The Wiimote has changed the way that video games are played. It seems a natural fit that this adaptation of the Wiimote as a musical controller enter this set of musings about musical interfaces.
McLuhan first noted that the Medium is the Message. I'm not the first to bastardize his words in this manner, but it seems to capture a trend among certain forward-thinking electronic musicians.
Such is a common sentiment among
rockists. --->
Perhaps part of it has to do with the nature of drum programming and sequencing in general; for many applications it sounds too perfect. Can you imagine James Brown's "Funky Drummer" rendered with a drum machine instead of Clyde Stubblefield's chops?
Perhaps part of what is to blame is the nature of the MIDI interface itself; it was designed to be analogous to a piano, which is essentially a tuned percussion instrument. The drum machine or MIDI drumpad is merely an atonal extension of this interface; like a MIDI keyboard, the only parameter that's varied is velocity. You can play it loud, you can play it soft, but you can't choose to strike the drum in the middle, off-center or on the rim. Furthermore, you can't choose between drumsticks, mallets or brushes to use. Sure, you can sample the drum being struck in different ways, but play becomes less intuitive that way...
...that is, less intuitive until musicians develop mastery of their instruments. Sure, it doesn't sound like a real drum kit, but who cares? Thus, the nature of the interface ultimately controls what sort of output you get.
In an effort to get sounds closer to what you would get with acoustic or electroacoustic instruments, alternative controllers such as electronic drum kits, guitar synthesizers, the EWI (electronic wind instrument) have been developed with varying results. But what if you threw the whole concept of emulating past instruments out and focused on the user interface?
This -->
is a piece performed on an instrument called the Reactable, which utilizes a control surface as well as tangible objects which can be placed on the surface and manipulated to control the output. This looks like a perfect controller for noise washes, though percussion may present a challenge with such an interface.
Don Buchla tinkered with alternative musical interfaces for a while, though this interface looks more like a piano with ribbon controller options for some of the keys.
Geoff Smith's Fluid Piano bring us back to more familiar territory, only with a twist. This piano's retunable on the fly, so you're no longer bound to even-temperament and its culture. (Amazing to think there's a culture associated with it!)
If you've gotten this far, thank you. Please share some of your ideas.
