Augmenting the experience of playing of the piano: controlling audio processing through ancillary gestures
Pianists spend many years practicing on their instrument. As a result they develop alongside their pianistic technique a set of gestural nuances that enable them to perform expressively and establish their own acoustic signature on the piano. This mute layer of nuanced gestures is rarely taken into consideration when developing new keyboard-based gestural interfaces. These often usually require new gestural vocabularies to be learned resulting in a disruptive experience for the pianist. The main objective of this research is to investigate how new keyboard-based gestural interfaces can enable musicians to control and transform live piano sound through the gestural nuances embedded in their technique. Specifically, how keyboard interfaces with nuanced gestural control can extend the creative possibilities available to classically trained pianists, thus stimulating new approaches to build intuitive interfaces for musical expression, and new ways of learning and playing digital instruments. Towards this goal, interviews, user tests and case studies were conducted with a range of pianists coming from different musical backgrounds, and Reach, an augmented instrument for live sound modulation controlled by gestural nuances embedded in the pianistic technique was developed.
Book Chapters
Granieri, N., Dooley, J., Michailidis, T. (2020) Retaining Pianistic Virtuosity in #MIs: Exploring Pre-Existing Gestural Nuances for Live Sound Modulation through a Comparative Study. Innovation in Music. Future Opportunities, 1st Edition. Routledge. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Innovation-in-Music-Future-Opportunities/Hepworth-Sawyer-Paterson-Toulson/p/book/9780367363352
Granieri, N., Michailidis, T., Dooley, J. (2019) Microgestural implementation for the creation of an expressive keyboard interface. Innovation in Music. Performance, Production, Technology, and Business, 1st Edition. Routledge. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Innovation-in-Music-Performance-Production-Technology-and-Business/Hepworth-Sawyer-Hodgson-Paterson-Toulson/p/book/9781138498198
Papers
Granieri, N., Dooley, J. (2019) Reach: a keyboard-based gesture recognition system for live piano sound modulation. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, UFRGS, pp. 375-376. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/3673000#.XyA5PC2ZPOQ
Posters
Granieri, N. (2018) Reach – Designing Keyboard Instruments with pianists in mind. Sound, Image and Interaction Doctoral Symposium 2018 (SIIDS18). Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Madeira, PT. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328315696_Reach_-_Designing_keyboard_instruments_with_pianists_in_mind
Granieri, N. (2017) From piano to piano. Research Conference 2017(RESCON). Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315785602_from_piano_to_piano
Conference Presentations
Granieri, N. (2019) Retaining Pianistic Virtuosity in #MIs Exploring Pre-Existing Gestural Nuances for Live Sound Modulation through a Comparative Study, Innovation In Music 2019 (InMusic19). University of West London, London, UK.
Granieri, N. (2018) Reach – Designing Keyboard Instruments with pianists in mind. Sound, Image and Interaction Doctoral Symposium 2018 (SIIDS18). Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Madeira, PT.
Granieri, N., Michailidis, T., Dooley, J.(2017) Microgestural implementation for the creation of an expressive keyboard interface. Innovation in Music 2017 (InMusic17), London, UK.
Granieri, N. (2017) Expressing through gesture nuances: Bridging the analog and digital divide. Beyond Borders 17, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK.
Granieri, N. (2017) Implementing Expressive Microgestures in a Creative Digital Environment. Research and Innovation Conference (RIConf17). Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK.
Workshops
Jensenius, A. R., McPherson, A., Xambó Sedó, A., Martin, C., Armitage, J., Granieri, N., Fiebrink, R., Naveda, L. (2020) NIME Publication Ecosystem Workshop. New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME20). Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK.
