https://www.yamaha.com/en/news_release/2018/18013101/, January 11, 2018.

January 31, 2018

Yamaha Artificial Intelligence (AI) Transforms

a Dancer into a Pianist
Dancer: Kaiji Moriyama, Accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Scharoun
Ensemble
HAMAMATSU, Japan, Jan. 31, 2018 — Yamaha Corporation is excited to announce that
Yamaha artificial intelligence (AI) technology enabled a world-renowned dancer Kaiji
Moriyama to control a piano by his movements. The concert, held in Tokyo on November 22,
2017, was entitled "Mai Hi Ten Yu"' and was sponsored by Tokyo University of the Arts and
Tokyo University of the Arts COI. Yamaha provided an original system, which can translate
human movements into musical expression by using AI technology, as technical cooperation for
the concert.
Digest Version (96sec)
Full Version (5min16sec)
Drawing on the system provided by Yamaha, Moriyama gave a brilliant performance with
synchronized beautiful piano sound. Moreover, the performance was accompanied by other
leading players, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Scharoun Ensemble.
The concert performed by the talented players with Yamaha technology showed "a form of
expression that fuses body movements and music."
Yamaha believes this performance represents steady progress in the pursuit of new forms of
artistic expression and will continue to develop this technology to further expand the possibilities
for human expression.
 Download

Technology Overview

The AI adopted in the system, which is now under development, can identify a dancer's
movement in real time by analyzing signals from four types of sensors attached to a dancer's
body. This system has an original database that links melody and movements, and, with this
database, the AI on the system creates suitable melody data (MIDI) from the dancer's movements
instantly. The system then sends the MIDI data to a Yamaha Disklavier™ player piano, and it is
translated into music.
To convert dance movements into musical expression, the Yamaha Disklavier™ is indispensable
because it can reproduce a rich range of sounds with extreme accuracy through very slight
changes in piano touch. Moreover, we use a special Disklavier in the concert which was
configured based on Yamaha flagship model CFX concert grand piano to express fully and
completely the performance of the talented dancer Moriyama.
 Download

Disklavier™
An original system developed by Yamaha, the Disklavier™ is a hybrid player piano that performs automatically and
can reproduce the movements of the keyboard and pedal with extreme accuracy. The latest model, the Disklavier™
ENSPIRE, includes recordings of the original sound sources of world-famous artists. This feature enhances the
enjoyment of musical performances that users can experience at their leisure.

Comments of Participants

Kaiji Moriyama, Dancer

As the AI system processed and translated my dance movements into music, I felt reawakened to
the incredible power of human beings to sense thought and action.

Peter Riegelbauer, Representative Member of the Berlin Philharmonic

Scharoun Ensemble
It has been very impressive for us to play with such a wonderful dancer, and we are extremely
grateful to have had this great opportunity

Isao Matsushita, Composer and Vice President of the Tokyo University

of the Arts
Art must change in tandem with the changing times. This time, many persons were involved in
creating this performance, including a dancer and engineers. This style of creating musical
compositions is challenging, but these initiatives have opened up new possibilities and given us
even more powerful inspiration than we have experienced in the past.

Motoichi Tamura, General Manager of Development Department No. 1,

Research & Development Division, Yamaha Corporation
At Yamaha, we believe that AI will become a bridge between human beings and musical
instruments. We are continuing our AI development activities to enable human beings to have
freer and more direct expression through musical instruments.

Related Images

Performance_1 ©Ayane Shindo

2,719KB

Performance_2 ©Ayane Shindo

1,299KB

Performance_3 ©Ayane Shindo

661KB
Sensors on Dancer's Back ©Ayane Shindo
1,583KB

AI System in Backstage
1,198KB

Disklavier with Receivers

1,862KB