Creative Musical Instrument Design
CREATIVE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT DESIGN: A report on experimental approaches, unusual creations and new concepts in the world of musical and sound instruments. A thesis submitted to the SAE Institute, London, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree in Recording Arts, awarded by Middlesex University. Author: Andrea Santini Student: 42792 Intake: RAD0503X Project Tutors: Christopher Hayne Darren Gash London, August 2004 c r e a t i v e m u s i c a l i n s t r u m e n t d e s i g n Abstract The following document presents the results of an investigation into the current reality of creative musical-instrument and sound-instrument design. The focus of this research is on acoustic and electro-acoustic devices only, sound sources involving oscillators, synthesis and sampling, be it analogue or digital, have therefore been excluded. Also, even though occasional reference will be made to historical and ‘ethnical’ instruments, they will not be treated as a core issue, the attention being primarily centered on contemporary creations. The study includes an overview of the most relevant “sonic creations” encountered in the research and chosen as representative examples to discuss the following aspects: o Interaction between body and instrument. o Sonic Space o Tuning and layout of pitches o Shapes, materials and elements o Sonic objects, noise and inharmonic sources o Aesthetics: sound instruments as art objects o Amplification and transducer technologies These where chosen to provide some degree of methodology during the research process and a coherent framework to the analysis of a subject which, due to its nature and to the scarcity of relevant studies, has unclear boundaries and a variety of possible interdisciplinary connections.
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