Technological Changes in Piano May "Sound" Good, But Still Have a Long Way to Go

In this day and age, music can be digitalized; even the instruments producing music have digital siblings. Original acoustic pianos are now joined with digital pianos, keyboards, and synthesizers. Music is a form of expression that requires no knowledge of a language to understand, just an ear to listen and a heart to feel. Technological advances have changed its systems and thus impact the "language."

Aural Tuning Uses Physics, Electronic Tuning Uses Numbers

There are two types of tuning methods: aural tuning and electronic tuning. Aural tuning, also called traditional tuning, relates to the ear or sense of hearing. The piano is usually tuned to A 440, meaning the musical note A above "Middle C" is at a frequency of 440 Hertz. The tuner tunes the middle string of the note and then tunes the other two string so that they are all in unison. One octave is then tuned to 12 Tone Equal Temperament, where the interval between keys adjacent to each other are equal (counting the black keys).

Next, the tuner checks the tuning of common intervals and then uses that octave to tune the rest of the piano listening for "beats."As the diagram on the left portrays, when two slightly different frequencies are played together, they result in bumps, referred to as "beats." The lack of beats indicates the notes are in tune.

Have you ever heard a "whomp, whomp" sound? Those are beats created by two slightly different pitches.

Below is a guitar demonstrating this phenomena. See if you can hear those beats!

listen to ‘Guitar Strings 1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Guitar Strings 2’ on Audioboo

The first audio played two strings that were in tune while the second audio played two strings slightly out of tune. Were you able to tell the difference?

On the other hand, electronic tuning uses what are called "visual tuning devices." The devices will tell the tuner if that note is at the correct frequency and the string will be tightened or loosened accordingly. This process can be done much more quickly compared to aural tuning and can be executed in a noisy room with the aid of headphones. The device can also record tuning which can then be brought out when re-tuning that same piano. To a piano technician, utilizing an electronic device shortens the learning process and is easier to get to a certain level quickly. Aural tuning takes years and years of practice to do good tuning.

Tuning Method Results Vary Oh So Slightly
Ming Li is the chief piano technician at the University of Maryland and has been with the school for 22 years, with a certificate to prove it! Li has been in the business for more than 30 years and started in China with his interest for piano technology. Li believes tuning is like a musical art and enjoys listening to the tones. He personally prefers aural tuning; "each piano is different." Li says that most people cannot tell the hear a difference between the tuning methods. People who call and ask about tuning either have a good ear for it, or trust traditional tuning.

Chia-Hsuan Lee received her master's degree in piano performance from the University of Maryland and has been teaching piano for more than 20 years. Lee is most intrigued by the sound quality of a piano. Although she regards electronic tuning as efficient, "a real piano tuner needs to really listen to get the good sound quality."

Piano strings are also impacted by something called inharmonicity. Strings of higher notes have immense tension and strings of lower notes are stiff due to its thickness. Therefore, higher notes need to be tuned higher in frequency than in theory to sound in tune. Lower notes need to be tuned to a lower frequency than in theory. Although an electric tuner can distinguish between close frequencies, Li demonstrates what small differences that he believes only the ear can hear:



Li describes the sound of an electronically tuned piano as sounding too square and boring. Sometimes "too perfect" is not good, just like in visual art. Though, Li says he may consider using an electronic device in the future when his hearing is not as good to lengthen his career.

The Structure of the Piano Changes Materials and Then Goes Digital
The body of the piano is traditionally made of wood. Today, many piano part materials are replaced by composite wood or plastic, which are much cheaper compared to solid wood. Although, at first, those materials were not successful, but with time the quality has improved. Li foresees that in the future, most piano manufactures will use composite materials. He also proudly shares that Steinway pianos do not use plastic parts and each are 90% handmade. (Li went to Steinway for complete training.)

Technology has also allowed the entire piano to go digital. Digital pianos are equipped with computer chips that reproduce sounds of the piano. Good quality digital pianos have keys that are weight sensitive. Lee believes digital pianos will not be able to replicate a real piano because its sound "has no life." 

Jane Shih is a engineer by trade but has a love for music that has followed her throughout the years. She has been involved with music since she started playing the piano at the age of five and a half years old. Shih describes what she sees as the difference between a digital piano and an acoustic piano:



Although Shih loves working with an acoustic piano, she does not completely disapprove of the digital piano. She also enjoys playing with the functions on a synthesizer and with different "voices and layers" a single piano cannot do. 

Although there are still gaps between how close technology can recreate a piano and its sound and distinguish subtle tones, only time will tell if it one day can express like a real piano.With all this talk of music, please enjoy a small clip from Shih:

listen to ‘Piano’ on Audioboo

The "Not So Clean Cut" Digital Divide of the Piano

In a digital piano, computer chips reproduce sounds of the piano that are stored in them. Good quality digital pianos are sensitive to weight put on keys and express different volumes similar to an acoustic piano.

Jane Shih is a engineer by trade but has a love for music that has followed her throughout the years. She has been involved with music since she was five and a half, when she started playing piano, and picked up the double bass and pipe organ at age fourteen. 

The Ability to Add More to What You Give With Technology

There are also "non-technical" differences between a digital piano and an acoustic piano. Shih describes what she sees as the main difference between them. 

As technology continues to develop who knows how close the digital piano will be like a real piano with hammers and strings. However, it does not mean that the digital piano will ever replace an actual piano.

Expression Without Added Effects

As a piano player myself, Shih's opinion is quite accurate and the digital piano is sometimes despised for the "lack of expression" in its sound quality. Although Shih loves working with a real concert grand piano, she does not completely disapprove of the digital piano. She also enjoys playing with the functions on a synthesizer and with different "voices and layers" a single piano cannot do.

Tuning to the Detail
Advancements in technology have not just impacted pianos, but have also changed how pianos can be tuned. Pianos can be tuned "by ear," where one note is tuned to a specific frequency and the rest are based off of that tuning, or each note can be exactly tuned to its accurate frequency.

To Shih, music is a very powerful form of expression and communication that speaks to everyone. People can make their own opinions from what they hear and can convey emotions through music. She sites times when she would play a powerful piece to relieve her frustrations. "Well," she exclaims, "nobody gets hurt!"

Video shot by iPod Touch with Qik.

Egypt Utilizes Social Media to Organize Protest

A protest was planned on January 25, 2011 against Egyptian President Hosin Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Massive numbers of protesters flooded the streets. President Mubarak eventually resigned from office on February 11, 2011.

Opposition groups were inspired by the people of Tunisina's use of social media sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, to help end the rule of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. They used Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to spread awareness of their protest and eventually record the protest.

Access to Protests via the Internet 

Many Egyptian activists use hashtag #Jan25 to spread information about protests and is still constantly being updated today. More than 700,000 people signed up to attend the protest on Facebook. During the protest, photos and videos of times of disorder and harmony were streaming to the world through social media sites.

Shown above, protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square--a location similar to New York's Time Square--were captured in a stunning picture. Chaos in the streets were recorded and posted on YouTube:

As described in a blog post by WardenOnDeck, during the protests, the government was aware "protesters across the nation were using social media outlets via the Internet to organize protests." The evening of January 17, the entire Internet was blocked off from the country. However, Egyptians found ways around the blocks. February 1, Goggle introduced a "speak-to tweet" service, allowing people to connect to Twitter through the telephone. The next morning, Egypt's four major internet service providers were back up and internet traffic returned to near normal levels.

The Egyptian government recognized the power of the internet to stimulate violent protests that would disrupt society. Even though there were many people killed and injured, not all hope is lost. To the right, the photo taken by Yannis Bhrakis portrays another side to the riots in Egypt. The photo is captioned, "In chaos, there is order: Egyptian rioters help an injured policeman in Cairo."

Media Less Controlled, but Censorship Continues

After Mubarak stepped down, there is more freedom in the media, but censorship is still practiced and journalists and bloggers have been arrested. The media was often used as a form of propaganda during the Mubarak reign. During the mass protests, state TV fought against the pro-democracy activists, but after Mubarak fell, they sided with protesters. However, with violent riots later in the year, editors slid back to speaking against protesters attacked by the military.

On the other hand, some journalists continued to speak out even as they were targeted when covering events on the streets. Young journalist Wael Eskandar said he felt his profession had become "more meaningful." He also admitted to feeling freer, despite the obvious dangers of harassment and even prosecution by a military court. "At times like these, it's worth the risk," he said to The Guardian. The media revolution in Egypt is only beginning.

Defining Your Radio Stations

So FM and AM radio are different, so what? Well, first a quick lesson about how radio works. A microphone converts sound waves into electrical waves. On the receiving end, a speaker converts the electrical waves into wound waves, usually with the help of an amplifier. In between, invert a radio transmitter and a radio receiver. Below is a simple diagram of how a radio works:

AM stands for Amplitude Modulation and FM stands for Frequency Modulation. You know all those numbers before "AM" and "FM"? Since radio waves are light waves, they stand for the Hertz of a wave. AM radio stations stand for a certain number of kilohertz and FM radio stations stand for a certain number of megahertz. For and example, 720AM is 720 kilohertz and 80.5FM is 80.5 megahertz. Radio waves are modulated, meaning the sound is encoded on the carrier wave so that the original sound can be detected by the receiver. 

In AM radio, the amplitude of the carrier is modulated by the electrical version of the signal, as seen on the left. However, most sound signals are not a smooth sine wave like the one in the diagram, they are much more complicated, like the silhouette of a mountain range. Then, it becomes difficult to "retain" the shape of the signal, as the AM wave would need to increase the amount of "bumps" in the wave to get all the details. There is a limit to the audio quality. 

This is where FM comes to play. FM radio modulates the frequency, like compressing a spring. FM radio can handle a larger range of sound (88-108 megahertz) compared to AM radio (.535-1.705 megahertz). This is why FM radio stations have better sound quality. 

On the other hand AM radio waves can travel long distances due to ionospheric refraction. The waves reflect off the ionosphere, a layer of heavily charged ion molecules above the atmosphere, and the ground. This is beneficial for long distance communication. However, this process is much more effective at night, so "at sunset most AM radio stations in the U.S. have to reduce power, directionalize their signal, or go off air."

FM radio waves are not effected by the ionosphere and their waves appear to go in a straight line. The benefit is that FM stations do not interfere with each other. However, because their signal will not "bend around earth" as much as AM waves, their signal cannot be heard as far from the station. Their "line-of-sight" waves can be disrupted by solid objects like buildings and mountains. FM transmitter antennas are usually taller, to cover a larger area.

FM radio was created after AM radio by Major Edwin Armstrong who changed how radio signals were transmitted. Unfortunately, he never was able to see its success. After long money draining legal battles trying to promote his superior radio system against David Sarnoff and RCA (Radio Corporation of America), he committed suicide January 31, 1954. After Armstrong's death, FM radio has increased in stations and listeners and has passed AM radio.

Next time you listen to the radio on the car, depending on if you are listening to FM or AM, see if you can hear "swishing sounds" due to large buildings or the decrease in clarity when nightfall hits. Happy listening!

Too Much: Information, Choices, Effects

       If brains themselves could communicate, they would be flashing [information overload], right? In modern technology, there is tons of information circulating at rapid speeds, too much for one person to process at once. However, this is not a new issue. Clay Shirky, from the video “Filter Failure,” explains “information overload” started with the printing press. After the printing press, there are more books anyone can read in a lifetime: “an excess of incoming information.” Dictionary.com defines this as “information overload.” However, there was filtration for quality, by the publisher of the book. As mass media has developed, the cost to produce information has decreased, so the demand to filter is overlooked in terms of economics. Shirky states old filters cannot be just be updated to tackle information from media because the structure for information has changed. 
       Personal life is almost gone, as Shirky words it. On social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, intimate interactions are public. The failure to filter occurs both way, information coming in and information going out. Facebook and Twitter have privacy settings, but people are not used to using them. Time is not spent on effectively using the existing tools. The concern may not simply be “filter failure” but also the failure to distinguish, for the individual to distinguish what information he or she deems as “important.” Tools can be used to help filter the flow of information, but there will be leaks. Email often misses spam mail here and there, and it is up to the individual to continue the filtration process.  One can view social media sites as too much unimportant information, tweets and posts constantly popping up. On the other hand they can be used to relay news to the world or gather facts. Traffic notifications on Twitter become valuable, as they are able to quickly adjust with the ever-changing traffic. To Tracey Gaughran-Perez, a full-time blogger, “Twitter is about following these tiny snapshots of people's day-to-day lives. And that's boring and tiresome only if you pick the wrong people to follow.” It is like a journal of daily events, conversations all saved on a database, as Joab Jackson describes in his article “Overload Everything.” It can be seen as a fascinating collection of facts. People decide what is put up and should decide what is taken in. 

       Brain has corrected the error: [filter failure].