Music, Software, Research
Instrumentality in Electroacoustic Music
This was the dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of my M. Phil. at the University of Birmingham in 2000. It comprises of a discussion of what constitutes instrumentality in general - i.e. what qualities make something a musical instrument, and proceeds to explain the design of a new electronic musical instrument that I developed (see left).
The instrument was very simple. The original intention was to create a single transparent surface that gave a change in voltage output for its X and Y axes. Due to various constraints (time and money), I ended up implementing the instrument as two independent screens, each giving only one output value. The system worked using polycarbonate sheets, which I had coated with an electrically conductive coating. These were suspended in a custom-built frame that allowed electrodes to be placed a various positions around the edge of the screen so that a charge could be applied. The electrical circuit for each screen was completed by the application of two hand held electrodes, and the output voltage changes were fed into the joystick port of a PC, which interpreted the data as the X and Y axes of a joystick.
The joystick data was converted into MIDI using Hubi's MIDIjoy software. As MIDI, the data could be used to control any sound synthesis or processing system supporting the MIDI protocol.
The idea of the transparent interactive screen has now advanced greatly, as evidenced by the work of Jeff Han, but it would be nice to see a device that provided a transparent multitouch interface without the need for a dark room.
I don't have access to the Abstract for this dissertation, but it can be obtained on request from the music library at the University of Birmingham.