Increase your (global) student base!

Robert J · February 27, 2004

From today's Toronto Star:

Technology links distant pianos

Nova Scotia boy's talent is far-reaching

Oscar Peterson watches amazed

LOUISE BROWN

EDUCATION REPORTER

Look, ma, no hands — the piano is being played by someone 1,700 kilometres away.

In a high-tech twist on the old honky-tonk player piano, a boy in Wolfville, N.S., practised Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" yesterday on two grand pianos at once — the one he was actually touching, and another where his teacher was sitting in downtown Toronto.

It was as if a ghost suddenly were tickling the ivories.

The moment 12-year-old prodigy Lucas Porter began the gruelling third movement at a recital hall at Acadia University, the keys and foot pedals moved the same way on a matching piano at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music.

Chatting through headsets and watching each other live on video screens, teacher Marc Durand and his star pupil conducted a long-distance lesson as they have twice a month since October, using digital technology designed to bring remote real-time teaching to all corners of Canada.

"Look at me, now, Lucas — I want you to play that passage less like this," said Durand, chopping his hand up and down for the video camera by his piano bench, "and more like this," waving his hand in smooth horizontal circles.

The boy turned to the keyboard and tried again.

"Let me see you make a big athletic sound," added Durand, leaning forward and waving his hands for emphasis.

"Remember how Beethoven looks mad with his wild hair?

"I want you to make that sound. Make it scary! I want to feel his ghost as you play."

Keyboard great Oscar Peterson was one of hundreds who watched the display of high-tech wizardry on both ends of the digital link-up.

"To think this student can communicate immediately with his teacher over such a distance is something I never dreamed possible," said Peterson. "This is a great breakthrough in communication between teacher and student."

Porter, a gifted pianist from Port Williams, N.S., is taking advanced instruction from Durand, an internationally acclaimed music teacher, through this pilot project.

"It's been really great to get this instruction without having to travel to Toronto," said Porter, who was clearly more nervous talking about the piano than playing it.

"It's made a big difference in my playing."

The pianos were designed with special digital technology that can record each keystroke and transmit it in real time over the Internet to deliver the same performance on a second piano.

Using new software called MusicPath developed at Acadia University, these "Disklaviers" built by Yamaha Canada were connected through a special Canadian network for research called CA* net 4.

The $400,000 project was partly funded by Yamaha and CANARIE, Canada's advanced Internet organization.

"It's a great tool," said Durand, "but it will never replace the real thing; sitting side by side with your student."

[and rapping his knuckles when he hits the wrong note )