Sometimes I think people don't really get what I do. Piano research...but what does that mean?Well, it means I do things like carefully measure and tape up a guitar so I can do modal analysis, a technique that lets us see how an object vibrates at different frequencies. It also means I spend a lot of time writing programs to analyze sound and create maps of those sounds so we can compare two different instruments. I do all of this in my piano lab...a room full of computers, accelerometers, and a big old grand piano. A lot of my time is spent thinking about things after they've been transformed to a new domain, something that makes you think differently about the world we live in.
Above is what a piano sounds like, and below is what a guitar sounds like...
I've also been teaching this term, filling in for a prof who is on sabbatical. To say the least teaching a class of 90 second year engineering students has been an experience...The course was about social factors in design. A lot of singing and dancing in front of a presentation screen, but overall a good experience.
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