Written Proposal

MUS303 Proposal: Composition Gloves

The Problem
Many people feel they are unable to engage with music because of a lack of instrumental ability or perhaps a lack of theoretical understanding. For children especially, engagement with music helps brain development and learning (Daily Mail. 2010). I think it is important to break the potential social barriers created by the terms ‘musician’ and ‘non musician’. I believe any individuals should be able to express themselves musically, even if only at a basic level, without having to invest hours learning music theory and practicing an instrument.

The Solution
I’m going to create gloves that will allow anybody to create basic compositions. The idea of escaping generic instrumental interfaces and minimising the users room for error would allow anybody using the gloves to create simple melodies over basic chord structures. The tapping of fingers onto a surface will be the action required to accomplish this.  The user should be able to set whatever key they want to work in, and assign three chords within that key for their chord progression. The other seven fingers will default to the scale of the selected key (not counting the octave). Whilst I am aware this is similar to the ‘Scale’ function within Ableton Live, I don’t know of any other DAW that has this feature. This should allow the MIDI from the gloves to run through Max and into any DAW using Rewire. This way any plugin or synth can be used with the gloves. Alternatively I could trigger sampled notes within max and output the audio to the DAW but this would limit the user to only whatever the sampled sounds were. I understand that the use of gloves to control sound is not a new idea. I have researched gloves that help the users practice finger positioning for learning the piano, compared to gloves that control multiple parameters within stage performances. For example Imogen Heap uses gloves to perform and live, using delays and reverbs and other technical effects. My initial idea however is to use the gloves as compositional tools, rather than to control effects or be a performance tool.

Method
One of the main choices I will need to make will be the type of sensors I will be using to send data. So far piezoelectric sensors seem to be a good choice as they are relatively cheap. They also have a wide measuring range and a high rigidity (Gautschi, 2002). I will also need to take into account what Arduino board would be the best for this project and I will likely have to research more into Arduino in order to make best choice. The sensors will need to be coded in Arduino so when touched they each input pressure data. I am going to need to make ten MIDI inputs correlate to a particular key and save presets for each key in Max. For three of those inputs I will need to achieve polyphony in order to make a chord from a single touch of a sensor. Finally the rewiring of the MIDI output in max to the input within a DAW will allow the gloves to work with any virtual instrument.

Aims & Objectives: Compositional Gloves
1. The gloves must be simple to understand and ergonomic to maximise their usability
2. At least three fingers must be capable of triggering polyphonic sounds such as chords
3. Have a minimum range of seven notes to accommodate common scales associated within western music

4. Have the option of selecting different keys to play in
5. Have the option to change chord structure within the selected key
6. Be used effectively by ‘non musicians’ as well as musicians

Aims & Objectives: Personal Development
1. Use Max/MSP to achieve the above aims efficiently
2. Develop my knowledge of Arduino and the use of pressure/force sensors

Bibliography

Daily Mail. 2010. Why playing a musical instrument 'can help children learn with language skills'. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252652/Learning-play-musical-instrument-helps-young-brains-develop-language-skills.html [Accessed: 05 Nov 2013].

Gautschi, G. 2002. Piezoelectric sensorics. Berlin: Springer.

Reply

Hi Tristan,

Thanks for sending over your ideas for MUS303.  I would suggest that the first two are the strongest and have greater potential for creating something interesting.

I would suggest that you forget about the third idea.

Your first idea is a strong one - there is a lot of history in using gloves as input in computer music and interaction ever since MIDI was available. You have a good approach here - the angle of instruments for "non-musicians" is a strong one.  there are interesting ways in which you can approach the interaction using various technologies and there is a good amount of attention to the detail of the sound that comes out - so there is plenty to work on!

Your second idea is also very strong - this idea is slightly more unique in terms of dealing with song structures and content. Applying certain cut up techniques and rules from chance has a good history for your research. you can certainly deal with creating phrases / strings of text in Max in an automatic writing style too. What you would need to think through if you took this project into the second term would be what the final aim would be in terms of sound - would you create a song?

Both of these ideas are good enough to run at this stage and it would be best if you simply chose which was the most appealing to you at this point and write it up as a proposal for Friday. If you really can't decide between them then submit for both of them and you could do a bit of both by the end of the term but this is slightly more work for you!

david

13th Nov

Email Correspondence

Hey David,

I thought it might be a good idea to give you three of my ideas and maybe you could tell me if you think they are too small, or big or just give me your general thoughts on each. 

I remember you saying that most people that have contacted you about their prototypes didn't really have a reason for their ideas. Because of this i've come up with 3 ideas that might actually be beneficial to the user. 

1: Composing Gloves

The idea behind these gloves, would be to enable anybody, of any age regardless of their musical ability, to compose to some level of skill. 

It would need to trigger a individual signal/bang when the tip of any finger touches any surface. Each finger would relate to either a chord or a note in the particular scale selected.  Please see the attached image for a visual representation of what I'm trying to say. 

This would ideally be a MIDI effect that would be able to be rewired to midi channel in a DAW to trigger any selected instrument. 

As it would be impossible to escape the selected key, the whole compositional process would be less dependant on your skill using a particular instrument. Obviously there would be  several limitations using the gloves, but the idea of escaping the generic instrumental interfaces and minimising the users room for error would mean anybody would be able to create simple melodies over a basic chord structure regardless of their musical ability. 

I didn't get into music when I was younger because I never felt that I could get what I wanted out of the instruments I was playing. Perhaps if that hurdle was taken away, it could inspire younger people to get into music.

2: Lyric Writing Through Music

This idea might be a little 'out there' but, I'm dreadful at writing lyrics. So I wondered if 1 verse could be related to 16 bars for example, then what if the notes played in those 16 bars, produced the lyrics to accompany that verse. 

I'm not entirely sure how this would work but, I imagine you'd need lists of words/phrases that would be triggered when particular notes, chords, or groups of notes are played? However then theres the problem of the words making sense. So perhaps it may require taking sentence structure into account.. so separating verbs, nouns, adjectives etc and having the output always order them in a way that will always make sense. 

I don't know, that ones a little off the wall, but I thought it linked in with the idea of chance and the i-Ching, as well as the cut up technique for writing lyrics. 

3: Xbox Controller

This one is quite a basic idea I suppose. It would be to hook up an xbox controller to max and use it either like a drum machine, or to trigger effects. The idea of using a familiar interface for something completely different than what we usually use it for. 

Just your initial thoughts on the above would be great.. maybe how i could develop any of those ideas etc. 

Thanks a lot,

Tristan Armes

12th Nov

Piezoelectric Sensors

Using Arduino with Piezo Sensors:

Advantages of using Piezoelectric sensors:
 - Extremely high rigidity
 - Hight natural frequency
 - Extremely wide measuring range
 - Very high stability
 - High reproducibility - Wide operating temperature range
 - Insensitivity to electric and magnetic fields

 Source: Gautschi, G. 2002. Piezoelectric sensorics. Berlin: Springer.


The videos below show the power of this type of sensor and how it can be used with max/msp, including triggering samples and 'playing' everyday items. Also shown as a contact microphone and how it can be used to record different surfaces and items.

ReacTable Trance Performance

This is brilliant. I come from the 'trance scene' and my first productions were around this genre, so this video really is of interest to me. I love how what you would usually do in your DAW, you can do on an interactive table with blocks. You can tell what most of the blocks do.. either play a sample, or act as a filter, or a gate etc..

I can imagine this on a much larger scale. You could really take automation and layering to the next level in live performances with technology like this. I also think its really cool that the top block in this video shows that pitch can be controlled by the turning of the block. I'm not quite sure how this will influence my proposal but I just think its really clever and interesting to watch as well as listen to.

I think something like this would also be a lot better when considering sound design. Instead of using the classic knobs on keyboards or synths, using a table like this for example.

I was also about to say that there is a great possibility for DJign with this technology as well but.. then I found this video and discovered it has kind of been done!