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After all the controversy and arguments, I came across this in "members recordings" and it nearly broke my heart....

Sometimes, just sometimes, something moves me big time.
This is one of those times,
This dude has just played mendelssohn, on his laptop keyboard..
Literally.

with programs like abelton, you can "play" the actual keyboard of your laptop as a midi controller if you dont have a keyboard.

However, this is not the easyest thing in the world to do, and most folk just use it to write a few midi notes or chords..

This takes it to a whole new level, and moves me that anyone can defeat the adversity of not having even a cheap casio with piano keys to play....

Someone give this dude your old unused keyboard....

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...0-%20Venetian%20Gondola.html#Post1836173

Rostosky,

I felt the exact same way, which is why I encouraged him to also post on the Piano Corner Member Recordings section. Which he did, and there's been a little discussion there.

-Jason

It's really beautiful. He is very gifted to be able to do that. Not sure it needs a lot of commentary from me, it just makes me realize again,... there are wonders in the world!

Thanks Jason, I misread it as just pianists corner. Saying that, In this instance, I feel that the more folk that see this lad beat the adversity of not even having a digital piano the better.
If I had a spare keyboard that was unwanted or unused, I would be bubble wrapping it up right now.
Not a lot moves old Rossy these days, but this did.

Has the video above been edited? If it has, I refuse to to enjoy it!

And miss out on an excellent example of that which humbles? PPP , I am surprised.

haha. now, that is funny.

gw

Wonderful!

I'm not buying it as a real performance. How is he doing the pedaling? How can he get any dynamics with a keyboard that is either on or off and can't sense velocity? I think it's a con.

Seems to me that the "pedaling" is just at one setting thoughout, so it's not something that needs to be dealt with, other than setting it at "on" or "off". I also don't hear any dynamics, really. So, I don't get a strong sense that it is bogus.

On the other hand, while thinking it is a cool accomplishment and nicely done (and I hope a regular keyboard arrives soon), I don't quite get why people are falling all over themselves about it in the way they are. It's just another kind of MIDI controller, really. The very fact that somebody actually went to the trouble of creating the software to do it tells you that "playing piano" using a QWERTY keyboard is perhaps not all that unusual.

You are right about it being a dynamically flat performance, but there are still some notes that stand out more than others. I aint buying it.

No, he is not playing. Watch at 2.08. After the trill there are notes sounding but he does not even touch the keys. I don't buy it either

It looks like he is hitting them to me. I think he needs a better camera though, because the frame-rate is not particularly great. Also, it is a midi, and if his keyboard is anything like my DP, when you input midi there tends to be a slight lag while it processes the pitch and rhythm for recording (though that might be because I am inputting to my laptop via a USB) - which is why I don't even try to use the midi function on my DP anymore.

Until I understand how this is done and/or how it can be done, I remain skeptical.

Regards,

Does a QWERTY (laptop actually) keyboard have enough keys to accomodate 88 piano keys? I mean with the shift key it seems plausible, but...

Other than that, the 'how' question seems quite easy to answer: You just make a program to response to midi notes 1 key at a time. If you remain at the same velocity layer constantly and have the pedal continuously down, it can be done it seems...

If the pedal was continuously down, the sound would become unbearably mushy. The way he is touching the keyboard is also very un-piano-like. There's no way to make it sound like that the way he is doing it. Still, he's convinced a few people with it so he's had a victory of sorts...

I'm pretty technologically challenged and have no idea to what extent this is possible or not, but I'm starting to be intrigued. Guess I'd better listen to it now (my previous post, in Members' Recordings, was a hypothetical answer to the question "why?" which stores asked - I haven't listened to the actual recording).

Not speculating as to whether or not he is actually playing it this way, but some objections are easy to overcome. For Nikolas, the piece he is playing doesn't use 88 keys; without the shift key (or alt, ctrl) you can have two octaves. For ando, since he must be using a synthesized or sampled piano, he can set the release automatically and shorten the length of decay to keep it from overlapping too much. There are a few spots where chords overlap and are dissonant. The only problem left is the melody seems to be louder than the accompaniment but you can set a filter to brighten the sound around the range of the melody.

I think we should link to this thread in the other thread, so he can offer an explanation. (I don't think he is reading this thread.)
I have never done it, although I think what Damon said is true based on stuff I read on the subject. The video is a little bit blurred and it is difficult to discern what he is doing.

There are obvious problems with this performance in terms of dynamics, pedalling, how long he holds down the keys. It's not totally authentic. Also, people who own a computer with a sampled piano and know how to play, certainly would own a piano keyboard to trigger it. It's more plausible that it was recorded with a keyboard and he is miming to a recorded sequence. It's obvious that he can play it on the computer because he is hitting the same notes consistently. I'm sure you could play the piece, but with less control over the sound. Try playing a decent trill on a computer keyboard, it's pretty much impossible. Nice gimmick though. Another possibility is that it was recorded like this, but was MIDI edited later to add pedaling and fix things like the trills and dynamics. That would be perfectly doable.