Billy Joel probably didn't have piano gloves in mind when
he first crooned the song "Piano Man." A student at the Motion Design
program at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle designed a pair of
digitally enhanced gloves that can play the piano on any surface.
The
student, Scott Garner, posted a video of his
creation on Vimeo that has garnered a lot of attention for the young
inventor.
As Garner himself admits, his creation is a rough prototype. Each finger has one button that plays one note, so only ten notes are possible at the moment.
The piano gloves can't do sharp or flat notes yet, but Garner has a possible solution for that. The thumb could potentially be used as a shift key that would take a note up or down an octave. Garner even floats the idea that the gloves could play more than just a piano.
The most important asset of the piano gloves is their portability. They can be used to play the piano on any surface, and Garner demonstrates by playing "Frère Jacques" on a wooden table. There's no reason a pianist couldn't take this handy little device on their next airplane flight and tap away on the tray tables.
For many musicians, it's just as important that their instruments be affordable as well as portable. A decent keyboard piano costs upwards of $200, and a grand piano can run into the thousands, but Garner says the items used in his creation would cost about $50.
Garner hopes to eventually replace the hard plastic buttons with soft rubber ones that won't make the distracting clickety-clackety noises when played. But keeping the price point attainable for the starving artists is the most important goal.
Tags: Electronics, Inventions, Music, Wearable Computers
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