The Piano Automaton as an Instrument for Algorithmic Music

The Piano Automaton ("Klavierautomat") was conceived and built by the Austrian artist Winfried Ritsch. It is a device to be mounted on any ordinary piano in order to turn it into a computer-controlled instrument. From an artistic standpoint, several aspects of this system seem interesting. As it connects an acoustic piano to a computer, it is apparently well suited for the performance of computer-generated algorithmic music. Moreover, it allows for several forms of "unhuman" musical expression because the Piano Automaton can not only play faster than a human pianist, it can also play many more keys at the same time – all 88 at once if necessary. And even though the music is computer-generated, there is no electroacoustic sound, but rather the acoustical and physical presence of a real piano. This paper describes the technical details of the Piano Automaton as well as the compositional concepts of several short generative Etudes that have been realised so far.