Video: Omer Yosha’s AirPiano: A Keyboard That Needs No Touching
Posted by Gabriella_Levine on Monday, Apr 05, 2010
Omer Yosha has created a piano that anyone can play without knowing the keys. That’s because there are no keys – no physical ones at least.
While Yosha was a student in Interface Design at FH Potsdam, he created a keyboard that uses a touch-free interface to respond to the musician’s hand hovering above it. This sleek instrument uses infrared sensors to control the music, with a matrix of controls a few inches above the object itself. Using IR sensors, an open-source Arduino microcontroller, and the Processing language, Yosha set up the AirPiano to send MIDI instructions correlating to hand motions, that are then interpreted by Ableton Live (or similar software). Just imagine if Leon Theremin had taken his touch-free magic to the keyboard, and you get some idea.
As easy as it looks, the virtual matrix of keys is multilayered and complex. Yosha’s original prototype of the AirPiano included eight faders and 24 keys arranged into three layers of eight. The keys and faders are assigned with MIDI messages, and LEDs arranged horizontally in the controller strip provide visual feedback.
The AirPiano connects to a computer through a USB and is compatible with MIDI instrument sequence. The user can easily manipulate a number of functions of the software, such as assigning each key and fader function with a note and controller number. The AirPiano can be used in a Controller mode (like an Ableton Live Launchpad), or in a melodic mode, in which input of spatial cues above the device relay a single pitch output.
Even if this innovative musical interface doesn’t seem to have practical advantages over a traditional Ableton Launchpad, it could be instrumental for all those hypochondriac, physical-contact-fearing musicians of the future.
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