We’ve seen Siri do nearly everything imaginable, but did you know that Apple’s virtual assistant is also a musician? The Yamaha Disklavier can be controlled by Siri, as demonstrated in the above video.
Siri takes a song from your iPhone’s Music library and sends it through an Airport Express to then get analyzed and played perfectly by the piano. Hey, it’s a lot easier than learning the piano yourself, right?
Yamaha explained the way this setup works to The Loop:
Take a standard MIDI songfile and convert it to an audio file (while maintaining the MIDI data). The songfile is then sent wirelessly via WiFi to an Apple Airport Express (which is mounted underneath a Yamaha Disklavier reproducing piano. The audio output of the Airport Express is then connected to the analog MIDI inputs of the Disklavier, using a standard audio cable.
Then, you simply ask Siri to play your favorite song from your iTunes library, and Siri responds immediately, by making the Disklavier’s keys and pedal move up and down, recreating the performance, including full orchestration.
Pretty dang cool.
