Fwd: * Combining Keyboard, Fretless String Instrument Features

>Combining Keyboard, Fretless String Instrument Features
>
>  Keywords
>music instrument electronic MIDI keyboard continuum fingerboard invention
>
>Contact Information
>Available for logged-in reporters only
>Description
>Lippold Haken's continuum fingerboard -- a new breed among electronic
instruments
>-- was born not so much out of necessity as from the inventor's passion
>for music and penchant for electronics tinkering.
>Invention combines features of keyboard, fretless string instrument

>CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Necessity often does prove to be the mother of invention.
>But Lippold Haken's continuum fingerboard -- a new breed among electronic
>instruments -- was born not so much out of necessity as from the inventor's
>passion for music and penchant for tinkering with electronics.
>After nearly two decades of development and experimentation, the instrument
>-- a MIDI controller that gives performers continuous control over each
>note played -- is primed and ready for an international show-and-tell
session.
>Haken, an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at the
>University of Illinois and leader of the UI's CERL Sound Group, will
demonstrate
>his invention at the International Computer Music Conference Aug. 28-Sept.
>1 in Berlin.
>The continuum fingerboard, which connects to a synthesizer or USB-capable
>computer, resembles a piano keyboard in shape and size, and, like a keyboard,
>is played with the fingers. However, it is more akin to a fretless string
>instrument in that it doesn't have discrete pitches.
>"Any pitch may be played," said Haken, adding that the dynamics of the
>sound are controlled by finger pressure. "The front-to-back position of
>each finger affects timbre." Vibrato can be achieved by wiggling a finger
>on a particular spot on the instrument's surface, and glissando -- a smooth
>transition from one note to another -- also is possible.
>"I've been interested in sound morphing for a long time," said the inventor,
>who hopes his instrument might be embraced by musicians and composers who
>create computer-generated music for a multitude of purposes -- from
advertising
>to film scores. "But I especially want to see it in live concert," said
>Haken, a lifelong fan of live music who knows his own way around a viola
>but humbly insists, "I play best with the door closed."
>It may be a while before vast numbers of musicians start beating down Haken's
>door to acquire the continuum fingerboard. So far, only five full-sized
>models and two half-sized models have been manufactured.
>And Haken is the first to admit that his invention may not be the easiest
>instrument to learn to play. In part, that's because it doesn't have keys
>or other indicators to assist the musician in determining finger placement.
>The flat playing surface consists of a soft, red fabric that covers the
>mechanics of the instrument -- 256 rods, 5.75 inches long, mounted on
piano-wire
>springs.
>"The rods are covered by cloth so that the performer has the impression
>of a continuous surface rather than discrete keys," Haken said. "A magnet
>is mounted at both ends of each rod, and the rods are placed between two
>rows of Hall-effect sensors." The sensors measure the positions of the
>magnets, and when the performer applies pressure, rods under the finger
>are depressed and the magnets on those rods move closer to the sensors.
>Scanning software running on the instrument's internal computer then detects
>fingers by looking for any bar that has normalized sensor values greater
>than both of its neighboring bars.
>-mm-

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Hanuman Zhang, musical mad scientist
"Space is a practiced place." -- Michel de Certeau
"Space is the Place for the Human Race." -- William S. Burroughs

"... simple, chaotic, anarchic and menacing.... This is what people of today
have lost and need most - the ability to experience permanent bodily and
mental ecstasy, to be a receiving station for messages howling by on the ether from
other worlds and nonhuman entities, those peculiar short-wave messages which
come in static-free in the secret pleasure center in the brain." - Slava Ranko
(Donald L. Philippi)

The German word for "noise" _Geräusch_ is derived from _rauschen_ "the
sound of the wind," related to _Rausch_ "ecstasy, intoxication" hinting at some
of the possible aesthetic, bodily effects of noise in music. In Japanese
Romaji: _uchu_ = "universe"... _uchoten_ = "ecstasty," "rapture"..._uchujin_ =
[space] alien!

"When you're trying to do something you should feel absolutely alone, like a
spark in the blackness of the universe."-Xenakis

"For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the
world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It
is for the hearing. It is not legible, but audible. ... Music is a herald,
for change is inscribed in noise faster than it transforms society. ...
Listening to music is listening to all noise, realizing that its appropriation and
control is a reflection of power, that is essentially political." - Jacques
Attali, _Noise: The Political Economy of Music_

"The sky and its stars make music in you." - Dendera, Egypt wall
inscription

"Sound as an isolated object of reproduction, call it our collective memory
bank... Any sound can be you." - DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid (a.k.a. Paul D.
Miller)

"One taps into the core when one can leave the ego at the door..." - Jacky
Ligon

"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
--Arthur C. Clarke, _The Nine Billion Names of God_