Roli is no stranger to quirky musical instruments. After all, it pioneered the idea of a “squishy” MIDI controller. The company’s latest tool, however, could be its weirdest. The Roli Airwave is an AI-infused piano teaching gadget that also doubles as a digital theremin. Yes, the same high-pitched theremin that has appeared on hit records like The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and Erykah Badu’s “Incense.”
The Airwave is basically a tall stand with a camera on top. This camera points downward to track the player’s finger movements on a connected MIDI keyboard. Movements are tracked in real time and beamed to a tablet, which then displays visuals to teach users how to correctly play a song and fix any mistakes they are making. It’ll even try to fix bad playing posture.
The Airwave uses machine intelligence and computer vision to track the player’s hands and to offer its advice on where those hands should be placed. There’s some machine learning baked into this system when analyzing live footage to come up with accurate teaching methods.
The affiliated app also integrates with ChatGPT, allowing for natural language queries. For instance, users can ask relevant questions about the song being learned or general-use queries about music theory. Being as how a player’s hands would be occupied when in the midst of a piano tutorial, these questions can be asked by voice instead of by typing into a virtual keyboard. This won’t beat interacting with a real piano tutor, but it’ll likely be easier than hunting for a needle in the YouTube video haystack.
“Basically, 100 percent of your time when you practice, you’re going to practice correctly now,” Roli’s CEO, Roland Lamb, told Wired. “So you’ll be developing good habits over time.”
The Airwave isn’t just for students. The device is also being marketed as an outlet for experimental music-making. There are five inputs that adjust various parameters via hand movements. This means that players can use one to radically change the sound of the instrument being played.
“With the simple raise of their hands, creators can transform a piano into a full orchestra, just as a conductor would, or morph mellow synth pads into searing leads with a tilt of a wrist,” Roli wrote in a press release.
Now onto the caveats, and there are a few. This is nifty tech, of that there’s no doubt. However, there’s a significant barrier of entry. First of all, the Airwave itself will cost $300 when it releases in February. The device cannot be used on its own. It requires a pre-existing Roli keyboard, like the $1,400 Seaboard Rise 2 or the much cheaper Lumi (now called the Piano M.) Also, to access the teaching tools, users will need to bring in their own tablet. There are apps for both Android and Apple devices, but only newer iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab models will be supported.
Finally, budding piano players will also have to fork out $15 a month to access the Roli Learn music education subscription service. If money’s no object, this looks like a fairly novel way to learn the piano.
Roli says the Airwave is just the first release in what it’s calling its Music Intelligence (MI) platform. The company writes that the “Roli MI platform will be the foundation of a roadmap of future intelligent products, starting with Airwave.” Preorders for the Airwave are available right now.