Summer Research Reports: Adrian Montufar on Designing New Digital Musical Instruments
BCNM is thrilled to support our students in their summer research. Read about Adrian Montufar on Designing New Digital Musical Instruments!
This summer, I carried out some initial explorations and experiments for my upcoming stay as a visiting researcher at McGill’s Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL) in the Fall. My dissertation project focuses on connecting my practice as an improvising musician to the design of a new digital musical instrument. During my time at IDMIL I am hoping to prototype a new sound-making device.
The project is in its early stages, but coming into the summer I already had a few limitations in mind for my device. I wanted my digital instrument to be small and lightweight enough to be handheld, and I wanted it to be a device that could be passed around; therefore, I knew I wanted it to be cordless. However, I also wanted to retain the possibility of having multiple devices live simultaneously and to have some “communication” between them if that was the case. So my first step this summer was to look for potential technological solutions to this challenge.
Due to the expense of sending multiple channels of wireless audio, I settled instead on a model where my device is equipped with local sound synthesis capabilities and can send and receive smaller data packages wirelessly. On the tech side, this means linking up a ESP32 series microcontroller (which has low-cost, low-power Wi-Fi capability) with a sound-specialized development board like Teensy (or Bela, Daisy, etc.). Under this model, the data sent wirelessly to the ESP32 would be used to control the parameters of the sound synthesis on the Teensy. Conversely, sensor information or simplified data extracted from an audio signal can be sent from one device to another.
I used the rest of the summer, including performance opportunities in June, July, and August to try out and explore (1) sounds synthesis options for the instrument and (2) tangible “interfaces” and physical interaction possibilities. The most intensive of these explorations was presented as a duo with Roco Córdova. I transformed a poster-sized sheet of paper into a dynamic musical instrument for two players by placing a contact microphone and an audio transducer on either end of the sheet. The input from the contact microphone and from a headset mic was processed on my laptop and played through the transducer, turning the paper into a loudspeaker. That sound was in turn picked up by the contact mic, creating feedback that was responsive to changes in the shape of the paper. So the “instrument” is “played” by adding live sound input (through either the headset or the contact mic) and modifying the shape of the paper to change the feedback.
Thanks to the success of this exploration, and also influenced by Lygia Clark’s Bichos series, now that I am in Montreal the next steps in my project will focus on prototyping a device of adaptable shape using flexible materials like paper or fabric.
I found out about Lygia Clark’s Bichos series thanks to Anamaya Farthing-Kohl. This summer, I also performed two concerts while interacting with a large reshapable sculpture by Farthing-Kohl.