Tomita, Yo, and Graham Barber. (1996) “New technology and piano study in higher education: Getting the
most out of computer-controlled player pianos,”  British Journal of Music Education, vol. 13,
no.2, 135-141.

      So far, the ever-increasing popularity of music technology has had little effect on the way we
      conduct performance studies. However, with the appearance of Computer Controlled Player
      Pianos, such as the Yamaha Disklavier and Bösendorfer SE, the technology is just waiting to
      be used.

The conflict between tradition and innovation is part of everyday experience. In music education tested methods always run the business, and the application of new technology is left aside only for the teachers who have more access to experiment with it and to prove their effectiveness. Here, teachers and students alike have to rely on their independent research to test the usefulness of new technologies. It is also particularly difficult to assess what significance the application of new technology can have with the effectiveness of teaching and learning. For that reason, a re-evaluation of the past and the present teaching methods is a requirement.
 

In this article, the authors, Tomita and Barber examine various aspects of the new technology and piano study, and the ways in which this technology can be used to enhance traditional methods of piano teaching. While technology in music education has been valued primarily as a subject in its own right, its first practical use was for expanding the tools and the medium in composition studies. Synthesizers and mixers became a new source of inspiration to composers, offering new sounds, and different possibilities of working.
 
The Computer Controlled Player Piano (CCPP) appeared in 1986 is a conventional piano combined with a computer-controlled mechanism for recording and playback operations. In  19994/5 that piano was used for a research project, at the University of Leeds, in which eight first-study pianists, from first year undergraduate to masters levels, participated. They experimented with all the possibilities offered by that instrument including sound acoustic recording and playing back, sound track recording for separate hands practice, piano roll, sound duration, intensity and evenness, etc. Feedback from the students at the end of the project suggested that they thought that their self-assessment technique, their ability to work systematically and strategically, and their skill in utilizing technology had improved measurably.

The authors’ concept with Computer-Based Learning for pianists is that when students work independently, they are not left without guidance, but have a computer-delivered programme of instruction to refer to when it is necessary.

I think that all those new possibilities offered by the CCPP are valuable for keyboard class students when learning the fundamentals of music through the keyboard. All those features can be very helpful in a class with 20 students, because of the possibilities that those computers offer for working with the students individually, or in different groups assigned from the teacher’s masterkeyboard table. I still do not see any advantage for pianists in regarding a better quality of sound, technique, and performance.