SAE Meetup

Why would a piano teacher who trains piano teachers attend an engineering meetup?

When a person presses a key on the piano, a series of levers move to allow a felt-covered hammer to hit a set of strings.

Those strings vibrate. If the hammer hits the strings of the very first note on the piano, those strings will vibrate 26 times per second. Middle C strings vibrate 263 times per second. And so on. Each note has its own frequency. This means the strings of each note vibrate a certain number of times per second.

When the strings vibrate, a wave is created. That wave travels using air as a medium.

That wave makes contact with your ear drum. The ear drum vibrates and an electrical signal is sent up a nerve called the vestibule cochlear nerve to the brain.

Your brain registers that as sound.

You recognize it as music because you find the sound pleasurable.

This is how sound travels from your piano to your ear.

Your skin also can receive sound. Did you know that?

We now have technology that allows deaf people to experience concerts.

We have technology that utilizes voice commands throughout the home for those with limited mobility.

There are autonomous cars, and the technology that allows it to work benefits those with vision issues and who are blind. This technology allows blind people to record their music.

Technology is usually designed for a particular purpose. The collaboration, such as what happened today, allows for the exploration of other uses. (Viagra was intended to be used to combat high blood pressure.). (We didn't discuss this; I'm just using this as an example).

Knowing how sound travels allows us to analyze the question, Can a student become an elite pianist on a digital keyboard? Now that you know how it works, you also know that on a digital keyboard there are no hammers. In order to replicate dynamics (loudness and softness when you press a key), you must have a touch sensitive keyboard. The best are how many dollars where you can't tell the difference between digital and analog? Exactly.

Heres another example—knowing this process allows you to explore why you're sitting in a certain way at the piano. Since the idea is to generate beautiful vibrations, how you sit in order to begin the process of generating the vibrations matters. And now we can get into details, you see. Drop those shoulders because the alignment adjusts, allowing you to extend in a comfortable and accessible way.

Like that.

Today's MeetUp was with SAE Engineering. They have Meet Ups all over the world. They used to have MeetUps regularly in Detroit but the pandemic stopped that. Tonight was the first one in Detroit since the pandemic.

I will continue to attend their Meet Ups because I learned so much. Quality control is important. Pride in one's work was supreme. Attention to detail was paramount.

And more.

Thank you, SAE Engineering.