child health and safety

Parenting the piano: Miroslav Miša Savić's 'St. Lazarus Waltz'

This article deals with a work by a contemporary Serbian composer Miroslav Miša Savić (b. 1954): St. Lazarus Waltz for one or two grand pianos, with or without children's toy pianos. Since St. Lazarus is a children's holiday, the composer's idea was to depict children by toy pianos, while the grand pianos are 'parents'. The waltz exists in several versions: from the first one, where the children pianos are quite small and their musical parts very restricted, to the version for two 'adult' pianos, which describes the moment in life when children have grown up and left their parental home. Aside from exploring these musical 'family ties', Savić implements a simple yet ingenious constructive principle in all versions of this waltz. The structure of the piece is based on the exploitation of the system of equal temperament and on the Fibonacci row, and this frame is filled with several layers of musical references, including: Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers who wrote 'well-tempered' piano music; repetitive/processual minimalism, a style that Savić and his peers brought into Serbian music, but have since evolved in different directions; the Serbian tradition of romantic salon piano pieces; finally, the Orthodox tradition, but referenced in a way very different from the 'NEO-Orthodox' trend that has been present in Serbian art music since the late 1980s.

Pianist

Admiel Kosman is the author of nine books of poetry and a bilingual Hebrew-English selection, and five academic books on Talmud and Midrash, two of which have appeared in English. He teaches religious studies at Potsdam University and is academic director of the Geiger Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. Lisa Katz, editor of the Israeli pages of the Poetry International Rotterdam Web, was translator in residence at the University of Iowa in fall 2017. I play on the water. It’s not completely necessary or required, but things flow under the trees like a gentle melody. Day unto day uttereth more love. I play on the water on numerous keys, it’s not completely necessary, there are no rules. But I like it and so I set my toes down on this tender world and play hard on the surface of the water, my body a grand piano. Huge. Solid. And I allow the pain to exit through all my fingers. And purify bad intentions far and near. And my crimes approach merrily. Innocents. When I play, I am the pianist, an additional melody on the surface of the water – and another butterfly, and this is also me – may pass over barbed wire in breathtaking flight. In an abundance of colors. Translation from the Hebrew By Lisa Katz photo : ath har saeed / flickr 48 WLT NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2017 Pianist by Admiel Kosman above Harvey Dunn, I Am the Resurrection and the Life, 1926 / Courtesy South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota cover section belief in an age of intolerance ...

Smacking a Cockroach with a Grand Piano - Janet Vertesi, Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2015)

Smacking a Cockroach with a Grand Piano - Janet Vertesi, Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2015)

Real-time physical model of a grand piano soundboard on field programmable gate array hardware

A modern grand piano consists of over 10,000 singular parts and has a production cycle of approximately one year. This leads to the predicament that researching and changing acoustical features resulting from variable material properties of the instrument cannot be realized in a straightforward manner. The inevitable time delay as well as the variability of parameters makes a controlled research very hard, if not impossible. In this work, a system is presented that enables piano makers to change, simulate as well as auralise acoustical vibrations of a grand piano soundboard in real time using physical modelling methods on field programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware. This specific implementation focusses on synthesizing and simulating the vibrations of a geometrically complete model of a concert grand piano soundboard, including the ribs, the bass, and main bridge, realistic material parameters as well as coupled strings. It can be parametrized and controlled from a software GUI running on a personal computer. This implementation is part of a larger project aiming at modeling a complete grand piano in real-time for research, instrument making as well as purely musical applications.

Acoustical properties of the front-duplex system in a grand piano

The duplex scala, patented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, has been subject to several disputes since it found its first application in grand pianos. Not without good reason because, as was shown in the work of Öberg & Askenfeldt (2012), the physical effects explained in the patent can not be substantiated by measurements mainly because the tune of the duplex strings deviate considerably from the suggested theoretical values. Nonetheless, as published in the same work, the perceptual relevance of the rear- and more so of the front-duplex is stressed. As is shown there, even untrained musicians are able to perceive the influence of both duplex scalae. In this treatise, physical properties of front-duplex strings are considered and an explanation of the acoustical importance regarding the string vibration of the main string is given. To this end, a series of high-speed camera measurements of several duplex strings are presented. Due to the small deflection of front-duplex strings, the recorded data is processed using motion magnification methods showing the influence of different modes of vibration in different frequency bands. A physical model of a grand piano string chorus is proposed, aiding in characterizing the main influence of the front duplex string.

Microphone array measurements of concert grand piano soundboards in different stages of production

A series of measurements is taken on two concert grand pianos in seven different stages of production, starting with the glue-laminated soundboard planks and ending with the completely assembled piano in concert tuned state. Due to the large size of the soundboard as well as its irregular shape, measuring deflection shapes is a nontrivial task. Common measurement tools such as piezoelectric accelerometers can affect the acoustic vibrations of the soundboard due to the added mass. To this end, a noninvasive microphone array method is utilized for the present work. The array consists of 105 microphones successively placed parallel to the soundboard, resulting in a total number of 1289 microphones covering the entire surface. The Soundboard is excited using an acoustic vibrator at 15 positions associated with string termination points on the bass and main bridge. Impulse responses are obtained using the SineSweep technique. The measured sound pressure can be back-propagated to the radiating soundboard surface using a minimum energy method. Based on the measured vibrational and acoustical data a set of signal features is derived which cover direct physical behavior (e.g., driving point mobility, damping, radiation efficiency) as well as perceptive parameters (e.g. attack time, spectral centroid). The empirical findings will contribute to a software tool (based on a real time physical model) to help piano makers estimate the impact of design changes on the generated sound.

New Zealand Jazz Concerts, the Use and Abuse of Grand Pianos, and One Cartoonist’s Response

Political, social, and cultural controversies are the main fodder of staff cartoonists at newspapers. From the serious to the silly, newspaper cartoonists are expected to comment on whatever happens to be in the news cycle on any day. This commentary creates both ephemera and historical evidence of events and their effects on society. This article investigates an incident at a jazz concert in Auckland in 1952 at which the musicians were charged with abusing the new Steinway grand piano and the following controversy about the jazz musicians’ use of town hall facilities. From this incident New Zealand Herald cartoonist Gordon Minhinnick responded with a cartoon and a comic strip about the debate. By examining Minhinnick’s contributions via the lens of cultural history we can apprehend the shape of this dispute (politically and culturally), how it impacted Auckland society, and also gain a sense about how jazz was perceived by society at large at that time. We can also see how Minhinnick used the debate to illustrate other important political issues facing Auckland at the time.

Historical and dynamical study of piano actions: A multibody modelling approach

Abstract Piano actions are striking mechanisms whose functioning is based on dynamic principles; producing a sound on a struck keyboard instrument by pressing a key slowly is impossible because the hammer needs momentum to hit the strings. This is also the reason why mechanisms intended for struck keyboard instruments are difficult to study; their normal functioning speed is beyond human observation capabilities. For this reason, many modern studies on the piano take advantage of engineering tools in order to measure the exact behaviour of their actions in terms of time response, involved forces and displacement values. A complementary approach to study piano actions consists in modelling them, giving us a virtual mechanism to work with. In this case, the above-mentioned motion and behaviour are computed instead of being measured. The modelling technique used and described in this paper, called multibody dynamics, consists in computing the motion and the forces acting upon each component of the action. Subsequently, the response of the mechanism to a certain keystroke can be computed and a slow-motion animation can be produced. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of an ongoing research project in which two distinctive piano actions are modelled. Each of them is studied with a different objective in mind. Starting with the most modern, well-known but also most complex, the model of a double escapement action found in grand pianos is used to explain its functioning. This pedagogical goal is achieved with three progressive models; the first one is a simplified version of the action to which components of the complete action have been (virtually) removed. The stepwise progression leads to a single escapement action for the second model, and finally to the full double escapement action for the third. Timing of the action events and response to different types of touch are studied and compared with literature. The results show that our model is able to reproduce the same behaviour as real actions. Going back in time, the second instrument that is studied is a Prellzungenmechanik built by Johan Andreas Stein at the end of the 1780s. In this context, a model has been achieved to evaluate the influence of the so-called “escapement height” (a regulation parameter of the action) on the playing characteristics of the action. As with the grand piano action, timing analysis and touch comparison are performed with the model.

Cyprian Norwid – Peter Gehrisch, Über die Freiheit des Wortes (Rzecz o wolności słowa)

This article is a critical appraisal of the recent German publication entitled Uber die Freiheit des Wortes, which is a German translation of the well-known Norwid’s poetic treatise On the freedom of the Word, also including some other translations of his poetic works, e.g. Fatum, W Weronie [In Verona], Bema pamieci zalobny-rapsod [A funeral rhapsody in memory of General Bem], Ironia [Irony] or Fortepian Szopena [Chopin’s Grand Piano]. Yet, preeminent in the volume is the title treatise in verse, if not for the fact that the volume offers the first ever German rendition of this work. According to the author of the article, the translator Peter Gehrisch sometimes happens to fall into interpretation traps that Norwid’s texts are full of: semantic convolutions, phraseological ambiguities or – above all – stylistic and syntactic complications. Another limitation that is evident in the German rendition is that Gehrisch strove very much to preserve in his version the original versed form of the treatise. The result is not always optimal if one considers the senses of the particular phrases or larger fragments.

Cyprian Norwid – Peter Gehrisch, Über die Freiheit des Wortes (Rzecz o wolności słowa)

This article is a critical appraisal of the recent German publication entitled Über die Freiheit des Wortes, which is a German translation of the well-known Norwid's poetic treatise On the freedom of the Word, also including some other translations of his poetic works, e.g. Fatum, W Weronie [In Verona], Bema pamięci żałobny-rapsod [A funeral rhapsody in memory of General Bem], Ironia [Irony] or Fortepian Szopena [Chopin’s Grand Piano]. Yet, preeminent in the volume is the title treatise in verse, if not for the fact that the volume offers the first ever German rendition of this work. According to the author of the article, the translator Peter Gehrisch sometimes happens to fall into interpretation traps that Norwid’s texts are full of: semantic convolutions, phraseological ambiguities or – above all – stylistic and syntactic complications. Another limitation that is evident in the German rendition is that Gehrisch strove very much to preserve in his version the original versed form of the treatise. The result is not always optimal if one considers the senses of the particular phrases or larger fragments.

ЛЕСИН РОЯЛЬ

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.28925/2518-766X201615055 Іn the given article a story of the grand piano, connected with a figure of a prominent Ukrainian woman poet Lesia Ukrainka, is being studied. Its origin in connection with historical facts of piano fabrication in Ukraine, as well as with the links between Kosach family and the Drahomanovs, the Lysenkos and other families of Ukrainian intellectuals and cultural activists are described. The story of the grand piano conservation and renovation is presented. The data about the fabricator — the French piano factory “Pleyel”, and the atmosphere of the French parlour, where the prominent figures like Chopin had communicated, are included.The second half of the nineteenth century in Ukraine celebrates the formation of the demand for piano and growing number of those wishing to play on them. There are local producers, most immigrants from Germany. Odesa, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Kharkiv are the main centers of manufacturing pianos in Ukraine at that time. Thanks to its location, Odesa occupied the leading position in the production of pianos. Given the significant advantage — access to trade routes, not only by land but also by sea, Odesa masters also introduced assemblage of instruments brought from abroad details. In the article the archival materials about piano “Karl Haas Odessa” and the first owner of the piano are presented. The materials about Lesia Ukrainka’s attitude to music are used in the article. The circumstances, under which the grand piano became the property of Kosach family, the names of their teachers of music, as well as the musical aspects of Lesia Ukrainka’s biography, are studied. The return of the instrument to “Bilyi Budynochok” (“White House”), its decay and renovation are described. Its future destination is under discussion.

The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture by Scott Herring

THE HOARDERS: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture. By Scott Herring. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 2014.Scott Herring's The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture is a provocative book that interrogates contemporary psychology's treatment of hoarding as a mental illness. Herring demonstrates that hoarder is not a transhistorical reality resulting from defective DNA or deteriorating neurons, but a cultural construct embodying and enforcing powerful norms about appropriate attitudes and behaviors toward objects. People who flagrantly violate these norms face medico-juridical consequences, and the spectacles made of hoarders function as visible reminders of how we should not engage with (8). Without discounting that many people who hoard suffer and cause harm, Herring questions whether hoarding invariably leads to or results from mental anguish or trauma; when it doesn't, Herring calls upon readers to [l]et objects and owners have their quiet, in their peace. It would be nice if these things somehow became less important, more immaterial, not quite so much cause for concern (141).Herring's critique is informed by culture studies, queer studies, and disability studies, though his genealogical method is most indebted to the work of Michel Foucault. Herring limits the scholarly apparatus throughout, relegating most of it to a brief Note on Method and to endnotes. Instead, he devotes his efforts to the explication, contextualization, and analysis of four fascinating genealogies that illuminate some of the steps by which the formation and pathologization of hoarder became imaginable. Chapter 1 discusses the wealthy, elderly Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, who be- came sensational news in 1947 after their corpses were found in their Harlem brownstone, which contained over one hundred tons of ranging from several grand pianos to scads of pinup posters (19) as well as stacks of bundled newspapers that had collapsed on Langley, burying him alive. Herring argues that the brothers came to be seen not only as embodiments of the perceived social disorganization of Harlem, but also as material and mental deviant[s] (43) whose strangest curios turned out to be their own bodies. Chapter 2 describes the furor surrounding the estate sale of Andy Warhol, whose massive, eclectic collection of personal belongings ranged from paintings and sketches by famous artists to chewing gum and a plaster lobster. Herring contends that Warhol's desire seemingly to save everything ran afoul of efforts to rationalize, legitimize, and standardize the collectibles market, separating objects worth saving, selling, or buying from ephemera and junk. …

A Musical Life in Two Worlds: The Autobiography of Hugo Leichtentritt ed. by Mark DeVoto

A Musical Life in Two Worlds: Autobiography of Hugo Leichtentritt. Edited by Mark DeVoto. Boston: Harvard Musical Association, 2014. [xii, 624 p. ISBN 9780692229811. $75.] Illustrations, bibliographic references, index.In 1940, a committee of Harvard professors invited fugitives of Nazi Germany to describe their experiences under Adolf Hitler's regime. Hugo Leichtentritt (1874- 1951), an exact contemporary of Arnold Schoenberg and an eminent German musicologist who had been working as a lecturer at Harvard since 1933, set to the task with German thoroughness. result, however, was not a description of Nazi terror (Leichtentritt was lucky to leave Germany before all hell broke loose, taking with him more than twenty chests of books and a fine Steinway grand piano), but a 516-page autobiography, dedicated to the rich culture of Europe that Leichtentritt rightly feared would never be the same after the war. An avid diarist, Leichtentritt documented life around him (Mark DeVoto appends a sample of Leichtentritt's diary from 1893 to the autobiography). reader finds fascinating descriptions of Leichtentritt's hometown, Pleschen, and its inhabitants on the Polish-Russian frontier; the educational system of the old world; Harvard at the end of the nineteenth century, where Leichtentritt spent three years after his family emigrated to the United States; Boston and its musical life, including detailed accounts of concerts by such celebrities as Arthur Nikisch, Ferruccio Busoni, Ignace Jan Paderewski, and Eugen d'Albert, a concert life that the reader can compare to that of the Boston to which Leichtentritt returned in 1933, and to the European capitals Leichtentritt visited when his family moved back to Europe in 1894.The central location in the autobiography is Berlin, with which, as Leichtentritt writes in the preface, his entire career had been identified during the thirty-eight years he spent there. Many pages of the memoir are taken up with what Leichten - tritt describes as a sort of requiem on that now dead (p. 2). Berlin's importance in Leichtentritt's autobiography inspired Nicolas Slonimsky, who edited and published Leichtentritt's Music of the Western Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer - sity Press, 1956), to call it The Life of a City. Leichtentritt spent three years at the Hochschule in Berlin, directed by Joseph Joachim, and three years at the University of Berlin, where he earned a Ph.D. with music as a special field of concentration. After receiving his degree, Leichtentritt taught music history and theory at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Con servatory, gave private lessons in composition, wrote reviews in Die Vossische Zeitung and other prestigious newspapers, and tried his hand in composition, mainly after 1924. His main interest, however, remained musicology, which he pursued with passion and discipline, producing comprehensive volumes on topics such as Italian motets and the history of form. at the time, especially before the financial aftershocks of World War I, was being transformed into a leading cultural center that provided the young musician ample opportunities to develop his taste for high culture. Leichten tritt records in his diary that in 1897 he heard seventy-five concerts, given mostly by worldfamous artists and organizations, and twenty-four operas, some of them given two or three times, to which half a dozen ballets must be added (p. 121).It was hard not to get swept up by the euphoria that overtook Germany after it emerged from the Franco-Prussian War victorious and united. Leichtentritt describes the gigantic mood of celebration in as Germany was commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sedan victory in 1895. Berlin was intoxicated with enthusiasm, and all over the huge city one could hardly see a house without more or less display of illumination (p. 127). euphoria remained until the beginning of World War I. Leichtentritt, himself Jewish but no less a loyal German patriot, greeted the war with a Quintet for Piano and Strings, the Finale of which was full of the enthusiasm that filled almost everybody in Germany during the first months of the war. …

Physics of music field trips

Many studies on educational techniques have shown that students learn best when they are actively engaged. In introductory physics classes, this means each student makes measurements and performs calculations; in music performance classes, this means each student practices a musical instrument and analyzes music scores. In the two-semester sequence of Physics of Music lectures and laboratories taught at UNO, students participate in a variety of hands-on activities, including measuring quantities for available musical instruments and then calculating various physical parameters from the measured values. Another helpful activity is going on “field trips” to other locations, such as the auditorium in the UNO Performing Arts Center (once to study the concert grand piano there and once to make room acoustic measurements), the small recording studio on campus (lecture given there by the UNO recording engineer demonstrating various types of equipment), and to a chapel across the street from campus (pipe organ de...

Integrating optical finger motion tracking with surface touch events.

This paper presents a method of integrating two contrasting sensor systems for studying human interaction with a mechanical system, using piano performance as the case study. Piano technique requires both precise small-scale motion of fingers on the key surfaces and planned large-scale movement of the hands and arms. Where studies of performance often focus on one of these scales in isolation, this paper investigates the relationship between them. Two sensor systems were installed on an acoustic grand piano: a monocular high-speed camera tracking the position of painted markers on the hands, and capacitive touch sensors attach to the key surfaces which measure the location of finger-key contacts. This paper highlights a method of fusing the data from these systems, including temporal and spatial alignment, segmentation into notes and automatic fingering annotation. Three case studies demonstrate the utility of the multi-sensor data: analysis of finger flexion or extension based on touch and camera marker location, timing analysis of finger-key contact preceding and following key presses, and characterization of individual finger movements in the transitions between successive key presses. Piano performance is the focus of this paper, but the sensor method could equally apply to other fine motor control scenarios, with applications to human-computer interaction.

Nikolay Stoykov's Vision about the Composer and the Universe

I perceive it as an inward wave, a force leading me to a particular point. Starting my work sited by the grand piano, when everything else around disappears and only the electric bulb is glimmering hypothetically, I know and I am pretty sure that I am on the right path and something beautiful is going to beget! There is another crunch moment for me as a composer – constant meetings with numberless folklore untapped talents I have taught. They brought me their visceral natural perception and in a practical manner had shown me the real path every Bulgarian composer must follow. Happily this coincided with my first acquaintance with Bulgarian folklore with its universe vibes, uniqueness and direct link with the contemporary music flow, leaving academism and dry theories behind. I found there my true path my professional path should goes, because Bulgarian folklore is for me a versatile source of ideas and a strong base of my style. Man has high respect by the man-creator-people-link and the historic destiny of this nation. A folklore expedition comes back with about 120000 distinct songs and melodies here vs 50-60 in other European countries. The aesthetic value of this art is unique and it does not have even a single template.