Detection of keyboard vibrations and effects on perceived piano quality

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted on an upright and a grand piano, both either producing string vibrations or conversely being silent after the initial keypress, while pianists were listening to the feedback from a synthesizer through insulating headphones. In a quality experiment, participants unaware of the silent mode were asked to play freely and then rate the instrument according to a set of attributes and general preference. Participants preferred the vibrating over the silent setup, and preference ratings were associated to auditory attributes of richness and naturalness in the low and middle ranges. Another experiment on the same setup measured the detection of vibrations at the keyboard, while pianists played notes and chords of varying dynamics and duration. Sensitivity to string vibrations was highest in the lowest register and gradually decreased up to note D5. After the percussive transient, the tactile stimuli exhibited spectral peaks of acceleration whose perceptibility was demonstrated by tests conducted in active touch conditions. The two experiments confirm that piano performers perceive vibratory cues of strings mediated by spectral and spatial summations occurring in the Pacinian system in their fingertips, and suggest that such cues play a role in the evaluation of quality of the musical instrument.

The Role of Haptic Cues in Musical Instrument Quality Perception

“…When the negative preference rating was used as a criterion for a posteriori segmentation [48], the attitudes of the two groups segregated clearly. While the negative and positive groups gave rather similar ratings for dynamic range and loudness, their mean ratings for richness, naturalness, and preference were clearly Positive and negative ratings in the piano quality experiment described in [25] different ( Fig. 5.9).…”

“…Fontana and colleagues investigated the effect of key vibrations on acoustic piano quality using both a grand and an upright Yamaha Disklavier, which can operate in both an acoustic and silent mode [25]. While playing, pianists received auditory feedback through a piano software synthesizer and tactile feedback through the Disklavier keyboard.…”

“…5.8). The mean preference scores were 5.8 Results of the piano quality experiment described in [25]: Means with errorbars ± SE as given by [46]. Positive values signify preference of the vibrating mode.…”

“…An instrument with a precise and responsive action allows a skilled musician to produce a wide variety of timbre nuances through fine-grained control of synchrony, dynamics, attack speed, articulation, and balance in polyphonic texture. Vibrotactile feedback, on the other hand, consists essentially of the same oscillations that the instrument body radiates as sound [42,49,[69][70][71] and is perceived simultaneously with the auditory signal, but differently [4,6,18,25,31,41,45,62,65]. In contrast to hearing, where maximal sensitivity is in the range of 3000-4000 Hz, vibrotaction is most sensitive in the vicinity of 250 Hz (see Sect.…”

Perception of Vibrotactile Cues in Musical Performance

“…A second experiment investigated vibrotactile sensitivity in a musical setting [19]. Specifically, the goal was to measure the ability of pianists to detect vibration at the keyboard while playing.…”