> The study scientifically confirmed that professional pianists can manipulate timbre mid-performance through subtle key movement differences.
I'm a trained pianist myself and I have a PhD in science. The "timbre" is relative to the speed a key is pressed and the position of three pedals of a grand piano. But this insight is trivial and doesn't require a "scientific study".
The fundamental understanding of piano mechanics is well-known: once the hammer escapes from the action mechanism (just before striking the string), the final hammer velocity is the only physical parameter that determines the string vibration and resulting tone. This is known as the "single variable hypothesis" and has been supported by acoustic physics research. The final hammer velocity is thus the only physical parameter controlling the intensity and the sound of an isolated piano tone, independent of the intrinsic acceleration pattern of the key.
The study's claim about "acceleration at escapement" is particularly problematic from a physics standpoint, since escapement is precisely the moment when the hammer detaches from the key mechanism and begins free flight to the string. What matters after escapement is the hammer's velocity during that free flight, not how it got there. The study does not clearly explain the acoustic mechanism by which different key accelerations would produce different string vibrations if final hammer velocity is controlled.
Anyone who is sufficiently interested to listen to a classical piano performance understands this. The original name for the piano was 'pianoforte', it was a novelty that it could be played soft or strong in contrast to instruments like the harpsichord.
I also don't understand what the breakthrough in this paper is supposed to be. I pointed out to the lead author that velocity-switched multisampling libraries have been available commercially for decades, but didn't receive any response. Seems like a vanity/prestige publication to me, perhaps a way for Sony to advertise the high-speed capabilities of its cameras.
My personal suspicion as to how this stuff matters for the timbre of a piano is that there are maybe two mechanisms aside from the obvious one (velocity of the hammer):
1. Subtle movements of the damper, which is linearly linked to the key. You can hear this interference with the string if you get the string loudly and don't completely release the key/pedal.
2. Some second-order effects that alter the post-escapement flight of the hammer. There is still some friction in there, and most piano actions have a lot of wood parts that can flex a little.
I sort of doubt #2 there, honestly.
Another thing you learn as a pianist is that literally nothing matters for the sound except what happens at the point of contact between the hammer (and the damper) and the string. If you want to unravel piano timbre, you should worry about that.
The general vocabulary for describing timbre is limited and highly imprecise. There are many ways in which a passage of music could be perceived as "bright" or "dark", even if the timbre is identical.
It might just be a translation issue, but the paper gives me the strong impression that the authors do not actually understand timbre.
> Another thing you learn as a pianist is that literally nothing matters for the sound except what happens at the point of contact between the hammer (and the damper) and the string. If you want to unravel piano timbre, you should worry about that.
Heh, my piano teacher was pretty convinced that you could control timbre independent of amplitude.
You sort of can! For example, by loudly humming at the string, supplying extra energy in some frequencies but not others. (Or, less facetiously, by playing other notes.)
Well you have a point there, lol. Half-pedalling is really lovely in that way, where the dampers are off just enough to let inter-string resonance fill the sound out without the notes getting smudged.
You definitely can affect timbre of a piano string by crafting how you hit the key, but you can't do it with juju that doesn't affect how forces are applied to the string.
Yeah, @Rochus is right. Once the action has passed the escapement, its entire point is that you lose all control, else you'd get thudding, reversing the point of the fortepiano's innovation.
That's not to say us pianists have other tricks up our sleeves though. Staccato, slightly delayed playing, damper pedal (which is not just binary but continuous), slower release of key (because you can slowly apply the damper giving it a slight ringing effect), tempo changes, and other techniques get you quite a broad range of feeling. It doesn't however mean that timbre is orthogonal to volume--they are coupled by velocity.
Also, this post doesn't go into methods, so I worry about lack of ABX testing, whether it's a single note or a piece, whether they could see the pianist, etc. Perhaps they addressed that in the paper that they'll publish...
Edit: another thought: why is this even using subjective listeners? You can just measure velocity and run an FFT to see whether they can make a timbre separate from volume and velocity.
This is probably negligible, but the hammer is not perfectly rigid. The tension in the stem at the time the hammer escapes and subsequent oscillations could also play a role.
This little morsel was coagulating in my mind as I was reading all of these comments. No idea what, if any, effect there would be, but it is a variable.
I'm not reading this as saying that pianists can manipulate timbre after the hammer is released, only that pianists can intentionally manipulate timbre with very fine motor control while playing, and listeners of all levels can hear the intended timbre.
Which is trivial, as you say. (The examples of bright/dark aren't encouragingly subtle.)
The article is very poorly worded and ambiguous.
It's not even clear if they were measuring acceleration at escapement directly at the hammer, or somehow inferring it from the key velocity.
It seems acc-escape is measuring how hard the pianist is exerting their fingers/arms, which plausibly indirectly affects the coordination and style of sound that they play, hence the appearance of a different timbre.
> I agree, can these scientists seriously go and do some real work?
This can be said about a lot of individual studies, but it leads to missing the wood for the trees. We need seemingly trivial studies because they accumulate towards a greater understanding of our world and ourselves.
Also you can’t have the big interesting surprise results unless you are testing something where the answer seems obvious. This study seems fine.
I'm a trained pianist myself and I have a PhD in science. The "timbre" is relative to the speed a key is pressed and the position of three pedals of a grand piano. But this insight is trivial and doesn't require a "scientific study".
The fundamental understanding of piano mechanics is well-known: once the hammer escapes from the action mechanism (just before striking the string), the final hammer velocity is the only physical parameter that determines the string vibration and resulting tone. This is known as the "single variable hypothesis" and has been supported by acoustic physics research. The final hammer velocity is thus the only physical parameter controlling the intensity and the sound of an isolated piano tone, independent of the intrinsic acceleration pattern of the key.
The study's claim about "acceleration at escapement" is particularly problematic from a physics standpoint, since escapement is precisely the moment when the hammer detaches from the key mechanism and begins free flight to the string. What matters after escapement is the hammer's velocity during that free flight, not how it got there. The study does not clearly explain the acoustic mechanism by which different key accelerations would produce different string vibrations if final hammer velocity is controlled.