In Sunday’s (8/22) New York Times, James Barron writes, “The pianist Robert Taub was puttering around the house one afternoon in 2004 while his teen-age daughter was practicing for a violin lesson—a Schubert sonatina in A minor. His assessment of her playing was diplomatic: ‘She needed to be reminded about notes and rhythms.’ … Soon he was dreaming of a device—or maybe just software running on a computer—that could do everything he had learned to do in music theory class: read and play a printed musical score, and listen to a passage of music and transcribe it, down to the key signature, the tempo and the time signature. He said that a quick check showed that nothing then on the market could do all that. So Mr. Taub started exploring the world of machine-learning technology. Before long he had organized a startup company and was spending more time on conference calls than at the piano. … In recent years the world of software for musicians has exploded, with performers using their smartphones as metronomes or tuning devices. Mr. Taub has plunged in with MuseAmi’s first app, Improvox, which made its debut on iTunes last month, at $7.99 a download, and has sold a few thousand so far, Mr. Taub said.”
Posted August 23, 2010
