The endurance of the acoustic piano?

My wife and I were having a conversation about the job security of instrument repairmen and piano technicians. It was my opinion that these would only be in increasing demand. They are apprentice style trades that aren't easily mastered and don't fit into our quick "go to college, get a piece of paper even if you don't actually have the skills to back it up" style education system.

There will be less of them in the future, but things like piano tuning/repair as well as instrument repair are the types of jobs that will not be replaced by computer technology any time soon. This will mean relatively higher demand for individual tradesmen.

She checked my premise. I assumed that the instruments would not be replaced. We discussed various instruments at length and how they have endured, be largely perfected, or, in some cases, been subject to much change and some have not yet even been fully standardized.

I was actually pretty disarmed. I'm a logical person and while I can draw on ideas that support my idea that acoustic pianos will endure, I really can't back it up. I suppose I assume people will still prefer it for a certain level of authenticity, but is that just going to be an older opinion?

If we're honest, the best electronic keyboards mime the piano pretty well, but with a ridiculous range of added functionality as well as portability.

While an electric guitar can be run through stuff to make it sound like an acoustic, the draw of an acoustic guitar is partially the ease and portability. It doesn't need to be hooked up to anything to work.

It's the opposite with pianos. An acoustic piano is far more inconvenient and unwieldy than an electronic variety.

So what's going to happen? Will acoustic pianos eventually become complete anachronisms? If so, how long will it take? Could it be sooner than we imagine?

Digital pianos will never replace acoustic pianos for one very important reason: chaos theory. When you play a note on a keyboard, a computer chip senses the amount of pressure exerted and then produces a pitch whose volume is proportionate to that level of pressure. That's it. But when you play an acoustic piano an uncountable number of factors come in to play. The very makeup of your hand plays a role in the production of timbre. On an acoustic piano you can play the exact same passage with your hand in a different position and that passage will sound different.
Anyone who doesn't believe me, try it. Play a note, melody or scale using your knuckles or fingernails. Then play the same thing, careful to use the fleshy pads of your fingers (not the tips). The former produces a very brittle, metallic sound whereas the later produces a much smoother, more velvety tone.

Of course, there are an untold number of elements at play beyond the simple position of your hand since no two hands are the exact same. Everyone produces a different timbre on an acoustic instrument. Everyone produces the exact same timbre on an electronic instrument. No two performances ever sound the exact same on a 'real' piano.

With this in mind, the blatant inferiority of digital instruments becomes obvious. It is true that electronic keyboards have their advantages, all of them practical. They are more portable, they can be plugged into any computer, recording is a breeze and they provide a whole palette of different instrumental samples to choose from. But in the single most important aspect of music making, sound, they do not live up to the standards set by acoustic instruments. The digital keyboard simply uses a computer system that produces sound. But on a piano the musician himself is part of the 'system' that produces sound. On a 'real' piano the pianist is actually a part of the instrument itself and therefore a performance on a real piano will always be more expressive.

I think it's a little naive to think that a digital keyboard will never be able to emulate a real piano to the degree that it is completely indistinguishable from the real thing as far as human ears are concerned, particularly when the argument for why it won't happen boils down to the sensors under the keys not reading enough information about the players performance and current sampling technology can't express the nuances in sound appropriately.

In other words, existing technology can't do it therefore it will never be done.

Frankly, I think advancements in the sensors reading the players performance and physical modeling of the actual sound generated by each hit, rather than simply recording and manipulating samples (or perhaps a combination of the two), may very well be able to recreate the capabilities of a real piano so accurately that you'll never be able to tell the difference.

Maybe it will take a long time (then again, maybe not given the general rate at which technological advancement seems to be increasing), but it's certainly impossible to say it will never happen with any degree of certainty. And for the laymen, or the person who plays simply to have fun playing some songs they love, it has pretty much happened already.

Well, the problem is, how do you measure what the difference in sound is between different types of fingers playing the piano, and how do you generate an algorithm that will accurately model the difference between different hands? That synthesizers will eventually be able to come up with any number of subtly different sounds I don't doubt, but will they accurately model what would happen in the real world? It's much the same issue, I think, with models of the environment:* There are more variables at hand than we can possibly hope to incorporate into any humanly generated model. Until we actually come up with a way to write a computer program to model every aspect the physics of playing a piano, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to come up with a synthesizer recreation that feels right. And it's certainly conceivable that such a thing could be done eventually, but it begs an important question: Where's the profit in it? I guess it's conceivable that a person might do it entirely for the intellectual rewards, but it seems like it would be an extremely costly project and unless there were some guaranteed way to at least recoup the amount of money required to research the question, it seems unlikely anyone would be willing to pursue it. Unless large numbers of people consciously realise that the complexity of a system involving a real piano and the person who plays it is the reason pianos sound better than synthesizers, there is little chance that research into completely recreating that system will be looked at as a worthwhile use of the time of anyone competent enough to create it.

So yeah, it's not impossible that one day synthesizers will eventually be as good as the real thing. But it is currently quite unlikely to happen anytime soon. I'm expecting holodeck technology will be halfway to being invented by the time it becomes practical to do so.

*At this time it is impossible to model an environment as large as the earth. Anyone who says they know what is going to happen to the climate is either overstating their case or just completely full of hooey; the best anyone has is educated guesses. Until we come up with cheap, practical interplanetary/interstellar travel and a workable method of terraforming other planets we'll only have one planet to live on, so therefore we can't afford to take chances about climate change and should start responding as quickly as possible to the threat.

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Originally Posted by The Man

Well, the problem is, how do you measure what the difference in sound is between different types of fingers playing the piano, and how do you generate an algorithm that will accurately model the difference between different hands?

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Not disagreeing that there aren't a lot of hurdles to overcome before it's feasible.

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That synthesizers will eventually be able to come up with any number of subtly different sounds I don't doubt, but will they accurately model what would happen in the real world? It's much the same issue, I think, with models of the environment:* There are more variables at hand than we can possibly hope to incorporate into any humanly generated model. Until we actually come up with a way to write a computer program to model every aspect the physics of playing a piano, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to come up with a synthesizer recreation that feels right.

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I'm not convinced the question is necessarily one of needing to model it accurately to do it convincingly. Yes there are a lot of variables at play, but is it necessary to model them all to fool a human, even an expert? Maybe not. It's a tough question to answer but we'll probably see people take it in both directions in time.

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And it's certainly conceivable that such a thing could be done eventually, but it begs an important question: Where's the profit in it? I guess it's conceivable that a person might do it entirely for the intellectual rewards, but it seems like it would be an extremely costly project and unless there were some guaranteed way to at least recoup the amount of money required to research the question, it seems unlikely anyone would be willing to pursue it.

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You may be somewhat surprised there. With regards to physical modeling at least it will always have value in a production sense in that it can be used and manipulated to provide a great deal of control over a sound. The latest version of the software Reason for instance includes a software instrument for creating drum sounds using physical modelling. I haven't used it so I have no idea how accurate it actually is, but just the same it has value for those who like tweaking the sounds they use to no end. And given that there's no shortage of virtual instruments of all kinds out there, someone will do it if they think they can improve on what's come before, and they probably will find an audience for it. That kind of iteration and experimentation in the long run may lead to something that accurately produces the results if not the variables that cause them in a real instrument.

Now creating more robust sensors and translating that input into the model to produce a believable sound is another matter, but there certainly is a market for it. If someone created an electronic drumset that replicated the sound and feel of performing on an acoustic kit to the degree that I couldn't tell the difference, I may be prepared to ditch acoustics. At the very least, I would never lug an acoustic kit anywhere ever again unless I was moving. The value of having a realistic sounding and performing instrument that's a fraction of the weight and takes up significantly less
space is something I don't think should be discounted where some instruments are concerned, and there's enough competition in the market for these that there is certainly a profit motive to drive further R&D. Whether that R&D takes them in that direction though is something we can't really predict, but the consumer demand for more realistic electronic instruments is something I think is there.

Of course, like anything, this is all speculation. My main point was simply that saying it will never happen strikes me as more than a little short sighted.

Well, I certainly agree that there would be demand for lightweight versions of acoustic instruments, if they could be developed. My point is that developing them is likely to be prohibitively expensive for a long, long time. Granted, I suppose it's possible that what you said about randomness fooling people because they don't pay close attention or have strong enough knowledge about the science of acoustics is possible. But it's also possible that something will feel off about the recordings using poorly modelled electronic instruments to most people even if they don't know why. As I'm fairly certain such instruments don't exist yet, at least in the case of the piano, it's not really possible to know.

I don't disagree that the development of such instruments isn't forever going to remain impossible; my point is just that we're not going to see them in the foreseeable future. An electronic instrument that actually replicates the entire complex system that goes into playing an acoustic piano is far from being developed, and likely would require the implementation of a number of technologies that don't even exist yet.

The electronic keyboard may never be able to produce those subtleties from an acoustic piano, but who's to say 60 years from now people will prefer the the subtle changes over the straight note? Im sure if you told people 60 years ago that people today would be listening to extrememly loud screaming, banging of drums and near indistinguishable thrashing on guitar strings they wouldnt have believed you.

Also I think it is possible to produce that sound if you model the physics of the string and hammer rather than just the sound of a note. but that would require a much more powerful processor.

That or someone goes about recording every note in as many hand variations as possible
Set to large hand mode, set to knucklemode etc

Just a theory, this, as I don't know the ins and outs of today's speaker technology. But...

I imagine it would be more difficult to effectively replicate the output of a piano than the input. The input can be simply put together digitally using sensors, eventually if not using existing technology. The output will be a little more difficult. Having said that, I'm sure it could be done. The hurdle is essentially the size and shape of, say, a grand piano. The sound that we hear, where does it come from? A felt covered hammer striking steel strings, apparently. Can that be effectively replicated using today's typical speaker systems? I know you can get the basics of it, just like when you play an mp3, but if you are standing in a room with a grand piano, the sound moves around a lot more. It's not just the impact point that causes the sound, to my understanding - it's the entire string. Would sound move out of a speaker in the same way it moves off a string? From what little I know, I don't believe there are speakers which allow for this kind of sound source in shape and size, meaning it would be difficult to replicate effectively.

EDIT: Oh, I just found out that there is a sounding board, not just a string. Never mind then. Still, I'm interested in knowing how easy it would be to replicate effectively the way the sound originates and moves throughout the piano and, subsequently, the room around it.

While I don't think we're there, I feel like there's a little exaggeration here in how hard it would be to replicate digitally. All this talk of sensors and stuff. There are already plenty of decent keyboards that have multiple checks on the actions.

A keyboard doesn't need to be able to read the hands or the fingers differently. It just has to be able to have the weight of a piano keyboard and get an idea of the pressure and velocity of the strike. The action of a piano is a relatively simply mechanism where you press a key and a hammer strikes a string. There's plenty of nuance built in, but I don't think it's beyond digital keyboards to replicate.


Where I think it's difficult is with the output. Emulating the way a soundboard works with the strings and even the way the strings react with one another while vibrating in that space might be difficult, but the latter is certainly an approachable problem. The former is the big issue.


I never though the tech would be a problem. The only issue I think that exists will be in people's willingness to cling to it for tradition sake in light of the fact that digital keyboards are more versatile and portable. The piano by its nature will never allow for a portable acoustic model. That's one thing that's just beyond possibility without breaking the laws of physics.

Maybe I wasn't clear above. It's not really the sensors that would be a problem; I'm fairly sure the technology to build those already exists. It's figuring out all the variables that affect the sound in the first place - in other words, the stuff the sensors need to measure, and the way what they measure affects the sound of the piano. I'm fairly sure that would require quite a bit more technology than exists already, and would certainly require painstaking research.

I play piano. I own a digital piano.

I would rather have an acoustic piano rather than a digital one, but there are reasons why I have a digital one.
It never needs to be tuned.
It's significantly cheaper than an acoustic one.
I can plug my headphones and play any time of day, as loud as I wish.

A [tuned] acoustic piano sounds much better imo. Maybe one day when I'm not poor I can buy one.