The Xyolin, a 10-Octave Continuous-Pitch
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Note C D E F G A B C Pythagorean Tuning 204 204 90 204 204 204 90 THE XYOLIN, A 10-OCTAVE CONTINUOUS-PITCH XYLOPHONE, Ptolemaic Tuning 204 182 112 204 182 204 112 Mean-tone Temperament 193 193 117 193 193 193 117 AND OTHER EXISTEMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS Werckmeister I 192 198 108 198 192 204 108 Equal Temperament 200 200 100 200 200 200 100 Steve Mann and Ryan Janzen Table 1. Diatonic overview of several historical tuning systems. All interval values are expressed in cents. University of Toronto, Faculties of Engineering, Arts&Sci., and Forestry now play together with any scale that is presented by mu- 600 sicians, ranging from alternative scales to ethnic instru- ABSTRACT these senses, i.e. instruments that are tactile (and can thus, 500 ments. Any alteration in the scale is noticed directly, and A class of truly acoustic, yet computational musical in- for example, be played and enjoyed without the ear—they can even be enjoyed by the deaf), and instruments that are 400 can the scale can be adjusted. struments is presented. The instruments are based on physi- phones (instruments where the initial sound-production is “Readymades” in the Duchamp/Seth Kim-Cohen sense (with 300 the existential self-deterimination of the DIY “maker” cul- 5. FUTURE WORK physical rather than virtual), which have been outfitted 200 with computation and tactuation, such that the final sound ture). 100 The interface of Tarsos will be provided with a scale visu- delivery is also physical. 2. BACKGROUND AND PRIOR WORK Number o f annotations In one example, a single plank of wood is turned into alization that does not refer to the Western keyboard and The work presented in this paper can be thought of as 99 231 363 495 633 756 897 10351167 that comprises the size of the intervals as an ecological a continuous-pitch xylophone in which the initial sound Pitch (cent) an extension of the concept of physiphones [Mann, 2007] user interface. Another feature will be the display of non- production originates xylophonically (i.e. as vibrations Figure 4. This composition contains an equal tempera- (using the natural acoustic sound production in physical octave bound organisation of scales, as for example the in wood), as input to a computational user-interface. But ment of 9 tones per octave material and objects for computer input devices), which it- 88CET or Bohlen-Pierce. Where the user can (re)set the rather than using a loudspeaker to reproduce the computer- processed sound, the final sound delivery is also xylo- self may be regarded as an extension of hyperinstruments interval of the octave towards any personal choice. Tarsos [Machover, 1991]. can be seen in Figure 4. Each interval counts 133 cents, will be applied on the entire RMCA archive intending a phonic (i.e. the same wood itself is set into mechanical vi- which entails the occurrence of 9 major thirds and 9 aug- better insight in African tone scales. bration, driven by the computer output). This xylophone, 2.1. Computer music and user-interfaces which we call the “Xyolin”, produces continuously vari- mented fifths in the scale as well. It provides the piece Traditional computer-music is generated by using vari- able pitch like a violin. It also covers more than 10 oc- a scale that is built on a mixture of unknown and more 6. REFERENCES ous kinds of Human-Computer Interfaces (input devices), taves, and includes the entire range of human hearing, familiar intervals. However Tarsos did retrieve all nine connected to a computer system, which synthesizes the over its 122 centimeter length, logarithmically (1 semi- pitch classes, also three small deviations of pitch classes [1] C. Cannam, “The vamp audio analysis plugin api: A sound we hear through a loudspeaker system. See Fig. 1, tone per centimeter). were noticed. Each of these three pitch classes measure programmer’s guide,” http://vamp-plugins.org/guide. in relation to Fig. 2 3 4, to be described in what follows. Other examples include pagophones in which initial consequently 38 cents lower then the three notes from the pdf. Some of the input devices used for computer music sound generation occurs in ice, and final sound output also intended scale (namely 231 633 and 897 cents). They oc- are very creative. For example, Hiroshi Ishii of the MIT [2] A. de Cheveigne´ and K. Hideki, “Yin, a fundamental occurs in the ice. curred in a specific octave, and not over the entire ambitus. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab has frequency estimator for speech and music,” The Jour- More generally, we propose an existemological (ex- More research could tell the intention of these tones. worked extensively to develop TUIs (Tangible User Inter- nal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 111, istential epistemology, i.e. “learn-by-being”) framework faces) [Ishii and Ullmer, 1997]. no. 4, pp. 1917–1930, 2002. where any found material or object can be turned into 3.3. Historical scales TUIs have been extensively used as user-interfaces a highly expressive musical instrument in which sound [3] T. De Mulder, “Recent improvements of an auditory [Vertegaal and Ungvary, 2001] [Alonso and Keyson, 2005]. One can upload any of the historical scales that is listed in both originates and is output idiophonically in the same model based front-end for the transcription of vocal Many of these user-interfaces are extensive and creative, Scala, or made manually, and convert any classical sym- material or object, which may include some or all of the queries,” in Proceedings of the IEEE International and use real-world objects as input devices. For example, bolic score available in MIDI into audio. As for example player’s own body as part of the instrument. Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Process- Luc Geurts and Vero Vanden Abeele have used a bowl of Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, BWV 846-893, can ing, 2004. water with electrical contacts in the water as a computer be listened to in equal-temperament or in well-temperament. 1. NON-COCHLEAR SOUND input device so that splashing the water triggers the play- Interesting opposition since there is still a discussion on [4] P. McLeod and G. Wyvill, “A smarter way to find The theme of this year’s ICMC conference is Non-Cochlear back of a pre-recorded sound sample which tuning Bach intended these compositions for[5]. pitch,” in Proceedings of International Computer Mu- sound. The notion of non-cochlear sound is suggestive of [Geurts and Abeele, 2012]. Others have created systems Another use case is rendering some baroque compositions, sic Conference, ICMC, 2005. two things: that allow anyone to easily turn any objects such as fruit, that are known for their sensitivity towards affective the- [5] S. M. Ruiz, “Temperament in Bach’s Well-Tempered 1. sound that is perceived by other than the cochlea, plants, human skin, water, paintbrushes, or other objects ory, in several tuning systems. As a teaser, table1 gives Clavier. A historical survey and a new evaluation e.g. tactile sound (sound that can be felt through into musical instruments [Silver et al., 2012]. an overview of some historical tunings. Notice the small according to dissonance theory,” Ph.D. dissertation, the whole body rather than only heard); and variations in the different diatonic scales. Thus the piano keyboard symbol of Fig. 1 is meant to Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, 2011. 2. a metaphor likened to Marcel Duchamp’s “non-retinal” stand for any of the wide variety of Human-Computer in- visual art, broadening our perception of what is meant put device in common usage, which can include real world 4. TARSOS LIVE [6] J. Six and O. Cornelis, “Tarsos - a Platform to Explore Pitch Scales in Non-Western and Western Music,” in by art, through “Readymades” (ordinary found ob- physical objects, such as a bowl of water, as input devices. Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on jects as art, for example). Likewise Non-Cochlear Tarsos can be used real-time: when this option is selected, 2.2. Machover’s Hyperinstruments any tone or set of tones that is presented is directly analy- Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2011), 2011. Sonic Art can be thought of as broadening our un- sized. The scale that is played arises on the graphical derstanding of sonic art in the Seth Kim-Cohen sense In 1986, Tod Machover, from the MIT Media Lab de- [7] G. Tzanetakis, A. Kapur, W. A. Schloss, and axes. By selecting the peaks of the annotations, the pro- of “Non-Cochlear”[Kim-Cohen, 2009]. veloped the concept of hyperinstruments, in which real M. Wright, “Computational ethnomusicology,” Jour- gram allows you to play together with the live musician This paper presents a methodology and philosophy of physical objects such as a violin, cello, or piano, are fit- nal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, in that specific scale. Many possibilities come forward, instrument-building that embraces non-cochlear in both ted with sensors as input devices to a computer which 2007. an interesting one is that Western classical musicians can _450 _451 MALLET WITH TRANSDUCER of an audience of more than 10,000 people. The resulting INSIDE IT COMPUTER COMPUTER MIC. OR PICKUP instrument was a variation of the hydraulophone known as INPUT DEVICE SPEAKER USER USER SPEAKER the balnaphone. XYLOPHONE PLANK, WHICH IS ALSO OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL SENSORS Figure 1: A common computer music methodology: A user interacts with a user- Additionally, hyperacoustic instruments facilitate truly ITS OWN SOUNDBOARD interface that is connected to a computer, which generates sound through amplifi- Figure 3: Mann’s physiphones (hyperacoustic instruments): A user interacts with TRANSMIT/RECV cation and a speaker system.