experimentation in electronic musical instrument report
DESCRIPTION
Kelvin Mak Ka LongTRANSCRIPT
Experimentationin Electronic Musical Instrument
Mak Ka Long, Kelvin
Unknown to knownIntroduction//Relationship//Definition//Nature of music//
?My final year project was started from my personal interest which is listening to music. I want to start my final year project as an experimental project to demonstrate my ability to create something I like.
Unknown to known - Introduction
Me Music?
PastListenerInterpreter
FutureInventorDesignerComposer
Unknown to known - Relationship
I love listening to electronic music. Being a musician is always my dream. In this project, I want to start from the initial topic as electronic music.
What can I do as a designer with the topic of electronic music? The chosen theme is challenging for me since I am not a professional musician. Indeed I had music education in my secondary school period, but I seldom play music recently, or even to compose songs. I think this unknown knowledge of understanding music has an opportunity to create something that I have never tried before.
I ask myself: what is music? And what are the difference between music, sound and noise? So I made some statements to clear my research direction.
The initial idea of product I can create can be a new musical instrument possibly with electronic technology. Next, I start to investigate the existing electronic musical instruments in the market.
Unknown to known - Definition
Music is a form expression;an intentional arrangement of noises and sounds to convey emotions or ideas,through the use of our body or tools,to soothe,to entertain,or to share.[Extracted from the text Play!Music!]
Music is designed sound.Any sound is sound.Noise is unwanted sound.
Music is a language.(My definition)
Unknown to known - Nature of music
ConstructionCompositionNotationImprovisationTheorySampling
ElementsRhythmMelodyHarmony
InstrumentStringsPercussionWindElectronicVoice
OccasionRitualsCeremonyPerformance
PsychologyEmotionEducationMindHealing
Nature of music
ResearchIntroduction//Musician//Musical instrument//Analog synthesizer//Digital synthesizer & MIDI//Modern electronic musical instrument//Electronic toy musical instrument//Experimental [Maywa Denki]//Summary//
I separate my research in 4 sectors: the musician, the electronic musical instrument, how to play it and the effect of playing this electronic musical instrument.
Research - Introduction
Pro
MusicianAmateur
Beginner
Musicalinstrument Effect
Playingmethod
Interaction Relationship Gesture
How to play
Technology AsetheticSound
producedPlay
Player
Listener
Society
For a musician, it is a fact that playing musical instrument involves learning and practice. There are different stages of the learning process. The stages are beginner, amateur and profession. Every musician has a learning curve when they learn to play an instrument.
Research - Musician
Beginner
Amateur
Pro
Stages of identity Learning curve
Experience
Learning
Research - Musical instrument
Timeline of electronic musical instrument
Telharmonium console(Thaddeus Cahill,1897)
Theremin(Leon Theremin,1924)
MIDI controller(1983)
Reactable
Early electronic music movement(1753-1949)
Analogue synthesis(1950-80)
Digital era(1980-2000)
Modern age(2000-now)
Ondes Martenot(Maurice Marteno1928)
Analogue synthesis(1950-80)
Digital synthesis(1980-2000)
Audiocubes(Bert Schiettecatte,2007)
The timeline demonstrates two significant issues: first is about the nature of music, the expression of music has never changed. There are many ways of performing music, but all of them are achieving the same goal: to play, to entertain, to convey and to communicate.
Second is technology has changed the way of performing music. Technology leads to new instruments because of electronics and programming. New music genres emerge. From the early electronic musical instrument to the modern electronic musical instrument, these musical instruments are the references of knowing how musicians use their instruments, and discover the opportunity of designing a new electronic musical instrument. In the following, product matrixes are made for analysing the language and design of the instruments in different eras, styles and purposes: analog era, digital era, modern, toy and experimental.
Analog synthesizer uses analog circuit and analog signals to generate sound electronically. In general, the sizes of analog synthesizers are large and bulky. This is because of the complex electronic modules.
Musical instrument - Analog synthesizer
minimoog
Yamaha GX-1 SequentialCircuits Prophet-5
ARP 2500
Buchla Music Easel
technical
untechnical
bulky light
EMU modular 3
Roland JD-Xi
Yamaha DX7AKAI MPD 18
Samson Graphite 25
AKAI APC40
technical
untechnical
bulky light
200e System 7
EMU - modular
Digital synthesizer uses digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to make musical sounds. It uses binary system which is similar to computers. The main difference between analog and digital is that digital synthesizer uses digital processors and analog synthesizers use analog circuitry.
Musical instrument - Digital synthesizer& MIDI
Audiocubes
Reactable
littleBits
teenage engineeringcomplicated
simple
bulky light
More and more MIDI controllers were invented. These new interface changed the way of making electronic music in a better experience. First, the modern instruments are simpler and convenient to use. For example, Audiocubes, littleBits, and teenage engineering are making controllers smaller and the usability of the current instruments is improved.
Musical instrument - Modern
complicated
simple
boring playful
dubreq stylophone
melody mike
electronic voice transformer
tote-tune
Yamaha HS-200
musion synthesizer
Electronic musical toy instrument is another category for mainly children to play. This type of instrument is colorful and cute to attract children to play. This type of electronic synthesizer is different from other categories. It is more attractive and appealing to play with.
Musical instrument - Toy
simple
complicated
livingcreature
machinelike
Another category is a product matrix of experimental musical instrument produced by Maywa Denki. Maywa Denki transforms musical instrument into just only music but I would say a plaything with a kind of meaning or an idea.
Musical instrument - Experimental [Maywa Denki]
Musical instrument - Summary
Playful
After completing the four categories of electronic musical instrument, there are four characters that I made to categorize the products: technical, experimental, simplified and playful. Which category should my instrument belong to? Or should my instrument belong to several categories?
Technical
Experimental
Simplified
Musical instrument - Summary
Experimental Experimental means the nature of testing something unknown or not known.
Technical Analog and digital belongs to the technical category.
Simplified Simplification can be seen in modern electronic musical instrument. There are a number of simplified analog synthesizers available in the market. Examples are teenage engineering and littleBits.
Playful Electronic toy musical instrument has mainly 2 characteristics: simplified and playful. The playing factor is more emphasized in this type of electronic musical instrument, the use of color, the form and the interface is simplified. It is because the target user is children or teenager. Therefore, the sound effect would not be as good as professional instruments.
How to playHand gesture//Reference//Circuit bending//
How to play - Hand gesture
Different hand movements and gestures when playing electronic musical instruments
Hand gesture while playing electronic musical instrument is important to note. Synthesizer is one of the popular electronic instruments. It has knobs and buttons. Turning a knob, pressing button and keyboards are common gestures, but is there other possibility of gesture that is more subtle and intuitive? What is the relationship between this gesture and the sound produced?
Title of the video: Trent Renzor: Archetype of a synthesizer
How to play - Reference
Swarmatron, an analog synthesizer with a ribbon controller
Trent Reznor is a musician. In the video [Archetype of a synthesizer], he was interviewed to talk about synthesizers. He talked about the relationship between him and his synthesizers. Trent treated his synthesizers as living things instead of boxes with circuitry.
To cite an example from the video, Swarmatron is one of the instruments Trent Reznor uses, its ribbon can be controlled to produce organic sound. This method of generating sound is different from conventional methods of generating sounds like turning knobs, pressing buttons or playing keyboards. This triggers me to think the possibility of creating new methods to produce sound.
DIY culture - Circuit bending
ASM-2 modular synth kit
Circuit bending process
Circuit bending and modular synthesizing are the methods hobbyists used to create new electronic musical instruments. Circuit bending is a creative method of modifying existing low-voltage electronic musical instruments or toy instrument to create new musical instruments, visual instruments and sound generators. This creative bending method is believed to have been pioneered by Reed Ghazala in the 1960s.
Circuit bending emphasizes on spontaneity and randomness. The result of bending is often unable to be predicted. Therefore, the experimenting process is the key to circuit bending.
Modular synthesizers are often used by hobbyists as kits to construct new instruments.
Next stepIntroduction//Consultation//Question//
Leung Kei-Chuek, Keith [GayBird] is a Hong Kong based professional musician, composer, artist and producer. GayBird has multiple identities. He believes art, music and technology should go together in his creations.
“CouCou on Mars”[2013]
“Digital Hug”[2012]
Next step - Introduction
Next step - Consultation
GayBirdLeung
Processof
creation
VisionKnowledge
Interest
These are the 4 aspects I want to discuss with GayBird Leung if I have the chance to have an interview with him. His experience and knowledge can help me in the project.
Next step - Question
Process of creation
//Have you always faced technical problems in the process of creating new instruments?//What are the key elements in designing your new instruments?
Interest
//What genres of music you love to listen at?
Knowledge
//I have an idea of creating lively electronic musical instrument. Do you have similar concepts in your previous work?//What do you think about the nature of electronic music? How you play with the nature of electronic music in your work?
Vision
//Are you creating your new work at the moment? Tell me about it.//What is your next move in your future work?//How you want to perform music in the future?
