Pianos Make Music Accessible Like Computers Make Math Accessible

Though it has become a naturalized part of music-making since the first one was built in 1710, the pianoforte (its name means "soft-loud") was a technical marvel for its time, a machine that changed music in ways that are hard to imagine. Computer pioneer Alan Kay once observed that any technological advance is "technology only for people who are born before it was invented,' and in the case of the piano, this applies to no one alive today. Seymour Papert, the MIT researcher, concluded, "That's why we don't argue about whether the piano is corrupting music with technology." Four hundred years later, few can play the piano well, but just about anybody can sit down at a piano, pluck out a simple tune and perhaps even sing along. Devlin realized that foremost among the piano's virtues was its ability to enable just about anyone to play real music from day one, on the same instrument that professionals use. You could go from absolute beginner to Carnegie Hall soloist course of a decade or two. The piano delivers instant feedback on your performance, allowing you to easily gauge your progress. You must touch the piano to play music, but the more you do, the more you'll learn, naturally, about melody, harmony, consonance, and dissonance. It is, in a word, immersive.

Greg Toppo, The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter (2015421)

• experimentation
• immersion
• learning
• play