Learning an instrument is difficult for most people. That’s doubly the case when attempting to learn on your own. It’s the reason so many of us have dusty guitars and keyboards jammed up in our attic rafters amid the croquet mallets and badminton birdies of days past.
The latest product from London-based Roli offers a ray of hope to the musically hopeless and rhythmically challenged. The Airwave is a bid to lower the barrier of entry for the piano, by leveraging hand tracking and AI, and bringing a level of customization to the process that was previously limited to in-person lessons.
The Airwave is a large arching device that’s compatible with existing Roli keyboards. It utilizes 3D cameras to track hand movements and gestures, bringing an added level of nuance to playing that can’t be wholly captured by the keys themselves.
The system works with Seaboard, the flexible keyboard that put Roli on the map just over a decade ago. More compelling, however, is its integration with Piano M. That’s the rebrand of the Roli Lumi educational keyboard launched back in 2020. The Piano M’s light-up keys pair with hand tracking to get a fuller picture of how the person is playing.
The whole thing requires some AI, of course. For that, the company has launched Roli Music Intelligence; MI for short.
Building on core technologies developed over the last decade, the platform is powered by five “keys” of technology: sound, sight, touch — and now vision and voice,” the company writes. “The ROLI MI platform will be the foundation of a roadmap of future intelligent products, starting with Airwave.”
Roli says the system was trained on large language models (LLM) for natural voice commands. You can ask the system for some tips, help with chords, and get access to full songs.
The company is positioning the peripheral as more than just an educational tool. The hand-tracking can be used for music creation, as well — kind of like an AI-powered theremin.
“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 writes. “With Airwave, musicians can unlock deeper levels of creativity using 5 intuitive new dimensions: Air Raise; Air Glide; Air Tilt; Air Flex and Air Slide.”
Airwave is up for preorder starting Tuesday, priced at $299. The newly rebranded Piano M runs $259.
