Random scribbles from the margins of an old school notebook. Apparently, how signal processing (very vaguely stated) might be able to "trick out" my piano-playing experience in terms of (1) recording it and (2) understanding visually what goes on in the frequency domain. I am unconvinced that these notes were ever supposed to make sense, though.

Dynamic companding based on which piano key is pressed (have a sensor under each key that activates a different audio filter). Focus on known harmonics of each note, etc... can you get a better sounding sample by focusing on the "important" bits?

What would it look like to overlay a spectrogram on a piano (with frequencies on the spectrogram scaled so that they lay over their respective keys)?

Reason I rediscovered this: a few days ago I touched my baby grand for the first time in ages, and the rust is just sloughing off my fingers in huge piles - when did my fingering become so clumsy and irregular stumbling down the inversions on that Schubert impromptu? How did I lose my ability to - I'm hitting roughly the right notes, but at all the wrong times (even when I'm not slowing to sightread a weird chord combo, I'm just a fraction of a second off), emphasis on the wrong notes, no flow, and things just feel slightly wrong. It's like trying to dance after having a full-length cast taken off your leg. Technically you can move all those limbs, but you really can't integrate them after such a long period of disuse. You remember the ghost of how things are supposed to be, and it makes a sharp contrast with what they're not right now.

This, by the way, is how I've felt every time I touched a piano in the past 8 years, since I stopped "really playing." Taking lessons and hitting the keys on a regular (as in, "at least once a week, usually an order of magnitude more, quite seriously" turned into "maybe every few months? if lucky? for fun?") basis.

Yeah, I know. Practice, or lack thereof; it happens. It hurts to see how much not playing has diminished my fluency on the keys, but it's nice to sense that there's a chance of rekindling the dying (but not dead!) embers of being able to play the piano. I'm incredibly shy about playing around other people, though (at least in the beginning, before I get wrapped up in playing and forget the outside world exists). I need... an 88-weighted-key keyboard, and headphones... preferably wireless ones. I don't want to subject anyone else to my rustiness. I am living with too many good musicians to force them to listen to my cacophony for extended periods of time.

On a side note, Tank + cello = sounds really good. Aaaah. I wish I could do that on any instrument.

Reckon I should pick a piece to work on rather than futzing around sightreading random things. Suggestions welcomed. It's time for a trip to the music store.

First though, sleep. Ability to write coherently, or organize thoughts, rapidly... degrading....

div