Evolution And Embodiment: Playable Instruments for Free Music

Stuart Favilla Joanne Cannon Garry Greenwood Bent Leather Band Bent Leather Band Leather Artist Music and Multimedia Hub Music and Multimedia Hub [email protected] Victoria University Victoria University ICEPA ICEPA [email protected] [email protected]

ABSTRACT Grainger’s legacy includes writings, recordings and the actual machines he created. Grainger’s Free Music This demonstration-paper presents instruments and described as “music beyond the traditional constraints of music developed over the past ten years by the Bent pitch and rhythm” [5], was developed through the Leather Band. Our approach has involved the construction of many bizarre instrumental prototypes development of music and several stages of specialised including; 6th tone tuned fitted with player instrument prototypes for live performance. This systems, air-pump powered reed organs capable of fine demonstration will present the evolution of our controlled portamenti, and large machines; such as the instruments. Additionally the topics of controller kangaroo pouch; which allowed the pitch of up to four mapping and the formation of the ensemble’s musical electronic valve oscillators to be played by score of cut style will be presented in the context of Percy Grainger’s cardboard and paper rolls. Free music. A musician of his time, Grainger was reliant on player 1. INTRODUCTION technology. A confident composer/instrument builder; Grainger chose to sequence his music on paper As instrument-builders and musicians the Bent Leather and cardboard rolls. The language of Free Music remains Band has been drawn to technology as a means of a remarkable collection of brief recorded experiments inquiry and exploration. Over the past 12 years we have together with the instruments Grainger built. been developing alternate controllers and the music that Unfortunately the limits of technology, time and money they play with a spirit of frontier exploration. We have arrested the development and realization of Grainger’s designed and built interfaces for Indian music and the dream, constraints experimental musicians are all too performance of Gamaka [1], [2], focused our attention familiar with. towards multi-parameter and virtuosic control [3], [4], and investigated over the last four years, the work of 1.2. Playable Instruments Percy Grainger through collaboration with Melbourne’s

Grainger museum. Our research aim was to build new playable instruments

for the live performance of . The goals of our research were: 1. To build an ensemble of new playable computer music instruments 2. Develop a new improvised music and ensemble. 3. Build prototypes and develop them into mature instruments. 4. Explore the language of Percy Grainger’s Free Music.

For our research we chose to define playable as: • expressive, • responsive, • versatile in solo and ensemble performance, • an instrument that lets you practice for hours; • an instrument that does not limit technical or musical development; • inspiring and revealing new things to the player; Figure 1. Joanne Cannon and Contra-Monster • an instrument that has its own sound and personality.

The focus on playability was intended to unify all aspects of controller interface design across as many possible The Light-Harp's hardware allows for the threshold disciplines, e.g. Cybernetics, HCI, Ergonomics, Gesture attenuation of light-sensors. This reduces the response research, Skill-development, etc. The goal is to produce time of light-sensors and makes sensing beams playable a successful musical outcome. The aim was to create an of up to 200 MIDI notes a second. This means that experiment where several generations of prototype could unlike conventional keyboards and other controllers, the evolve into an instrument, technique, musical language Light-Harp is capable of performing extremely dense and set of gestures etc that are the embodiment of the and interesting textures as well as glissandi etc. The music. experience of building two previous instruments has

brought about changes to the instruments dimension and Last of all, we felt it was necessary to engage in a shape. The playing surface is scalloped so the player can musical discourse. Grainger’s Free Music is not well feel where exactly the sensors sit under the fingers. The known in Australia. Yet Grainger’s contribution to curvature of the neck has been increased making the electronic music is quite extraordinary. His experiments instrument’s dimension more compact and finally, all of made use of piano and reed-box timbres, in addition to the ancillary controllers have been grouped to allow his valve oscillator and works. Grainger’s quick access for all controls. dislike for interpreters of his free music can also be understood as a desire to make and perform his own The 3rd generation Light-Harp supports an extensive music. We know how impressed Grainger was with array of ancillary controllers. These include an active improvised music. After all, he brought the Ellington electro-magnetic wammy-bar, a two-dimensional Band into one of his composition classes in New York, bamboo wammy-bar, two large wheels, breath control and ranked Rarotongan improvised polyphony an equal and two touch-sensitive strips. There are currently 5 third on his top ten list. independent dimensions of control. There is also a

control panel of 16 assignable pots for synthesis 2. INSTRUMENTS AND ENSEMBLE parameter control. The instrument controls The instruments built consist of two separate or softsynths on a Mac G4 Tibook using /MSP to approaches. A meta-instrument project fitted sensors to take care of parameter and controller mapping etc. zurnas and oboes and then manipulated the sound via live signal processing. The other approach continued 2.2. Serpents and Monsters work on Stuart Favilla’s Light-Harp controllers. The evolution of the meta-instrument controllers began with modifying simple double reed instruments with sensors. Joanne Cannon, a bassoonist, had wanted to transport her reed playing into a signal-processing environment.

The first prototype instrument used force sensitive resistors and a passive magnetic proximity sensor that sensed the position of the instrument’s bell. This instrument was interfaced via a MIDI control circuit to a laptop running Max which in turn controlled a number of effects units. The musical language we developed for this instrument made heavy use of delays, which we used to create additional parts. These techniques required fine control of times and more controllers were desired to independently control the multiple audio streams. The major drawback of this instrument proved to be its limited tonal production. This led to the idea of making long tubes with open holes. Figure 2. Leather Light-Harp with REV Exhibition helper Dan, 2002, dimensions 164 x 64 x 29cm

2.1. Light-Harp The Light-Harp uses spotlights and lasers to trace virtual strings through space for performers to play. The instrument is a MIDI controller and was originally designed by Stuart Favilla and built in collaboration with David Brown [a violin maker who has also made surf- boards!] and Robin Whittle [a notable computer music instrument developer and designer].

Figure 3. Serpentine-Bassoon, photo by Philip Kuruvita audience to decipher some very complex and unusual 2002, dimensions 33 x 78 x 26cm textures in our music.

The second prototype instrument we built in Mapping strategies have also developed for separate collaboration with instrument leather instrument maker musical outcomes. For example; an exploratory mapping Garry Greenwood. The Serpentine Bassoon is a leather will allow for an extensive range of transformations to be meta-bassoon, with a 2.4meter conical bore. The applied to a single audio source; whereas a focused instrument has eight open holes; which can be used to mapping; may allow for one specific parameter to be play pitches or closed with stoppers allowing for sensors controlled in a variety of different ways. Tables, buffers to be played instead. This instrument produced a variety and other objects were applied to controller inputs, to of timbres reminiscent of bassoons and horns. Two adjust, rescale, smooth and correct the feel and contact condenser were used to pick up a responsiveness of sensors and controllers. large variety of sounds and the signal was processed using MaxMSP via a Digi002. Dials were added for fine MaxMSP patches were created for control of granular delay time and other parameter control and three force processing, real-time sampling and delay techniques, re- sensitive resistors were used to control dynamic features tuning, enveloping, filtering, modulation techniques, of the signal processing such as acoustic or delay pitch-shifting and the hosting and control of audio plug- feedback etc. ins. We still have a preference for working with at least one external module via MIDI having The third instrument; dubbed Contra-Monster, has a discovered latency limitations and unexpected crashes 3.6meter conical bore and was built solely for signal with many softsynths. processing. It has two built in condenser microphones, and 15 controllers including, three dials, one fine tuning We also created MaxMSP patches for surround sound dial, one fader, two joysticks and six small force performance. We experimented with four-channel sensitive pads; in the place of finger holes. The sensors panning, spatial location and phasing effects. We have have been positioned ergonomically for ease and also performed various types of spatial motion and tried effectiveness of use and the interface was completed with to develop effective methods for presenting this to a live a small built in display for the performer. The Contra- audience. The difficulty we have had with spatial sound Monster is capable of ten simultaneous degrees of still remains the disconnection of the projected sound freedom. from the players’ gesture. We aim to continue working in this area. The instrument was built around a MIDIBox Plus PIC controller that was redesigned to make the circuit board Latency and timing delays remain a major issue for our smaller. A small panel of push buttons allows for the work and not only seem to inhibit skill development but instruments controller mode to be changed allowing for also significantly reduce the players’ sense of intimacy over 760 possible assignments for the MIDI controller with their sound. MIDI, for all its simplicity and signals. construction immediacy, lacks real resolution and subtlety [6]. Even with data averaging, slewing, and re- 3. SENSOR MAPPING AND ENSEMBLE scaling techniques there are always limits to what can be achieved. We discovered that mapping sensors and controllers is definitely a two-person job. We achieved our best results 4. FUTURE DIRECTIONS with one person at the computer while the other would play their instrument. We would begin our sessions with The next stage of our work has to clearly address the set goals and often find ourselves diverted by surprising limitations of MIDI. MIDI is now cheaper and simpler to discoveries. These discoveries would often lead to the build with than I can ever remember. Modifying a formation of entirely new pieces. Whenever we MIDIBox plus circuit cost us roughly $200 in parts discovered a new sound we would attempt to find a compared to our first MIDI microprocessor board we suitable controller technique and vice versa. Transferring built in 1992 at a cost of over $5,000. The next techniques from LightHarp to Serpents would then generation of Bent Leather instruments will hopefully follow with improvisation and finally recording. implement OSC, put the Mac/PC directly in the instrument and perhaps even be portable. Our mapping strategy developed to; facilitate maximum expression, allow for very fine control, provide the 5. REFERENCES player with good sensory feedback, allow for discovery and link meaningful gestures to the music being played. [1] Favilla, S. “The LDR Controller”, Proceedings This sense of embodiment was essential for ensemble of the International Computer Music cueing and it also would provide clear cues for the Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, 1994.

[2] Favilla, S. “Live Performance and Virtuosic Pitch-bend technique for the Synthesizer”, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, 1994. [3] Favilla, S. “Non-linear Controller Mapping for the Gestural Control of Gamaka.”, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Hong Kong, 1996. [4] Favilla, S. “Real-time Control of Synthesis Parameters for LightHarp MIDI Controller” Proceedings of the 1997 ACMA Conference. [5] http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/free_ music_machine/index.html [6] Nelson, M. Thom, B. “A Survey of Real-Time MIDI Performance”, NIME Proceedings, Hamamatsu, Japan, 2004.