Designing musical interfaces with composition in mind

Abstract

This paper addresses three different strategies to map real-time synthesis of sounds and controller events. The design of the corresponding interfaces takes into account both the artistic goals and the expressive capabilities of these new instruments. Common to all these cases, as to traditional instruments, is the fact that their specificity influence the music which is written for them. This means that the composition already starts with the construction of the interface. As a first approach, synthesis models are piloted by completely new interfaces, leading to "sound sculpting machines". An example of sound transformations using the Radio Baton illustrates this concept. The second approach consists in making interfaces that are adapted to the gestures already acquired by the performers. Two examples are treated in this case: the extension of a traditional instrument and the design of interfaces for disabled performers. The third approach uses external events such as natural phenomena to influence a synthesis model. The Cosmophone, which associates sound events to the flux of cosmic rays, illustrates this concept. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.