- Roli has a new AI piano assistant to accompany your latest instruments.
- The Piano AI assistant offers real-time, personalized help and lessons.
- AI is there to make learning and creating music more intuitive.
Piano teachers of the strict and capricious variety are a staple of movies and television, but music technology company Roli now offers a piano tutor built into the instrument. The new Piano Roli features a custom AI guide under the $800, 49-key keyboard.
Roli’s AI Piano Assistant does exactly what it sounds like: it makes learning music easier and more fun than practicing alone. It can guide players through scales, explain ways to vary a melody, and even explain some music history in the context of specific compositions. It’s like having a music teacher who never tires and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
“In a few years, it will seem old-fashioned that a piano or keyboard can’t help guide you, can’t see your hands and respond to them in many ways, and can’t have a conversation to help you,” Roli CEO Roland Lamb explained in a statement.
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That piano system is more than just the AI tutor and includes several features built into the keyboard. The Brightkey feature identifies the song you’re playing and then lights up the keys to guide you through notes and chords. Roli instruments also come with the Roli Airwave tool, which uses computer vision and AI to track your hand movements on the keyboard, allowing the AI Assistant to make targeted corrections as you learn to play a new part. Additionally, the keys are sensitive enough to the way they are played that they can mimic mechanical pianos in terms of bending releases and other complex musical changes.
These AI tools can serve to make music more accessible to many people interested in learning piano. Instead of giving up after your first clumsy version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” the AI assistant could encourage you to keep going. And for experienced players, expressive features and personalized prompts can spark new creative ideas.
The $800 price tag is steep, but as these types of tools become more common, it’s not hard to imagine a future where music education leverages AI to give more people the opportunity to learn.
AI may not be music to every pianist’s ears, but it may be worth humming along with, at least.
