Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What if Chopin had MIDI?

Seriously, it was actually possible but they didn’t use it and it is such a missed opportunity!

I’m serious and here’s what I mean. I just came up with an idea for pretty easy solution that would allow for any of those classical composers/pianists, even baroque ones, to record their performances for us to listen today.

It works like how seismograph works or ECG, etc: attach a small pencil at the end of each key and run a rolling paper with constant speed. Each press of the key will draw a curve which ultimately represents position of the key in any moment hence you can derive velocity. Well, they wouldn’t have used it to reproduce music but we could’ve scanned the paper today and produce a MIDI file Nice, huh?

Cool idea, but sadly, they obviously didn't have the foresight. Alas!

That would be great!


Another thing, had someone had the spark of inspiration, sound recording would have been possible hundreds of years earlier, as it didn't require any advanced technology. Just clockwork and wax.

Yeah, wax for audio recording! Easy to do (although as with my “MIDI” idea would have been hard to replay with their technology, hence nobody did it)

What about piano rolls?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_roll

This is pretty amazing:

Hear Debussy Play Debussy: A Vintage Recording from 1913
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/...t_composers_playing_returns_to_life.html

I know about piano rolls but they were already good enough to be used for replaying them which would have been slightly more difficult in the early 19-th century.

He would have done even more elaborate fiorituras. 😆

Some composers did not need MIDI due to phenomenal memory. Mozart and Rachmaninoff are examples. Similar examples exist in mathematics and other human activities. For writing they were able to put in what is already formed in their mind, without any drafts.

A possibility of performing written music automatically, which is elementary today due to MIDI, could help them share and discuss a new music with non-musicians (though I think Chopin did not need this).

However...
This possibility provides to millions, independently of their musical knowledge, cultural, emotional or historical education, training or talent, a possibility to produce and share sound tracks.

Is this good? Yes and No!

Along with really good music today we are overwhelmed by a host of musical debris. Alas! This analogy leads me to inventing new terms: Musbris, Soundbris, Videobris...

In Chopin time this was impossible!

^ I think you missed the point entirely It's not for us to hear Chopin's compositions, we've already heard them millions of times in zillions of interpretations. MIDI is not used for music notation. What's really interesting is to see how Chopin himself played his pieces which would be apparent from a recorded MIDI performance containing his phrasing, legato, pedaling, tempos, rubato, general feel, etc. But maybe I wasn't clear in my original post, sorry if that's the case.

Oh... sorry

Overall, musical standards have dropped considerably. At one time you had to compose a symphony to earn your degree.

Yes, it would be very nice to know exactly how a great artist of the past played his own pieces. And how did Paganini played its Stradivari? I think no midi track that could record that...

Sometimes I wonder too, in a fantasy world, what if Chopin had tried a digital piano? Perhaps he would say: "The lid! Open the lid! Where does the lid open? It sounds so boxy!".

And what he would say of piano modeling, Pianoteq, piano sampling, etc.? Perhaps he would say: "What the... Give me my Pleyel! Or at least an Erard!".

Ha, funny, I also often fantasize around that theme Like for instance Bach suddenly appeared in my living room but alone and he sees the N1X, he somehow realizes it's a keyboard instrument, opens the lid and sees keyboard and is so fascinated but it doesn't make any sound! But he won't just stop, he would eventually press the power button, he will realize it's some weird instrument that makes unknown to him sound (in hist last years he played a few fortepianos) but never a clean sound such as the CFX sampling, never so heavy keys (?) which are then so dynamic and expressive. He would try the pedals and would realize the sustain pedal allows for some interesting effects which he's not ever imagined. His music has almost always been polyphonic but using the sustain pedal allows for some nice arpeggios to be created that span the entire keyboard, what he would improvise

I have also imagined if I'm somehow sent back in the past with my music library and I am allowed to show to Bach the classical music history, what pieces I should show to him, whether he would like them. What kind of modern music he might like: jazz, avant-garde, grandiose romantic symphonies

Or maybe he would say: "Oh my, why did they cut the back of this harpsichord? It is normal that it does not sound... It has no strings!"...

He would say geez even a piano built as recent as the 1750's has more velocity layers than this crap.

Bach would neither be surprised nor upset over this ‘machine’. He would sit in front of it and at some point, as CG says, press the power button. A sound is reproduced by subsequently pressing a key, and very matter-of-facty Bach goes to work on yet another masterpiece.
Chopin, on the other hand, would have a much harder time figuring out the power button, but eventually George Sand would figure it out and power-on the thing. Chopin would then sit and play a note. Hating the experience, he would label the machine ‘a diabolical entity’ that should never see the light of day. He would then go back to his Pleyel, and very sadly (he never smiled) compose yet another redundant etude!

Bach is known to play the harpsichord and the organ. They all have 1 layer. He would be more than happy with the 127 velocity layers of the N1X. He might even discover the obscure function + some key combination to change the touch to fixed and finally find peace

If the composers of old had modern technology?
The result would have been insane pieces no human could ever hope to play.

Midi for playback is one thing, Midi for editing/layering is a whole other ballgame.

We had midis back in the 1960s, along with minis and maxis. Did Chopin?