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Monday 30 May 2011

How musicians create augmented musical instruments

augmented instruments are easy for performers of the pre-existing instruments. Musicians themselves have expertise, so let them do design. Come up w a system to let them easily do augmentations.

thr augmentalist was designed collaboratively.

gestures go to instrument, sesnors or both. Sound goes into daw. Processing happens

photo of a slider bar taped to a guitar: quick and easy!

instrument design sessions w 10 pop musicians. Experimenters presented system and updates then a testing session, then instrumentalists played arouns, then instrumentalists made suugestions for changes.

guitarists put tilt measurements on the head. Slider on guitar body. Sensors mapped to typical pedal fx.

an mc stuck thing to a mic and himself. Slider on the mic. Fsr on mic body. Accelerometer on his hand. And movements went to pich shifter.

interesting results: most performers tried to use similar movement, like moving head and body. Only one person kept this. All instruments used tilt.

hundreds of gesture/sound mappings were tried. Most considered successful, but not all were kept. Guitarists tend to develop the same augmentations as each other. But some unusual things were developed also.

musicians start with technology rather than the gesture. Technology is seen as the limitation, so start w it's limitations.

all musicians believed they could come to master systems.

over time, the musicans make the fx more subtle and musical

can people swap instruments? Yes, they felt each other's instruments were easy to use.

one guitarist uses the system with his band and they're gigging w it.

takes up a lot of brain cycles to use extensions. It takes a lot of practice.

every musician had maximum enjoyment at every session.

this kind of user-lead thing can create new avenues for research.

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