Talking Piano

By John Farrier in Music, Science & Tech, Video Clips on Oct 7, 2009 at 8:26 am


(YouTube Link)

Austrian composer Peter Ablinger digitized a recording of a child speaking and then programmed a mechanical piano to replicate the sounds. The video above is in German, but Hack a Day has provided a translation:

I break down this phonography, meaning a recording of something the voice, in this case -, in individual pixels, one can say. And if I have the possibility of a rendering in a fairly high resolution (and that I only get with a mechanical piano), then I in fact restore some kind of continuity. Therefore, with a little practice, or help or subtitling, we actually can hear a human voice in a piano sound.

The content of the speech is taken from the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at World Venice Forum 2009.

via Gizmodo | Composer’s Webpage


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  1. Eekster
    Oct 7th, 2009 at 9:22 am

    That is way awesome! Reminds me of the guy who used to make a steel guitar talk, I think it was on Ed sullivan or something! This is way cooler tho, no effects, just the polyphany of the piano.

  2. Tim Giachetti
    Oct 7th, 2009 at 11:17 am

    This was great John. Perfect for the season. Thanks!

  3. Juice
    Oct 7th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Sorry, but that’s totally badass.

  4. Dude
    Oct 8th, 2009 at 12:25 am

    Yeah, that’s gonna show up in a horror movie soon. The dead child speaking from beyond the grave through the piano.

  5. Ali S.
    Oct 8th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

    Well, now I have something to accompany my recent dreams of robotic overlords…and this piano shall be their voice.

  6. Creamy
    Oct 10th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

    That’s freakier than Darth Vader!

  7. Yvan
    Oct 11th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Very intersting and practical demostration of spectral decomposition and reconstitution, even in discrete frequencies (musical tones). Very nice

  8. arumib
    May 7th, 2010 at 8:35 am

    The truth is we are all creative. And while some people are naturally more creative than others, we can all have very creative ideas.


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