PETA-System – A Piano Expression Teaching Aid System

Abstract

In order to provide good musical performance to the piano, the wrist movement is very important during the performance of experienced players. However, to acquire proficiency in this technique is not a simple task since it is not simple to find formal representation, such as sheet music, to provide information about body movements. Moreover, piano teachers have to spend lots of effort to demonstrate an exercise to a single student, while many times they have to deal with many students in a classroom. Therefore, learning this approach requires not only observing experienced players but also, try to reproduce their execution to get practice. In this work, we propose PETA-System: a computer aid tool for teaching wrist movements on piano playing. The tool provides an interactive interface on which a tutor can record video musical excerpts to be performed by a learner. To evaluate the system, we carried out tests with actual learners to verify the improvement of the learning experience of wrist movement. A result has shown that the tool provided a stimulating learning environment for the student while reducing teacher efforts since they can share a time monitoring many students at the same time rather than a single one.