Inspiration
Playing the right keys at the right time is important to playing piano; however, equally important is how you play the keys. There is a science behind playing the piano, and forearm rotation is pivotal to playing with control and expression.
Piano Rotation Analyzer is inspired by the work of Dorothy Taubman and her research into the bio-mechanical motions that enable prodigies and proficient pianists to play well. One of her main discoveries was in forearm rotational motion at the piano; specifically in how forearm rotation allows players to move note to note with speed and ease. There are two types of rotations at the piano: single and double rotation. Taubman discovered that these rotations are done for every consecutive pair of notes in proper piano playing.
What it does
When you input piano sheet music (in Music XML format) that is fully notated with fingerings, we will show the following biomechanical information for every pair of fingerings: 1) Which angular direction (right or left) was the hand previously moving in 2) Which rotational movement is necessary to get the hand to the next location (single or double rotation) 3) What is the new angular direction that the hand will be moving in as a result.
How we built it
Python script where we use the Music21 library to iterate through the properties of a Music XML file (a type of sheet music format) to extract the fingerings and run our algorithm.
The algorithm is predicated on knowing every consecutive triple of notes and then matching it up with our chart (represented as an array of dictionaries) of all possible rotational motions to classify the rotation as single or double and the new angular direction.
What's next for Piano Technique Analyzer
If there is enough time, we would like to also make a simple web-app that allows the user to upload their Music XML file and then not only get a classification of all the rotations, but iterate through short looping videos that show how every motion is supposed to work.
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