I'm no stranger to music -- I sing and play bajo and theremin in my band, Ropetrick. I also taught myself guitar (still a work in progress). But there's one instrument I haven't conquered yet: the piano.
Instead of going through private lessons or stumbling through YouTube video tutorials, I went on a quest to see if a new gadget could get me up to speed quickly on how to read and play.
That's where the Roli Piano Learning System comes in. It promises to make piano lessons fun by using an iPad app paired with Roli's Piano -- a 49-key midi controller -- along with the Airwave, an instrument and controller that uses camera sensors to track your hand movements.
In this episode of Prove It, embedded above, I go through the process of teaching myself with a high-tech musical system.
This isn't just one device -- it's multiple machines coming together to be your teacher.
At the center is the Roli Piano, a $599 midi controller with keys that light up like a Simon memory game. It has one port for your sustain or expression pedal, and it has an USB-C port for charging and data transfer. You can also connect the piano to your phone or tablet with Bluetooth and access the ROLI Learn app.
Because it's a midi controller and not a standalone keyboard, it doesn't have a headphone jack or output for an instrument cable on the piano; its sound comes through whatever device you have it connected to. And if you connect it to your phone via Bluetooth and connect your phone to Bluetooth headphones or a speaker, you will notice latency between the time you strike a key and the time you hear the note.
The Airwave retails for $349 and is a new type of instrument Roli calls an "expressive controller." It has two USB-C ports for charging and data, a pedal input, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It magnetically connects to your Roli Piano and uses USB-C to sync with the Roli Learn app on compatible iPads.
But the real draw of the Airwave is in the infrared cameras it uses to track your hand movements at a rate of 90 frames per second using something called Vision Technology. These cameras track your hands in real time, and the Airwave creates an animated version of them on screen. This allows the Roli Learn app to help correct your hand posture and it color-codes your fingers to match the color of the keys that you should play with them. If you're an experienced piano player, you can use the Airwave to create some seriously cool musical effects, like layering in multiple sounds with just a wave of your wrist.
The Roli Learn app ($14.99 a month) is so much fun to use. It combines YouTube-style video tutorials with an interactive interface that looks and feels a lot like Guitar Hero. The introductory courses are really easy to follow -- anyone could do it. (My colleague Bridget Carey says her 6-year-old enjoys using the included games to learn how to play.)
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