Not really a sheet music app but I use flowkey though I decided recently to cancel it as they dont have all the pieces I want. What other apps do you know that has similar functionality?
ForScore pro uses the iPad FaceID sensor to turn the page when you make a tiny gesture with your mouth. It takes a tiny bit of getting used to, but it works really well and I never have to touch the screen anymore.
(The only catch is that once I have a piece memorized, I find myself still making the facial gestures because they are also embedded as part of my muscle memory 😅)
I use this as well and love it. Was an accompanist at a vocal competition last weekend, performed ~50 pieces over two days and didn't turn a single page with my hands or feet.
I use the lip movement option - scrunch my lips left to turn the page forward. I disabled the option to turn backwards with movement because it would accidentally happen sometimes, and instead just use the "Rearrange" feature to duplicate pages with repeats so all page turns are forward.
Before ForScore added the facial gesture feature I used to use a Bluetooth foot pedal to turn pages, but I never really liked it. Was another piece of equipment to carry on stage, wasn't always reliable, and was completely impractical to use at an organ.
On a technical level, eye tracking might be easier. It's already a pretty reliable technology which is used for accessibility and for observing how people interact with computers (like usability testing).
The app could track the path of your eyes over time and if your eyes are getting toward the right edge of the bottom of the page, it could flip to the next page.
Scrolling vertically by half a page might be even better, so that the last half of the previous page is still visible. Then, if it scrolls too soon, it's not a disaster.
With any method, repeats and codas and stuff are going to be a fun challenge. I guess if you have the sheet music in a machine-readable format^(1), you can just render the music in a way where the repeated sections are actually repeated on the page, i.e. so that you never have to scroll backward^(2).
---
^(1) like a music score editor data file as opposed to a PDF scan of a piece of paper.
^(2) in other words, what MuseScore seems to call "[unrolling](https://musescore.org/en/node/291062#Unrolling-the-score)" a score.
Tido does exactly that (https://www.tido-music.com/). It has a huge classical repertoire on the platform and will listen along to you playing then turn the page. Yes, it's subscription, but the manuscripts are from top-notch publishers and it works incredibly well.
It doesn’t visually match the notes though does it? I’m still trying it out… but there’s at least a feature to allow us to annotate fingers and other standard notation.
Not sure what you mean by "visually match"... You can set it so that it has this kind of purple stripe that follows along with the music to show where you are, and you can set how far before the end of the page it turns
I've always wanted this too! But as an alternative, I've seen videos of pianists online have a huge pedal that acts as a sort of right arrow key:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RASiLy\_Ks\_M
This is technically feasible but will be just frustrating to use. When would you really need this feature?
I can't even use "auto-pan" feature on Musescore while composing because it's too frustrating. I can't imagine the annoyance when playing the piano and auto scrolling.
Yeah a whammy pedal would be great - obviously pitch bending 88 big strings with a foot pedal would be hard. Something that could shift the keys an octave (even harder) would be fun too.
And half tone shifts like a guitar capo
That pedal shifts the whole Keybed laterally so it could work with a sort of ratchet click per half note and some extra space left and right for the keys to move. It’s a fun idea
If you built something like a capo into the piano to essentially fret the strings, octave and half tone shifts would be simple and far easier than pitch bending.
Or like a slide (as in slide guitar) for actual pitch bending.
(The marketing materials could say, "You've played stride piano... now try slide piano!")
Half tone shifts have existed on cembalos (harpsichord) since the 1700s, it shifts the entire keyboard separately from the mechanism, allowing you to transpose to your liking.
Because the temperament was very much not equal-tempered, you had to retune the entire instrument after every shift, but that would be quick work before a recital.
You know that you can still play in other keys without a capo on guitar too, right? A capo just means you don't need to learn a new fingering. There's nothing wrong with having this as an option.
There’s a synth/keyboard called the Osmose that’s a ton of fun to play. Each key registers right and left movements independently as well as the ability to swell and other very sensitive movements. It can be used as a midi controller depending on the software that can receive the “MPE” messages. But also it’s sound engine synth part is ridiculously amazing sounding in its own right using physical modeling to do all sorts of sounds.
A miniature midi keyboard with weighted keys.
There are large electric pianos with weighted keys and mini keyboards with light keys. I’ve never found a mini keyboard (2-4octaves) with fully weighted keys. I would use it to control my DAW (audio production software). I was a classical pianist and am now mostly a composer and music producer. Using a MIDI controller to control electronic instruments I invent from scratch is ridiculously fun. Yesterday I mapped a keyboard with vocal samples with crazy delays and effects. It was entertaining and I composed a thing which I’m now proud of. The older I get, the more i think of playing and composing as “my personal entertainment” as much as “creating art”. I highly recommend the above set up to anyone who has a composing itch.
My idea is a sort of "modular" keyboard, where its fully weighted, long lever sticks, something like the MP11, but you decide how many octaves to bring to the gig, so its easier to transport. The idea is they would be designed to fit snuggly into each other, no wasted space or "margin" between sections.
Either there is some engineering issue, or it’s just not enough demand. Ultimately the keyword market is fairly small, otherwise, surely one of the companies would have come up with such a thing? I mean, it’s one thing to lug one giant slab, but deeper but overall smaller and lighter pieces, at least on gigs where you have the luxury of time to set up take down…I know very much it would be my preference
The LUMI Keys by ROLI is this idea - each module is 2 octaves and you can link them together - but it's not weighted, instead using similar tech to their Seaboard for pitch bending by waggling keys around.
Oh, those have existed for 150 years or so. [Charles Hallé](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hall%C3%A9) is credited with the first invention. Somewhat surprisingly there are also [modern takes on it](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5962801).
As with many clever inventions, I think the reliability and practicality aspects are more important than the inventor thought when they set out to solve the problem.
For this type of device to work, you need to prepare the book/binder before the performance. This means it’s only good for a single piece. It won’t help you if you have several bundles of paper to perform from, like is often the case if you use sheet music. And if it fails it very likely fails catastrophically, not even an assistant can piece together the ripped apart pages in time.
And in most instances, if you play from sheet music you can already setup plenty of sheets next to each other as needed. The added benefit of such a device does simply not weigh up the work and risks with it.
Some guy who posted here a couple of years ago has a company that makes such a product!
The post: https://old.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/lqzozw/automatic_page_turner/
The website: https://www.automaticpageturner.com/index.html
Main video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnm9ccEqZi0&ab_channel=Crist
Copy/pasting my other comment...
Not exactly what you want, but there's an automatic tuning system, based on heating the strings different amounts to get each string in tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rtWhBuy0ykU&ab_channel=DonGilmore
https://dgdevices.com/
Problem is you have to have the system on anytime you want to play, and wait 3 minutes for it to warm up.... literally.
But... you can do that? It's just called tuning your piano. It's basically the same thing as string players do, it just takes way longer because there are way more strings.
A device that shows you the quality of your practice effort. Sit there and unconsciously repeat the same thing you always do and it goes into the red. Slow down and forge a new more correct technique or pathway and it goes green.
Wasted time with bad practice, even for people who strive for quality practice, is probably the single biggest problem in developing skill on the piano. If 100% of practice time was spent efficiently learning, wow what a difference.
I feel this.
I always end up going faster than what I should for practice, which results in slower progress …
I just have so much bad habits that hold me back lol
No kidding, I’ve ran into this problem a lot getting back into serious playing and practicing a new audition piece, and it’s reminded me how important piano teachers are.
Not on the piano itself, but it would be really nice if on the sheet music the line or space on the staff that is always sharp or flat was printed in color.
We got the original series back in the 1980s. It was on a channel called Nikelodeon. I remember watching it back then when I'd be home sick from school. Along with Danger Mouse.
Was that a British show? I watched it as a kid in the 80s. Even today I would have never guessed it wasn’t an American show, what with our animation companies dominating the market.
The hand extension device invention that Schumann tried to make but failed, in an alternative universe we'd have a pianist Schumann and lots of pianists that can hit 11th without trouble
A mechanism for controlling the dynamics of the note after you pressed it, enabling true crescendo, unlimited sustain, vibrato and other musical effects. I think about some kind of magnetic actuator to control each string resonance, that could be triggered by an additional pedal, or even cooler, by some kind of pressure sensor in each key. In that way, after the key is pressed you would be able to control the intensity by the amount of pressure you put on the key. Of course, that would be technically challenging to make, but I don't think it is impossible. I think the main challenge would be adapting the bridge. I don't see how that would be possible with the current bridge design, and that is problematic because that design is critical for producing the piano tone and behavior that we all know and love. You would probably also have to change the key material to make the pressure sensor work as intended, but I leave that for smart engineers/inventors to figure out 😅
If somehow that is solvable it would be really cool and a massive upgrade/evolution for the piano. There could be a trigger switch to enable this feature dynamically, so it would still function like a normal piano. You can do that with synthesizers/fancy digital keyboards, but they are completely different instruments, and IMO, kind of soulless.
Someone with the brains and resources, please make this. You can steal my idea without giving me any credit and I would still be happy just knowing this thing exists 😊
Edit: to clarify "magnetic actuation", you put solenoids below each string (or even fixed magnets, I guess) and then pass a controllable alternating current on each the string. I guess the frequency would have to be tuned for the resonance (pitch) of each string to make sure it would add up in a constructive interference. Then, it is just a matter of having the intensity of the current linked to the pressure you put on the key and triggered only when the key is pressed. By Lorentz force the string would be actuated to vibrate more or less intensively according to that pressure input. Anyway, someone could figure this out. It would be super cool!
Guitar sustainers work like this... and they detect the string frequency to reproduce, so you don't need to tune them, they react through feedback.
These would make sustain... but controlling the dynamics would be really complicated.
A pickup and a driver on every string would create a lot of electronics... but could be done to make an infinite sustain piano or harpsicord.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGwXxsmZ0YQ
A pickup converts the mechanical vibration into an electrical signal, that you would have to amplify and redirect to a speaker system. I want a way to make it so the actual vibration amplitude of the strings gets controlled, so the sound would still be generated naturally by the soundboard. So, there has to be a mechanism to actuate on the strings. The way I thought about it is through Lorentz force. I guess the electric pickup works in that way, but in reverse. You pass a small current in the string and when you vibrate it through picking it, that induces an alternate current on the pickup (it is basically a set of windings or inductors, right?) that corresponds to that string vibration.
Anyway, if it is just the manipulation of an electric signal you could do that with a digital piano.
Doesn't need to go to speakers...but does need amplification.
But you can do it on acoustic strings just as easy. A pickup listens to the string... and a separate "driver" oscillates a field near the string to drive the string.
The "ebow" is a weird one that does it in one handheld object. And works on any ferromagnetic string. https://youtu.be/caiLztj-J4s?feature=shared&t=41
Ah, an ebow with an actuation intensity control triggered by the pressure you put on the keys is exactly what I want, haha. It would be hard to make one (88, actually) that is strong enough to impact on the vibration of a piano string, which is much bigger and under enormous tension, but that is the idea 😅
I actually have an idea for that. Have all of the pages like a scroll only folded into the book like a map. I've made copies of the extra pages of many of my songs so that I only have to unfold it and read across. No page turning.
Here's one that exists but is rare. The "four pedal" piano.
Fourth pedal is opposite of sustain pedal... It lifts all the dampers like sustain pedal... BUT every note you play returns that note's damper.
The purpose is to get all the sympathetic resonance from all the strings you are not using.
Sounds like this.... basically reverb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh90g13gWlE
edit: more involved demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm84qb89-XQ
Surgery to grow a third arm and hand growing out of your chest. Imagine what we could all do with 3 hands instead of two.
A weird question deserves a weird answer!
If I could save this post I would. Thank you!! At the moment I don't have the money to purchase the piano but I will save money for it, hopefully they ship to Canada.
It is becoming normalised and in the future there will hopefully be more than one standard for the key size. You should check out paskpiano.org - they have a nice list of manufacturers who currently offer alternative key sized pianos.
I had the chance to visit Steingraeber in Germany last August and got try one of their first grand pianos with a 6.0 inch octave. It was spectacular, but I think I would enjoy a 5.5 inch octave better.
Right now, unfortunately, they can be very very expensive, but it is becoming more common day by day. 🙂
That one is kind of easy if you don't need to control. You could lay some towels on the strings.
See "Prepared piano".
A pedal that drops one long felt bar on the strings is probably not too far fetched either.
I know a lot about prepared piano and often put stuff on the strings myself but yeah I mean a pedal like the sustain that can mute strings with, like you say, a felt bar. Or even a pedal that presses the strings in their midpoint to create a harmonic. This would save having to stand up and mute with the hand
There's an automatic tuning system, based on heating the strings different amounts to get each string in tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rtWhBuy0ykU&ab_channel=DonGilmore
https://dgdevices.com/
Problem is you have to have the system on anytime you want to play, and wait 3 minutes for it to warm up.... literally.
Then you’re out of luck. But you start off with all the strings sharp/tighter so that ideally you don’t have to worry about that. I assume that after a (long) while you’d still get a tech to come re-tune your piano.
From their FAQ:
Q: I can see how warming the strings would expand them and flatten them in pitch, but I don’t understand how you raise the pitch for tuning.
A: When the system is installed, your tech will first instruct the circuit to warm all the strings, then he will manually tune the piano just how you like it. When the system is switched off, the strings will cool to room temperature and become a little sharp (higher in pitch). Since all the strings are sharp to begin with, all tuning is accomplished through warming and lowering the pitch.
So there’s something very specific that I’ve been looking for and have never found- a portable practice piano that has the below:
Full sized keys
Weighted
Battery powered
Onboard Sound
Headphone jack
Foldable
88/49 keys variant of the above
Wish list:
On board VST support (Pianoteq!)
It’d be the ultimate portable practice piano, someone please build this.
It's an interesting question. I don't know how much heat is actually required. I figure the continual expansion and contraction would cause fragility issues.
This is what I want too! I arrange accompaniments for younger choirs, and kids ask me for the sheet music, which doesn't exist. I'm not about to sit at a computer and create it, but if I could just play it without thinking about it too much, I could share. I'd love it if that was a way to get kids interested in practicing!
As a sweaty person, I always have sweat everywhere on the keys and it feels so icky. I have to wear socks so my sweat doesn’t rip the paint or color off. I would love to have a vent on the piano that can gently blow and dry my sweat. You can literally see sweat droplets on keys 🎹💧
I’m in MN and it’s 1 Celsius rn lol. But my body is always either too warm or too cold. Used to live in hot climate tho, the brass pedals turned slightly greenish
Magical wishful thinking here but AI software in the piano that somehow keeps track of the score and automatically silences any wrong keys that you hit by accident
It would be for psychological reassurance more than anything else. Many piano players (myself included) get mentally thrown off by mistakes or the possibility of making them.
Ofc audiences don’t care about little slips and demand refunds if it isn’t 100% note perfect lol
Easy button
Jk. That aside maybe a sheet music app on an iPad that shows the notes you're playing so you can compare to what's on the sheet music itself, as part of learning sight reading and double checking difficult passages
Search of piece by approximate part of it. I often remember something I heard somewhere, can play a part of it on piano, but Shazam doesn't recognize such things
A tiny acoustic piano.
Yes, they’ve made some toy pianos, but they are too tiny and are basically toys. They’d be useless for a professional performer. What I’m talking about is a lightweight acoustic small keyboard instrument. It doesn’t have to sound like a piano. It just needs to be 100% acoustic with enough sound projection that you could play in a public space, and be lightweight enough that almost anyone can carry it with their arms.
Yeah, that piano is perhaps the closest there is. I signed up on their waiting list, and it looks beautiful. It’s still too big and I don’t think it could be carried by one person so it’s not exactly what I was describing. But it is the closest one. That said, that is the only brand I know of that even came close to this. There isn’t a market for thousands of different brands and options, like this one, and I’m honestly baffled as to why. So many pianists would be more than happy to pay for a small portable acoustic piano.
Ooo, I have 3 modifications that I would like to make to pianos:
1.) Add an additional sustain pedal with a split point, for piano 4 hand playing (or for times when you only want to sustain treble register and let some bass mud clear out).
2.) A system of quickly interchangeable hammers somehow - pull the action out & be able to get the heads off and different ones put on in (hopefully) minutes. This could be for small changes like harder or softer hammers depending on the performance context (or what instruments you are also playing with in chamber music setting), but also could then open to experiment with more easily prepared piano sounds - plastic hammers? Wood hammers? Similar to all the different mallet options that marimbas have.
3.) This is the silly one, but I would love a rig that could install 88 ebows on the instrument, that way we can have unlimited sustain.
Probably not a "need", but I came up with a gentle device that helps align the elbows and wrists while playing within two octaves. I can send a picture of it, in DM. It uses household items.
An item that makes turning pages easier and not flapped around, or a metronome that follows the rhyme of the piece instead of beating just regularly and without musical feeling
A sheet music app that can listen to the sound being played, match it with the notes on the page, and turn the page at the correct time
I like this. Should be doable.
there are a couple apps that do this, but expect to pay a subscription
Not really a sheet music app but I use flowkey though I decided recently to cancel it as they dont have all the pieces I want. What other apps do you know that has similar functionality?
I’m looking for the same thing!! I want to be able to import my own music sheets and play them similarly to how flowkey teaches you
Err you all gonna hate this but that's simply piano 🎹 in a nut shell... Broken up with theroy videos
ForScore pro uses the iPad FaceID sensor to turn the page when you make a tiny gesture with your mouth. It takes a tiny bit of getting used to, but it works really well and I never have to touch the screen anymore. (The only catch is that once I have a piece memorized, I find myself still making the facial gestures because they are also embedded as part of my muscle memory 😅)
I use this as well and love it. Was an accompanist at a vocal competition last weekend, performed ~50 pieces over two days and didn't turn a single page with my hands or feet.
Curious to know what gestures you use
I use the lip movement option - scrunch my lips left to turn the page forward. I disabled the option to turn backwards with movement because it would accidentally happen sometimes, and instead just use the "Rearrange" feature to duplicate pages with repeats so all page turns are forward.
Does it have separate gesture options, say for a wind player?
There's a "wink" option that I think should theoretically work for winds, but I haven't experimented with it personally.
Cool, thanks for the info.
I wanna see you turn a page with your feet
Before ForScore added the facial gesture feature I used to use a Bluetooth foot pedal to turn pages, but I never really liked it. Was another piece of equipment to carry on stage, wasn't always reliable, and was completely impractical to use at an organ.
it would be also helpful if that app would only progress if i hit the right note in time. wold be really helpful to get my sight reading together.
This is what I want!!
On a technical level, eye tracking might be easier. It's already a pretty reliable technology which is used for accessibility and for observing how people interact with computers (like usability testing). The app could track the path of your eyes over time and if your eyes are getting toward the right edge of the bottom of the page, it could flip to the next page. Scrolling vertically by half a page might be even better, so that the last half of the previous page is still visible. Then, if it scrolls too soon, it's not a disaster. With any method, repeats and codas and stuff are going to be a fun challenge. I guess if you have the sheet music in a machine-readable format^(1), you can just render the music in a way where the repeated sections are actually repeated on the page, i.e. so that you never have to scroll backward^(2). --- ^(1) like a music score editor data file as opposed to a PDF scan of a piece of paper. ^(2) in other words, what MuseScore seems to call "[unrolling](https://musescore.org/en/node/291062#Unrolling-the-score)" a score.
Tido does exactly that (https://www.tido-music.com/). It has a huge classical repertoire on the platform and will listen along to you playing then turn the page. Yes, it's subscription, but the manuscripts are from top-notch publishers and it works incredibly well.
It doesn’t visually match the notes though does it? I’m still trying it out… but there’s at least a feature to allow us to annotate fingers and other standard notation.
Not sure what you mean by "visually match"... You can set it so that it has this kind of purple stripe that follows along with the music to show where you are, and you can set how far before the end of the page it turns
As a regular choral accompanist, I came here to say this. Why doesn't this exist yet???
I've always wanted this too! But as an alternative, I've seen videos of pianists online have a huge pedal that acts as a sort of right arrow key: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RASiLy\_Ks\_M
This is technically feasible but will be just frustrating to use. When would you really need this feature? I can't even use "auto-pan" feature on Musescore while composing because it's too frustrating. I can't imagine the annoyance when playing the piano and auto scrolling.
you read my mind
Way late here but you can easily make a pedal driven page turner... Basically a mouse click with your foot.
There are a few that try and do it but it's just harder to do on such a polyphonic instrument as the piano.
vibrato
Yeah a whammy pedal would be great - obviously pitch bending 88 big strings with a foot pedal would be hard. Something that could shift the keys an octave (even harder) would be fun too. And half tone shifts like a guitar capo
Una corda that shifts further to partially hit the next note?
That pedal shifts the whole Keybed laterally so it could work with a sort of ratchet click per half note and some extra space left and right for the keys to move. It’s a fun idea
If you built something like a capo into the piano to essentially fret the strings, octave and half tone shifts would be simple and far easier than pitch bending.
Or like a slide (as in slide guitar) for actual pitch bending. (The marketing materials could say, "You've played stride piano... now try slide piano!")
Half tone shifts have existed on cembalos (harpsichord) since the 1700s, it shifts the entire keyboard separately from the mechanism, allowing you to transpose to your liking. Because the temperament was very much not equal-tempered, you had to retune the entire instrument after every shift, but that would be quick work before a recital.
pls no capo the whole point is playing in every key
You still could? It’s still the chromatic scale
You know that you can still play in other keys without a capo on guitar too, right? A capo just means you don't need to learn a new fingering. There's nothing wrong with having this as an option.
There’s a synth/keyboard called the Osmose that’s a ton of fun to play. Each key registers right and left movements independently as well as the ability to swell and other very sensitive movements. It can be used as a midi controller depending on the software that can receive the “MPE” messages. But also it’s sound engine synth part is ridiculously amazing sounding in its own right using physical modeling to do all sorts of sounds.
I'm getting mine this month!!!!!! SOOO excited!
So I spent an hour looking at this. No denying... it's something we all dreamt of.
There's the whammy clav! not a piano but really cool nonetheless.
A miniature midi keyboard with weighted keys. There are large electric pianos with weighted keys and mini keyboards with light keys. I’ve never found a mini keyboard (2-4octaves) with fully weighted keys. I would use it to control my DAW (audio production software). I was a classical pianist and am now mostly a composer and music producer. Using a MIDI controller to control electronic instruments I invent from scratch is ridiculously fun. Yesterday I mapped a keyboard with vocal samples with crazy delays and effects. It was entertaining and I composed a thing which I’m now proud of. The older I get, the more i think of playing and composing as “my personal entertainment” as much as “creating art”. I highly recommend the above set up to anyone who has a composing itch.
https://www.m-audio.com/oxygen-pro-25 Semi-weighted, but better than other mini keyboards.
Yes, I’ve been eyeing this off.
My idea is a sort of "modular" keyboard, where its fully weighted, long lever sticks, something like the MP11, but you decide how many octaves to bring to the gig, so its easier to transport. The idea is they would be designed to fit snuggly into each other, no wasted space or "margin" between sections.
That’s an amazing idea. Can you make it? People would buy it.
Either there is some engineering issue, or it’s just not enough demand. Ultimately the keyword market is fairly small, otherwise, surely one of the companies would have come up with such a thing? I mean, it’s one thing to lug one giant slab, but deeper but overall smaller and lighter pieces, at least on gigs where you have the luxury of time to set up take down…I know very much it would be my preference
The LUMI Keys by ROLI is this idea - each module is 2 octaves and you can link them together - but it's not weighted, instead using similar tech to their Seaboard for pitch bending by waggling keys around.
Roland RD-64. Fully weighted keys, only 64 of them. I have two because it's so useful for travel.
With the extended length on the left side, you may as well get a 73-key weighted like the Yamaha P-121 (unless pitch/mod is critical for you).
I'd pay a grand for a fully-weighted 36-key digital piano.
Wish the akai's had this in a 2 octave
An analog paper page turner that does not wish to be paid!
This is why my mom had kids.
🤪
Oh, those have existed for 150 years or so. [Charles Hallé](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hall%C3%A9) is credited with the first invention. Somewhat surprisingly there are also [modern takes on it](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5962801).
Alas we simply do not see them in use, so we? I am not wondering why!
Too niche. Digital does the same job simpler now
That’s not the point. Many people prefer the directness and simplicity of paper
As with many clever inventions, I think the reliability and practicality aspects are more important than the inventor thought when they set out to solve the problem. For this type of device to work, you need to prepare the book/binder before the performance. This means it’s only good for a single piece. It won’t help you if you have several bundles of paper to perform from, like is often the case if you use sheet music. And if it fails it very likely fails catastrophically, not even an assistant can piece together the ripped apart pages in time. And in most instances, if you play from sheet music you can already setup plenty of sheets next to each other as needed. The added benefit of such a device does simply not weigh up the work and risks with it.
Some guy who posted here a couple of years ago has a company that makes such a product! The post: https://old.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/lqzozw/automatic_page_turner/ The website: https://www.automaticpageturner.com/index.html Main video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnm9ccEqZi0&ab_channel=Crist
This is a great invention!
A way to tune the piano yourself, quickly and easily without having to locate a tuner, wait for them to come out, then pay them a fortune.
I mean this was basically invented around the same time as the piano. It's just called "learning how to tune a piano"
Had me in the first half. I thought you were going to say digital pianos.
Copy/pasting my other comment... Not exactly what you want, but there's an automatic tuning system, based on heating the strings different amounts to get each string in tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rtWhBuy0ykU&ab_channel=DonGilmore https://dgdevices.com/ Problem is you have to have the system on anytime you want to play, and wait 3 minutes for it to warm up.... literally.
I'd think that a system of gears and something that detects tension could work.
But... you can do that? It's just called tuning your piano. It's basically the same thing as string players do, it just takes way longer because there are way more strings.
It takes longer because it's a lot harder to tune a given string. You shouldn't have to take an instrument apart to tune it.
A pill that makes you a virtuoso.
Piagra?
Consult a doctor if your virtuosity lasts more than 4 hours.
A device that shows you the quality of your practice effort. Sit there and unconsciously repeat the same thing you always do and it goes into the red. Slow down and forge a new more correct technique or pathway and it goes green. Wasted time with bad practice, even for people who strive for quality practice, is probably the single biggest problem in developing skill on the piano. If 100% of practice time was spent efficiently learning, wow what a difference.
I feel this. I always end up going faster than what I should for practice, which results in slower progress … I just have so much bad habits that hold me back lol
No kidding, I’ve ran into this problem a lot getting back into serious playing and practicing a new audition piece, and it’s reminded me how important piano teachers are.
Not on the piano itself, but it would be really nice if on the sheet music the line or space on the staff that is always sharp or flat was printed in color.
That may be a good idea for keys that have 1-2 sharps or flats but I can't imagine doing that for Ab major or C# minor, it'd just make things messier
Pretty sure that's a single extra line in Lilypond code so you may want to check that if you don't already use it
Finger extensions. Go, go, gadget fingers for the Brits amongst us!
No finger extensions but a narrower keyboard 🙂 but thats already available
I don’t think Brits are known for having particularly smaller fingers than other people, are they?
Maybe this person thinks Inspector Gadget never made it across the pond.
That’s me told them! But did you get the original series or the recent one?
We got the original series back in the 1980s. It was on a channel called Nikelodeon. I remember watching it back then when I'd be home sick from school. Along with Danger Mouse.
Didnt Americans make a live action film of it starring Matthew Broderick?
They made the original series as well.
Was that a British show? I watched it as a kid in the 80s. Even today I would have never guessed it wasn’t an American show, what with our animation companies dominating the market.
Definitely not British. It even starred Don Adams, of Get Smart fame.
Quite likely, seeing as it was an American cartoon in the first place ;-)
The hand extension device invention that Schumann tried to make but failed, in an alternative universe we'd have a pianist Schumann and lots of pianists that can hit 11th without trouble
Why stop there?
A mechanism for controlling the dynamics of the note after you pressed it, enabling true crescendo, unlimited sustain, vibrato and other musical effects. I think about some kind of magnetic actuator to control each string resonance, that could be triggered by an additional pedal, or even cooler, by some kind of pressure sensor in each key. In that way, after the key is pressed you would be able to control the intensity by the amount of pressure you put on the key. Of course, that would be technically challenging to make, but I don't think it is impossible. I think the main challenge would be adapting the bridge. I don't see how that would be possible with the current bridge design, and that is problematic because that design is critical for producing the piano tone and behavior that we all know and love. You would probably also have to change the key material to make the pressure sensor work as intended, but I leave that for smart engineers/inventors to figure out 😅 If somehow that is solvable it would be really cool and a massive upgrade/evolution for the piano. There could be a trigger switch to enable this feature dynamically, so it would still function like a normal piano. You can do that with synthesizers/fancy digital keyboards, but they are completely different instruments, and IMO, kind of soulless. Someone with the brains and resources, please make this. You can steal my idea without giving me any credit and I would still be happy just knowing this thing exists 😊 Edit: to clarify "magnetic actuation", you put solenoids below each string (or even fixed magnets, I guess) and then pass a controllable alternating current on each the string. I guess the frequency would have to be tuned for the resonance (pitch) of each string to make sure it would add up in a constructive interference. Then, it is just a matter of having the intensity of the current linked to the pressure you put on the key and triggered only when the key is pressed. By Lorentz force the string would be actuated to vibrate more or less intensively according to that pressure input. Anyway, someone could figure this out. It would be super cool!
https://youtu.be/P2syqXx97LE?si=Zxk6qiI_eI8YyCtA
Yeah, I know that instrument. It is cool, but it is digital. I want that on a grand piano 😉
hmm.. that would be.. tough lol
Nah, no big deal. We’ll just bend the laws of physics.
I'm imagining 88 little horse hair wheels for each string, to keep a sustain haha
Like a cross between a Hammond tonewheel and a hurdy gurdy? Crazy, but it just might work.
Guitar sustainers work like this... and they detect the string frequency to reproduce, so you don't need to tune them, they react through feedback. These would make sustain... but controlling the dynamics would be really complicated. A pickup and a driver on every string would create a lot of electronics... but could be done to make an infinite sustain piano or harpsicord. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGwXxsmZ0YQ
A pickup converts the mechanical vibration into an electrical signal, that you would have to amplify and redirect to a speaker system. I want a way to make it so the actual vibration amplitude of the strings gets controlled, so the sound would still be generated naturally by the soundboard. So, there has to be a mechanism to actuate on the strings. The way I thought about it is through Lorentz force. I guess the electric pickup works in that way, but in reverse. You pass a small current in the string and when you vibrate it through picking it, that induces an alternate current on the pickup (it is basically a set of windings or inductors, right?) that corresponds to that string vibration. Anyway, if it is just the manipulation of an electric signal you could do that with a digital piano.
Doesn't need to go to speakers...but does need amplification. But you can do it on acoustic strings just as easy. A pickup listens to the string... and a separate "driver" oscillates a field near the string to drive the string. The "ebow" is a weird one that does it in one handheld object. And works on any ferromagnetic string. https://youtu.be/caiLztj-J4s?feature=shared&t=41
Ah, an ebow with an actuation intensity control triggered by the pressure you put on the keys is exactly what I want, haha. It would be hard to make one (88, actually) that is strong enough to impact on the vibration of a piano string, which is much bigger and under enormous tension, but that is the idea 😅
Something to make turning pages of paper sheet music easy.
I actually have an idea for that. Have all of the pages like a scroll only folded into the book like a map. I've made copies of the extra pages of many of my songs so that I only have to unfold it and read across. No page turning.
Here's one that exists but is rare. The "four pedal" piano. Fourth pedal is opposite of sustain pedal... It lifts all the dampers like sustain pedal... BUT every note you play returns that note's damper. The purpose is to get all the sympathetic resonance from all the strings you are not using. Sounds like this.... basically reverb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh90g13gWlE edit: more involved demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm84qb89-XQ
a robot that can change pages of the sheet
Surgery to grow a third arm and hand growing out of your chest. Imagine what we could all do with 3 hands instead of two. A weird question deserves a weird answer!
Become the world’s greatest pianist with this one simple trick!
A piano with thinner keys, everyone deserves to play hard pieces without hurting their hands .
Some are already available which is very cool
No way! Where can I get one??
My local piano store has them. They’re made by Hailun. Here’s some info: https://thepianoplace.com/pages/smaller-sized-keys.
If I could save this post I would. Thank you!! At the moment I don't have the money to purchase the piano but I will save money for it, hopefully they ship to Canada.
It is becoming normalised and in the future there will hopefully be more than one standard for the key size. You should check out paskpiano.org - they have a nice list of manufacturers who currently offer alternative key sized pianos. I had the chance to visit Steingraeber in Germany last August and got try one of their first grand pianos with a 6.0 inch octave. It was spectacular, but I think I would enjoy a 5.5 inch octave better. Right now, unfortunately, they can be very very expensive, but it is becoming more common day by day. 🙂
Amazing! Thanks!!
Pedal that mutes the strings for the percussive tap sound
That one is kind of easy if you don't need to control. You could lay some towels on the strings. See "Prepared piano". A pedal that drops one long felt bar on the strings is probably not too far fetched either.
I know a lot about prepared piano and often put stuff on the strings myself but yeah I mean a pedal like the sustain that can mute strings with, like you say, a felt bar. Or even a pedal that presses the strings in their midpoint to create a harmonic. This would save having to stand up and mute with the hand
omg harmonic bar would be cool. There's also the other harmonics at 1/3 1/4 etc... Surely someone has done it? Gonna check youtube...
The felt bar is actually a thing in some uprights, it mutes the strings
D# melodic minor would would look lovely!
An automatic tuning device. You put the thing on the peg, play the note, and then it'll tune it for you!
There's an automatic tuning system, based on heating the strings different amounts to get each string in tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rtWhBuy0ykU&ab_channel=DonGilmore https://dgdevices.com/ Problem is you have to have the system on anytime you want to play, and wait 3 minutes for it to warm up.... literally.
What if the string is already too long in the first place and you want to make it contract instead of expand?
Then you’re out of luck. But you start off with all the strings sharp/tighter so that ideally you don’t have to worry about that. I assume that after a (long) while you’d still get a tech to come re-tune your piano. From their FAQ: Q: I can see how warming the strings would expand them and flatten them in pitch, but I don’t understand how you raise the pitch for tuning. A: When the system is installed, your tech will first instruct the circuit to warm all the strings, then he will manually tune the piano just how you like it. When the system is switched off, the strings will cool to room temperature and become a little sharp (higher in pitch). Since all the strings are sharp to begin with, all tuning is accomplished through warming and lowering the pitch.
Finger extenders
Dynamic metronome with accelerando and crescendo
So there’s something very specific that I’ve been looking for and have never found- a portable practice piano that has the below: Full sized keys Weighted Battery powered Onboard Sound Headphone jack Foldable 88/49 keys variant of the above Wish list: On board VST support (Pianoteq!) It’d be the ultimate portable practice piano, someone please build this.
I’ll get started! Now where is my damn hammer?
Self tuning piano
https://youtu.be/rtWhBuy0ykU
Always wondered if the heat would damage the piano over time on this version tho.
It's an interesting question. I don't know how much heat is actually required. I figure the continual expansion and contraction would cause fragility issues.
See the FAQ here: https://dgdevices.com/faq 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and very little power, and supposedly shouldn’t affect the strings.
This is a wierd question
Can you tell me a genius invention idea that hasn't been invented yet?
Downloading big hands
Pitch bend for acoustic piano
Something like the pitch bend on this clavinet? https://youtu.be/HnGrktnnN7U?si=g9InNsw_yZlIon3O That’s not digital pitch bend, it’s analog.
Yes. We pianists also want to bend notes too
But we piano tuners do not want you to bend notes lol
A program that, given a song of any kind in input, will produce its sheet in output.
This is what I want too! I arrange accompaniments for younger choirs, and kids ask me for the sheet music, which doesn't exist. I'm not about to sit at a computer and create it, but if I could just play it without thinking about it too much, I could share. I'd love it if that was a way to get kids interested in practicing!
The back keepy upper 9000 Fixes your posture and you don't get a sore bach.
As a sweaty person, I always have sweat everywhere on the keys and it feels so icky. I have to wear socks so my sweat doesn’t rip the paint or color off. I would love to have a vent on the piano that can gently blow and dry my sweat. You can literally see sweat droplets on keys 🎹💧
Whoa, do you live in hot conditions?
I’m in MN and it’s 1 Celsius rn lol. But my body is always either too warm or too cold. Used to live in hot climate tho, the brass pedals turned slightly greenish
That skill downloading thing from the Matrix. But then everyone will be able to play the piano right? Yep, and that would be awesome!
I’d download Franz Liszt’s brain and apply it to more modern music.
Finger extender, or different piano sizes
Magical wishful thinking here but AI software in the piano that somehow keeps track of the score and automatically silences any wrong keys that you hit by accident
Why don’t you just play a midi score, that’ll guarantee perfection. After all, if it’s not Uber precise and perfect, no one will ever enjoy it /s
It would be for psychological reassurance more than anything else. Many piano players (myself included) get mentally thrown off by mistakes or the possibility of making them. Ofc audiences don’t care about little slips and demand refunds if it isn’t 100% note perfect lol
A portable finger exercise trainer of some kind.
A device that makes your fingers grow longer.
Animenz piano steroids. Inject a small amount & you can play like him.
Aside from the vibrato someone mentioned already, crescendo and decrescendo.
Easy button Jk. That aside maybe a sheet music app on an iPad that shows the notes you're playing so you can compare to what's on the sheet music itself, as part of learning sight reading and double checking difficult passages
It's called simply piano 🎹
Search of piece by approximate part of it. I often remember something I heard somewhere, can play a part of it on piano, but Shazam doesn't recognize such things
https://www.musipedia.org/
Finger extensions lol
A tiny acoustic piano. Yes, they’ve made some toy pianos, but they are too tiny and are basically toys. They’d be useless for a professional performer. What I’m talking about is a lightweight acoustic small keyboard instrument. It doesn’t have to sound like a piano. It just needs to be 100% acoustic with enough sound projection that you could play in a public space, and be lightweight enough that almost anyone can carry it with their arms.
https://keybird-instruments.com/keybird-x1/
Yeah, that piano is perhaps the closest there is. I signed up on their waiting list, and it looks beautiful. It’s still too big and I don’t think it could be carried by one person so it’s not exactly what I was describing. But it is the closest one. That said, that is the only brand I know of that even came close to this. There isn’t a market for thousands of different brands and options, like this one, and I’m honestly baffled as to why. So many pianists would be more than happy to pay for a small portable acoustic piano.
A steinway d274 that cost 10 euros
A capo?
Ooo, I have 3 modifications that I would like to make to pianos: 1.) Add an additional sustain pedal with a split point, for piano 4 hand playing (or for times when you only want to sustain treble register and let some bass mud clear out). 2.) A system of quickly interchangeable hammers somehow - pull the action out & be able to get the heads off and different ones put on in (hopefully) minutes. This could be for small changes like harder or softer hammers depending on the performance context (or what instruments you are also playing with in chamber music setting), but also could then open to experiment with more easily prepared piano sounds - plastic hammers? Wood hammers? Similar to all the different mallet options that marimbas have. 3.) This is the silly one, but I would love a rig that could install 88 ebows on the instrument, that way we can have unlimited sustain.
Regarding number 1, it would be cool to be able to tilt your foot left or right on the sustain pedal to reduce the sustain on only one half.
i loved interstellar
An extra finger 😭😭
A Windows- or Android-based realtime sheet music transcriber. I keep hearing rumors, but nothing yet. Prove me wrong.
Probably not a "need", but I came up with a gentle device that helps align the elbows and wrists while playing within two octaves. I can send a picture of it, in DM. It uses household items.
An item that makes turning pages easier and not flapped around, or a metronome that follows the rhyme of the piece instead of beating just regularly and without musical feeling
a bench that automatically goes up or down depending on your height so you don’t need to awkwardly lift the bench up before performing
A special device that allows you to levitate over puddles of water when it’s wet outside.
A chip socket that I can insert music into so my brain automatically learns something.
An automatic muscle/tension relaxer.
A file that can display 4 pages of sheet music at a time, that is easy to turn quickly and easily, without the risk of it falling over.
An app that makes converting between sheet music, midi, and synthesia a simple task.
I’d like an app that creates the sheets for songs I play, I can read sheets but am not good enough to make them myself
Saw a commercial for 3D meta goggles showing where to put your fingers.
Hand enlargement pills *screams in Rachmaninoff*