Research Project: LinnStrument -- A New Musical Instrument Concept
Originally posted Friday night, May 14, 2010 (See bottom of page for update)
If you've read my (Roger's) New Musical Instruments page, you know that I'm interested in the idea of new musical instruments that overcome the limitations of traditional mechanical instruments. My particular interest is in a new instrument that while capable of entirely new sounds and playing techniques, is also able to reproduce the sounds, virtuosic performance capabilities and subtleties that we've come to know and love from traditional musical instruments, but without all their problems and limitations.
I've come up with a prototype of an instrument design that I like. Here's a brief video demonstration of it, which has received 167,000 views on YouTube since it was posted on May 15:
The prototype consists of a multi-touch, pressure-sensitive, high-resolution USB touch surface from a company called TouchCo (details below). A printed transparency containing the note names is attached to the top, and another clear sheet with each square cut out is attached above it in order to provide tactile feedback of the borders between notes. An program written by a friend and fellow music/art/technology enthusiast named Tim Thompson translates the TouchCo's proprietary USB messages into TUIO messages sent over OSC. A Max/MSP patch written by me and my wife Ingrid receives the TUIO/OSC messages, converts the x/y/z data into note locations, pitch, timbre and pressure data and synthesizes the sounds.
Here are photos of the prototype and close-up of the touch surface, which you can click for high-resolution versions:
Here's a rendering I made of what it might look like as a finished product (click it to see a high-resolution picture):
This design uses a fingerboard grid consisting of 6 rows of 24 semitones each, similar to a guitar. In acknowledgement of my wife Ingrid's contribution to the engineering, we like to refer to this note grid as the "InGRID". :) It also has two thumb control strips, one on each side of the fingerboard, to be used for sustaining fingered notes after release, strumming, bowing, blowing or restriking, and also has a wind sensor for added expression. (Ignore the 4 long, thin bars on each side; they were to be used as separate palm-actuated sustain bars, but I've decided that the two thumb strips work better for this.) This design is intended to be played from either of two positions:
1) On a table, with both hands playing from one side and using only one thumb control strip for both thumbs. Because note expression is controlled by subtle changes in finger pressure, the table provides the necessary resistance to that pressure.
2) On your chest vertically, with one hand playing from each side of the instrument. In this case, the left thumb control strip is used by the left thumb and the right thumb control strip is used by the right thumb. Because note expression is controlled by subtle changes in finger pressure, your body provides the necessary resistance to that pressure. This position conveniently places the wind sensor close to the mouth.
In an effort to continue my silly tradition of product titles containing my last name, I think I might call this "LinnStrument". :)
Details of the design and why I like it
* It is able to sense independent and simultaneous x (pitch), y (timbre) and z/pressure (expression) data from each finger within each 3/4" square cell of the note grid. This permits independent control of the pitch/timbre/expression envelopes of each note in real time as you play, and a very high degree of solo expression without sacrificing polyphony and therefore the ability to produce both chords and highly expressive solos at the same time. An alternate Velocity mode can be enabled, in which the pressure data is replaced by velocity data (force of initial note strike), useful for guitar, piano, drums or percussive instruments.
* It uses a fingerboard note layout that borrows from the two most popular traditional instruments-- guitar and piano. Like a guitar, it uses parallel rows of semitones offset by fourths. (A guitar has the odd third inverval between the G and B strings.) Like a piano, the notes increment chromatically as you move up the fingerboard, but instead of one long horizontal keyboard, the notes are arranged as a grid with rows of consecutive semitones offset by fourths. This offset of a fourth is optimal for the size of the human hand because it requires stretching left or right only 2 semitones up or down (on adjacent rows) in order to achieve any interval up to a 5th. This is perhaps one reason why the guitar is so popular. By the way, the idea of chromatic rows offset by fourths isn't my idea; more than a few jazz guitarists use fourths tuning (E-A-D-G-C-F) and Starr Labs makes a very interesting keyboard with this same layout called the Z Board. Note that the instrument permits you to choose any offset between rows that you want. For example you might choose standard guitar tuning and use only the center 6 strings.
* Because the offset between rows of semitones is always a musical fourth interval, you can use the same fingerings for chords or scales regardless of key, which is much easier to learn and transpose. Contrast this with a piano, which requires a different chord fingering for each of 12 keys; or a guitar, which because of the odd 3rd interval between the G and B strings, requires 3 different fingerings for a given chord depending on which strings you use.
* It permits sliding the pitch from one note to another (like a violin) but quantizes initial finger contact to semitones (like a guitar's frets). This gives you the best of both worlds, thereby eliminating the suffering of thousands of beginning violin students (and their parents).
* Because the note layout is a compact grid, you can see everything you're playing without changing your view. Contrast this with a piano, which requires that you frequently alternate your view between your left and right hands because of the distance between. Also, the compact grid layout has the advantage of being able to finger a chord in one hand that spans up to 4 or more octaves. Contrast this with a piano, which has a maximum pitch range for a one-hand chord of about a musical tenth interval.
* While the primary mode of playing requires only a single finger for each note, 2 long pressure- and position-sensitive thumb strips (one on either side of the fingerboard) permit you to use your thumbs either as sustain bars (to hold the fingered notes after release) or as excitation strips to strum (arpeggiate), bow, blow, pick or restrike (depending on the sound being synthesized) the fingered notes, useful for reproducing the sounds of traditional instruments.
* It completely abandons any remnants of mechanical age instruments in favor of electro-mechanical input sensors with independent sound synthesis. This has the advantages of using a single playing interface independent of the instrument sound, being able to change the fingerboard properties by software, is lightweight and portable, is inexpensive and easily manufactureable, and never goes out of tune.
Why am I showing this before it's done?
I came up with this design in 2006 and development has been slow because my small company has limited resources to develop such a complex product. (Any interested investors?) Also, there aren't many musicians who see anything wrong with current instruments, so not too many people would buy it anyway. A key expense is in developing a multi-touch, pressure-sensitive, high-resolution, fast-response, low cost touch surface technology.
Then in 2009, a new company called TouchCo introduced a technology for a multi-touch, pressure-sensitive, high-resolution input surface that's also very low cost, quoting $10 per square foot in high volume. In fact, I'm using one of their technology evaluation units for the input surface in the video above. Unfortunately, Amazon bought them in January 2010 in order to add touchscreen technology to Kindle, then immediately shut them down and took their product off the market.
Alas, until someone else comes up with a similar touch technology or Amazon decides to make the TouchCo technology available, development of our product will be limited to refining our Max/MSP patch. One promising new technology we've evaluated is a touchscreen from Stantum (same company as JazzMutant, makers of the Lemur) that senses surface area of your fingers, which is not a bad alternative to sensing pressure because your finger surface area increases as you increase pressure. However, I found that their current resolution wasn't high enough for what I'm trying to do, plus true pressure sensing is better for musical control.
So given this situation, I decided to call this a research project and publish what I've done so far in an effort to get more people interested in and thinking about new musical instruments. Maybe even Jeff Bezos will read this and see that in the grand war between Kindles, iPads and Android tablets, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to permit some sort of controlled usage of the TouchCo technology.
- Roger Linn
Update: May 21, 2010
This has been a surprising week. To date, the video has received nearly 125,000 views on YouTube, far more than I expected for a simple video about an unusual musical instrument idea. Thanks for all who emailed me wishing to buy it or at least learn more. After many years of alternate music interfaces being a small niche product, it makes me wonder if the demand has reached the tipping point, and that a new instrument such as the one I propose might be well received the public at large. Perchance to dream. Given that the LinnStrument doesn't yet exist, please visit my New Musical Instruments page in order to learn about some of the current instruments and ideas, many of which are currently available for sale.
Here's a bit of news: I ran into someone the other day who had Jeff Bezos' email, but it probably isn't an address that he reads. Regardless, I wrote him the following email, and have as yet received no reply. If anyone knows him, please do me the favor of passing this letter on to him:
Hi Jeff,
I hope this email gets to you and I apologize for contacting you directly.
I am a designer of computer music products, known primarily for having invented a popular musical product in the 1980's called the Digital Drum Machine, as well as similar popular products in the 1990s and 2000s. I am contacting you because my company was recently planning to produce a high-tech musical instrument product that was dependent on technology from TouchCo, a company that Amazon purchased this past January and shut down. I understand the obvious reasons for keeping your property private and don't disagree.
My problem is that TouchCo was the only available current source of a pressure-sensitive, multi-touch sensor of sufficient quality to be used for musical instrument purposes. Otherwise stated, I think the evolution of musical instrument designs would be enhanced by the technology you own, and limited without it.
I am hoping there is a way to either 1) permit limited use of the TouchCo technology to companies like mine for musical instrument purposes, while not diminishing your competitive edge in your field, or 2) create a small project within Amazon, working with designers like myself and others to bring innovative musical instrument products to market that use the TouchCo technology.
I understand that the market for such innovative musical products isn't huge and your company is, after all, called Amazon. However, an interesting thing happened this weekend: I published a YouTube video demonstrating a prototype musical instrument of my design, based on a TouchCo evaluation touchpad. I jokingly named this prototype "LinnStrument" after my last name. After 4 days, this video has been played nearly 100,000 times. This suggests to me that a significant number of people wish to create music but would prefer a new type of instrument that is easier to learn and play proficiently than traditional instruments.
If you wish, I am happy to compile a list of musical instrument manufacturers and computer music educators who support my view. I realize that you've got far bigger fish to fry. However, it is my wish that you might have a moment to reply.
Thank you,
Roger Linn
LinnStrument
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