Peter Elyakim Taussig - Music Technology and Education

Music Technology and Education

Influenced by the late Glenn Gould’s fascination with technology, Taussig became involved in the emerging computer music technology in the 1980s, composing electronic scores for his videos. This interest eventually lead to an appointment in 1996 to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto where he was charged with developing a new, computer based, piano lesson, a long-term project which eventually became PianoKids in the United States, a comprehensive teaching method for young children to acquire the rudiments of music literacy and composition with computers.

After moving to the United States, Taussig developed a second technology tool at the Yamaha Corporation, Musical Sculpting. Using the company’s Disklavier-PRO computer-driven concert grand, the application allowed handicapped pianists to record with minimal use of their fingers. To demonstrate the potential inherent in this novel recording technique Taussig released two albums created entirely without the use of fingers, Bach's, (2001) and, book 1 (2002).

In 2007 PianoKids introduced an expansion to its musical training that incorporated mathematics as part of each piano class. Math & Music was developed in collaboration with Dr. E. Paul Goldenberg of the Education Development Center (EDC) of Waltham, Massachusetts, and launched as a pilot program at an elementary school in Ohio.