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Siri Plays a Grand Piano With Some Help From AirPlay and Yamaha

Monday December 19, 2011 8:50 AM PST by Jordan Golson

Yamaha used some technological trickery to enable Siri to play a concerto on a Yamaha Disklavier Grand Piano.

By converting a MIDI songfile into an audio file that the iPhone can play and connecting the audio output of an Airport Express to the analog input of a MIDI-enabled Disklavier piano, the iPhone can "play" the MIDI file via AirPlay and control the multi-thousand dollar piano.

As explained to The Loop's Jim Dalrymple:

Then, you simply ask Siri to play your favorite song from your iTunes library, and Siri responds immediately, by making the Disklavier’s keys and pedal move up and down, recreating the performance, including full orchestration.

Top Rated Comments

kjs862

165 months ago

Cool an Apple Express!

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

writingdevil

165 months ago

I would have given up my favorite bike, bat and swimming rights to have one of those so my Mom would hear music coming from our living room while I was out a window playing with my friends.

Now if only it would have worked for my weekly lesson with Miss Stanley, a true wicked witch, who would have wondered wtf i had been doing in my practice sessions at home.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

justit

165 months ago

Let's be clear here, it's playing a playlist to a device that has MIDI sheet music, *not* converting notes from an MP3 song to a harmonic piano scale. Don't be the idiot that throws out the stereo to make room for a disklaviar piano. :p

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jlgolson

165 months ago

I guess if you were in the market for a digital piano, this might make sense. But it's a lot cheaper and simpler to hook an iPhone up to a stereo and have Siri simply play digital audio tracks from your playlist. Now if Yamaha had a REAL piano hooked up to play MIDI via Siri, that would be something!

They did have a real piano play MIDI via Siri. It's not a digital piano.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ProVideo

165 months ago

Stupid computer. He said Rhapsody in Blue, not the United Airlines theme.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

macaddict06

165 months ago

favorite part

Pedal down!!

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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