Not fair - Cubase users get gestural control!

[BKK-OZ]

I am still waiting for the mothership to update DP Control so that it works on the latest IOS, and now I read that Cubase users have got gestural control:

You can fly through Cubase sessions with gestural controls using depth cameras (on Windows) or LEAP Motion (on Windows and Mac). And you can cross time and space by connecting remotely to Cubase projects – soon, even through your mobile device.

Read more here on Create Digital Music.
Not fair. I wanna waive my hands in the air, like I just don't...

[cuttime]

The LEAP controller has been getting mixed reviews, and I have been seeing refurb models and plunging prices all over the place. I don't think we're there yet. I'm waiting for wetware.

[James Steele]

Yeah, but they still have to use Cubase.

[BKK-OZ]

The LEAP controller has been getting mixed reviews...

Got any references? I've seen a couple of positive things, but nothing really negative.

[James Steele]

Just some good natured kidding about Cubase... LOL... but it's not my cup of tea!

[cuttime]

The LEAP controller has been getting mixed reviews...

Got any references? I've seen a couple of positive things, but nothing really negative.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6826525001

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I wanna waive my hands in the air...

I do it all the time. It doesn't help.

[Shooshie]

Oh man… can you imagine playing music and doing about 6 or 8 controllers at the same time? Hmm… Ok, I guess it would take one hand to do the keyboard, but you could do 5 controllers at once if you could learn to use each finger independently for each controller.

Heck, what about doing keyboards in the air? Playing an air harp? Air guitar?

The possibilities astound.

Shoosh

[BKK-OZ]

Gesture control + haptics is what our kids* will be using in <5 years. In <10 years, the old Qwerty will be as anachronistic as cassette tape. Put that in the bank, I guarantee it will come to pass.

I know that this is all first generation stuff, but it is really close. There are plugins that use leap in some 3d animation software (not the package I use, unfortunately). I can really see the possibilities there, even more so than in music - imagine being able to just reach out and (virtually) 'grab' a 3d model and manipulate it, or generate some mocap for a walk cycle by walking your fingers across your desk... yum!

*we won't because we have too much training/residual muscle memory to give up, it won't be worth it for our generation.

Even though it's first gen, I would buy it if DP and my 3d software had decent plugins to support it, $80 isn't bad for learning/experimentation.

[Shooshie]

It has me wondering what is the future for the piano. In the 20th Century, the piano reached its acme of technological advances, mostly at the hands of Steinway in New York, and bolstered at the other end of the century with some materials gains implemented by Yamaha. The other manufacturers were mostly bit-players in this game, some of whom were using 19th Century technology and proud of it. But a 1929 Steinway 9-footer was a thing of beauty, even if it cost more than most people's houses, weighed half a ton, and required a giant hall to fully appreciate. And today, a Steinway of any age is still a thing of beauty. It's hard to believe that these things are machines. They were invented and developed one patent at a time. But they have given birth to a profession of people called pianists who sweat in small rooms for 20 years in return for a lifetime of ability to make some of the most glorious music ever known to mankind, itself an invention paralleling the development of the instruments on which it is played.

Meanwhile, the world has changed profoundly. Today we have more ways of making music than any musician can keep track of. And the methods of playing them are more intuitive, more creative and inventive than at any time in history. Yet right through the middle of it all, that piano keyboard persists, rooted firmly in the music itself. That 5/7 chromatic pattern of 12 keys (3+4 of 7 diatonic keys) is woven into all keyboard music. Is it even possible to come up with another instrument that can play that repertory? The piano is based on the best fit between those note patterns and our ten fingers.

When I see these new technological marvels for musical instruments I always try to picture myself playing Bach, Chopin, or Beethoven on them. That usually doesn't appear to be possible. They are made for a melody line with an accompanying "pad" sound, sustained chords rather than counterpoint. Is that a flaw? Maybe the music that we play on pianos is becoming as anachronistic as the instrument itself. Maybe these new instruments are trying to pull us away from all of that and those expectations, those hours spent with Czerny exercises and 2 & 3 Part Inventions, so that we can explore a new vein of music history without the baggage of history.

I said "maybe." My heart & mind hope not. While the piano reached its zenith alongside the steam locomotive and the silver dollar, the music written for it is timeless. Power to the new music and any instrument that will play it, but I hope there will always be enough young people seduced into marrying a giant Steinway Grand at the tender age of about 6 so that we'll always have pianos and piano virtuosos.

But now we have this whole new direction of interaction with machines. They can watch us and decipher our movements. While part of me bristles in resonance with a Battlestar Galactica Cylon scenario, another part is once again picturing a new way of playing Bach, Chopin and Beethoven. Prokofiev, even. Would it be possible to do that without a keyboard? Can these machines divine our deepest expressions in polyphonic music? Would it be any easier to learn to play that music this way?

Well, these are questions for a new generation to sort out, I guess. I sure won't be planning any concerts on "air piano," but I'd love to go to some concerts like that. I'd love to hear what's possible.

And for goodness sake, please, let's not do Beethoven symphonies in a-la "Guitar Hero," only for Conductor, as in Conductor Hero. Geez… I can already see it. Contests between Conductor Heroes who lead virtual orchestras and pull out the expression on every instrument in the orchestra. Oh well… I guess that much is inevitable, but that's not what I'm talking about. Will we have REAL virtuosos on virtual instruments using something like LEAP technology?

The thoughts simmer…

Shooshie

[bayswater]

I sure won't be planning any concerts on "air piano," but I'd love to go to some concerts like that. I'd love to hear what's possible.

A few weeks ago I went to a seminar at the Univ of BC music school. A couple of older faculty members were showing some work they were doing with technology and composition for gestures, working with pianists, and wind players from the local symphony. Compositions used flourishes, facial expressions, and other movements as controllers to change the sound of the instruments being played, or to control alternative instruments or video. One of the simple but interesting things they tried out was to use the height of the hands above the keyboard to control a piano.

In the following discussion, one of the issues that came out was that although there are a lot of people working on these things, there are no standards of technology developing that would make it feasible for performers to invest the time in the development of high levels of skill, or for composers to form some common understanding of notation or form.

[Shooshie]

In the following discussion, one of the issues that came out was that although there are a lot of people working on these things, there are no standards of technology developing that would make it feasible for performers to invest the time in the development of high levels of skill, or for composers to form some common understanding of notation or form.

Exactly. That's one of the biggest impediments to making this stuff universal. Until you hear someone wail like Charlie Parker or Stevie Ray Vaughan, or to get cerebral, prodigal and sensitive like Arthur Rubinstein, Martha Argerich or Frodo, then these instruments will be mostly curiosities and academic footnotes. It's going to require something that captures the imagination so that a Bach or Mozart is drawn to it and devotes his/her life to it, inspiring others to follow.

I've no doubt that it will happen, but in my lifetime? Only the Shadow knows!

Shooshie

[BKK-OZ]

Interesting discussion and you make many good points.

Notwithstanding that I agree with much/most of what you wrote, I think it worth noting that we didn't always have the piano forte, or for that matter, the tempered scale, so it stands to reason that we won't always have them. (Or, at the least, that they won't always be the primary lens through which we see our music.)

While we are on the subject, the two together (piano+tempered scale) actually drive me nuts, pianos always sound permanently out of tune to me. ('cause they are)

I know that the Theremin comes to mind here, and the obvious gap between promise and practicality, and while I admire those that acquire skill wrestling some instrument or other into submission (I play guitar), I am thinking more and more of music as organised sound, and less and less as what comes out of a given instrument or ensemble. I mean, the opening horn line from 'So What' isn't that far away from a kazoo/fart in terms of timbre and quality of sound - and while that fact doesn't diminish it for one second for me (it is what I wake up to every day), I do sometimes wonder if more control over sound waves might not be a bad thing. Its one of the reasons I have always loved synths, samplers, et al.

Mind you, I will happily whack away on one of my guitars for hours, with little or no control over its sound!

[David Polich]

Might this thread be better off in the "Off-Topic" section? It really has
nothing to do with DP.

[BKK-OZ]

Might this thread be better off in the "Off-Topic" section? It really has
nothing to do with DP.

Didn't know we had an 'alternate controllers for DP section'. It is about controlling DP, and like some other topics, it has drifted a tad, but it is more about DP control than anything else.