laser harp using the arduino mod

[Chuck Baldwin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLVXmsbVwUs

-C

[Gary Lee Nelson]

I love this kind of thing. Worked on a lot of similar projects of my own and with students and colleagues. These are exciting continuations of the non-stop stream of instrument experiment and development. There was a time when the violin and piano were experimental. There were predecessors that ceased to meet the needs of performers and composers in some way or another.

The thing that disturbs me about current manifestations is that the wonderful potential of these instruments is demonstrated with music that is lacking in imagination, substance or depth. This is the central issue and difficulty in the science/art collaboration. Neither understands the goals of the other side. Technicians can make the instruments. Musicians can't. Musicians can discover unexpected ways of applying the instruments. Technicians can't. In the end, neither understands the other.

I have spent most of my career trying to understand and resolve this impasse. Our own Currents 2012 seems to have addressed this problem more successfully than the international competitions where I have served on the review panels. Currents has substantial visuals coupled with sound that matches it artistically.

I wonder if the Santa Fe artists and scientists who read and post to this discussion would be interested in forming an informal forum where we can seriously discuss the future of intermedia.

Gary

On Jul 5, 2012, at 3:39 PM, Chuck Baldwin wrote:

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLVXmsbVwUs
>
> -C
>
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[Chuck Baldwin]

Its an interesting point you make Gary, I've heard echoes of this concern in the SFX before.

Having been a formal student of music, and ending up really not cutting it as I went in the direction of the snare drum, whose music is literally only the beats the drum is to make on the five line staff, and not using any of the notes available to other instruments, and then years later being handed a Sears Silvertone guitar, and later buying Richard Daniels "Heavy Guitar Bible", which teaches one the scales and how to play by ear, and having also been exposed to Dr Suzuki of the Suzuki violin method (he and I played baseball in my parents backyard when I was quite young and he was quite old), and that method entailing no learning of the five line staff at all but learning music by complete memorization, a master teaching a beginner, and repeating any given piece until it can be played from memory, and also hanging around with Corning Incorporated designers, and engineers, the chasm between the two mind sets is interesting to note (sorry, couldn't resist).

And having recently been through a course on information design, essentially how apps can be made to be of better use to the user, and being currently involved with a project where the apps we are using leave A LOT to be desired in how they function, I too find this space between the one that makes a thing, and the one that learns to make a thing do a ballet, an interesting distance to cover.

My initial comment is, put the two entities in a room together and let them slug it out as to how the design of the thing should really be.

Right now the buzzline is the consumer is king. If you miss that you don't pass the litmus test. Witness the various websites you can go to and design your own sneakers or whatever.

Unfortunately it isn't as easy an effort as I state as there are always other entities involved, like stakeholders, sponsors and so on, and probably not enough end user input. That is changing now though more and more, success necessitates it.

Which is why I find it interesting that people go ahead and trail blaze in their basements and garages and make laser harps, because they see that it can be done, and a sort of "why not" moment ensues.

Josef Albers, upon describing what is an important aspect of the United States, and which also came to light in my museum studies as the quintessential reason why museums in the US perhaps are not entirely reflecting their true US heritage the way they should be, nor engaging their audience the way they should be, indicated that the US is great because it invents, innovates, and trail blazes.

The allusion being that US Museums should engage audience from this perspective, which is why John Cotton Dana strove to make the Philadelphia Science Museum with a gigantic heart you can walk through. And why the buzz line in museum science today is around contextual mapping.

I'm up for any such discussion. I've seen it to some degree from both sides.

Many is the time as I sit and live that I hear rhythms around me, whether it is the drubbing of the dishwasher meshing to a cadence of speech coming from the TV in the next room, or the dogs barking outside meshing to a same such rhythm I pick up on from elsewhere, it is interesting how music pervades us and our lives.

It isn't the only communication that pervades though, and which it helps to learn in order to be a part of this culture.

-C

[Benny Lichtner]

I wonder if it is more a problem of motivation than of ability. "Technicians" are motivated to make instruments, and "musicians" are motivated to play instruments creatively, and both stereotypes are perfectly satisfied with how we've boxed them. There will forever be a lot of interesting work to be done in the making and in the playing, so why would either camp feel a need to branch out?

My hunch is that if you want people to be interested in both ends of the fabricated tech-art spectrum, you have to present them with a new but analogous spectrum, lacking in ends, as early in their lives as possible.

[Chuck Baldwin]

So true, and since music "plays" to our audio sense, and words and imagery to our visual sense, and the audio-video combination to both of those, and those are thoroughly explored (you might say, lacking the laser harp and other new innovations on the theme), what new spectrum could we introduce?

However, Gary's point is about people inventing yet not knowing enough to compose something that truly explores the device. imo this comes with time and as more people involve themselves with the device. My aunt's music theory book talks about how music was first played out on hollowed out logs. And eventually morphed (evolved) into multiple drums being played, and eventually became a way to communicate between camps.

Like the pyres that are lit in the Lord of the Rings trilogy to send the alert from one end of Middle Earth to the other. That was a pretty cool visual.

And the theremin, which made its way into horror movies as the quintessential deployment of a "set" where something weird was happening.

The laser harp could become something like this. It reminds me of The Day The Earth Stood Still, and the control panel Gorp uses in the ship. And it reminds me of that youtube video of all the people playing that concert with only their iPhones.

'Wouldn't it be cool to take a bunch of people and put a single "pipe" of the laser harp on a single person, much like a bell choir, and explore what could happen there? And then move on to a kind of "trapset' and see what one person could do with 150 tuned laser harpsiloids among another 150 playing out a concerto and have Rulan Tangen's dance group garbed thus.

What if you ran a race with everyone garbed like this?

Or could go to a swimming pool with a group of people and swim like this?

Its kind of like the 4th of July in that respect. Except people become the fireworks. That could make for a very cool disco.

But short of a new spectrum, as you point out, it is merely more of the same already explored territory. Does that mean defeat then, or drive us to conceive more from the same ether? Or somehow hybridize something entirely new, a new spectrum.

-C

[Jason Goodyear]

I think by bringing up the theremin you reference an important idea in the creation of music technology, which is collaboration. Leon Theremin and Clara Rockmore benefitted mutually by working together, she got access to new technology and he got a talented artist who could perform on his new instrument to great acclaim.

Bob Moog is another inventor who fits this mode, activity soliciting collaboration and feedback over the course of his career.  From the early days he solicited feedback from groups such as Mother Mallard and commercial composers in NYC and over time he always showed interest in what people were doing with his tools and listened to their ideas.

I don't know a lot about the guy in video, but my impression is that he's the technologist and could benefit from a creative partner or ideally, partners. I'm sure there are many people who wouldn't pass up the chance to have that sitting in their studio and the opportunity to compose for it and perform on it.

Both of these guys are the subject of their own great movies, conveniently entitled "Theremin" and "Moog".

jason

[Arlo Barnes]

Re: The Theremin Movie

There was a clip of Termin playing his instrument fairly well in order to demonstrate it. (I think the piece was something swan-related, a famous classical piece. Really, the sci-fi/horror role has kind of unfairly typecast the instrument)

Very little has been said so far about individuals bridging the (created?) gap, being 'Renaissance People', as it were, with the exception of Benny mentioning that, even if forced, there is more than enough in each field to occupy a person. But it seems that a person could be reasonably good at both technical and creative endeavours - after all, they are pretty similar, one is making things and the other making stuff. To mention the Renaissance again, Leonardo da Vinci was pretty dept at both.

-Arlo James Barnes

[Benny Lichtner]

Was trying to get to this point about technical and creative endeavors being the same. The new spectrum I mentioned was not meant to be "new" in the sense of Chuck's unexplored territory. (There's will always be interesting, unexplored territory in "old" media.) The new spectrum is the same as the old spectrum, but without technology on one end and arts on the other. In other words, if you do away with teaching the categories of technology and art, there may be more people who enjoy both.

--Benny

--

[Joshua Thorp]

It occurs to me that art is (almost) always very technical.  From paints to musical instrument design a lot of thought and tinkering has to go into making and then manipulating the media in which art finds its expression.  Artists often spend countless hours learning and experimenting with their materials until they are able to express themselves.  You can't just walk up to a big rock and turn it into a sculpture.  It takes time, skill and tools to do that.  

I would be surprised if that weren't the case with electronic/digital projects as well.  I think what we are seeing is a lack of time-- electronics are brand new especially when compared to pigments or hammer and chisel.  Where are the master electronics artists that have spent their careers in digital performance?  Probably in their 20s just starting out.

[Roger Critchlow]

So there have been similar situations many times before in history when novel processes allowed the invention of instruments that hadn't been possible before.  Most instruments we play today are more or less modern inventions.  How did the artisans and the artists find and relate to each other in those earlier periods of invention?

-- rec --

[Chuck Baldwin]

http://gajitz.com/simple-kit-makes-user-interface-out-of-absolutely-anything/ 

-C

[Chuck Baldwin]

Usually at the behest of royalty.

-C

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> wrote:

So there have been similar situations many times before in history when novel processes allowed the invention of instruments that hadn't been possible before.  Most instruments we play today are more or less modern inventions.  How did the artisans and the artists find and relate to each other in those earlier periods of invention?

-- rec --

--

[Richard Lowenberg]

The arts, technologies and sciences have had a long (pre)historical relationship.

While Leonard is often cited, many others at that time were also in the midst of new 

discoveries, understandings and cross-disciplinary skills development.   Alchemy was 

leading to chemistry, and artists learned about and developed new pigments and the 

techniques of oil painting.    Navigators were discovering the 'new world' while artists

collaborated with cartographers/map makers to visualize these emergent lands, peoples and 'beasts'.

In the 1830's 'photography' was a new art and science, which Samuel Morse first brought to the US

from France.   In addition to telegraphy developments, Morse was primarily a distinguished American painter.

Today, we are seeing more and more young people, with combined artistic and scientific and technical skills and 

inclinations, as some educational institutions develop cross-disciplinary programs and approaches to learning,

innovation and understanding of our world and our place therein.   

As josh noted, all good work takes time and skills development.   At their best, scientists and artists have much

in common, centered on creative open-mindedness, curiosity and continuous learning.

The SARC (Scientists/Artists research Collaborations) initiative kicks off today, as some nationally selected artists,

are here to collaborate with researchers at LANL and Sandia Labs over the coming weeks, and hopefully, long term.

Our first get-together will be at the Currents "3D-VIS" presentations, 4:00 - 8:00 (repeated showings) at the Lucky Bean Cafe.

Stop by and join us, if you can, and continue the conversation.

RL

On Jul 6, 2012, at 10:38 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

So there have been similar situations many times before in history when novel processes allowed the invention of instruments that hadn't been possible before.  Most instruments we play today are more or less modern inventions.  How did the artisans and the artists find and relate to each other in those earlier periods of invention?

-- rec --

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[Roger Critchlow]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Chuck Baldwin <crystalci...@gmail.com> wrote:

Usually at the behest of royalty.

Not "usually" for the first four I looked up on Wikipedia.

The sousaphone was developed in the 1890s at the request of John Philip Sousa, who was unhappy with the hélicons used at that time by the United States Marine Band. The first sousaphone was either developed by J.W. Pepper,^[1] in 1893, or by C.G. Conn, in 1898.

The invention of the modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments.

Johann Christoph Denner was a famous woodwind instrument maker of the Baroque era, to whom the invention of the clarinet is attributed.  Denner was born in Leipzig to a family of horn-turners. With his father, Heinrich Denner, a maker of game whistles and hunting horns, he moved to Nuremberg in 1666.  J. C. Denner went into business as an instrument maker in 1678. Two of his sons, Jacob and Johann David, also became instrument builders.

The attempt to give the trumpet more chromatic freedom in its range saw the development of the keyed trumpet, but this was a largely unsuccessful venture due to the poor quality of its sound.  Although the impetus for a tubular valve began as early as 1793, it was not until 1818 that Friedrich Bluhmel and Heinrich Stölzel made a joint patent application for the box valve as manufactured by W. Schuster.

-- rec --

[Gary Lee Nelson]

All of these instruments were modifications or improvements to existing instruments that, with all their flaws,  had already been accepted. Check wiki about two innovating success stories along this line, the saxophone and the tuba.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone (1846)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuba (1835)

The laser harp looks only vaguely like a harp.  The principle of breaking laser beams exists in many other instruments that defy connection to historical models.

My own MidiHorn (developed with music engineer, John Talbert) makes no sound.  It senses the positions of 16 buttons, two joysticks and a breath pressure transducer. The interpretation of these controllers is left to software and can vary from composition to composition.

Like the laser harp, the MidiHorn arrives with no literature and no performance tradition.  This seems to be the trend for instrument building in the 20th-21st centuries - instruments created on spec in answer to the question "what if?"

http://timara.con.oberlin.edu/jtalbert/MHorn/mhorn.htm shows a picture.

Here's some detail from a paper I wrote on the subject of "alternate" controllers.

Check http://www.timara.oberlin.edu/gnelson/gnelson.htm for the full paper.

MIDI Horn

The MIDI Horn is as an alternative to the piano keyboard for controlling digital synthesizers. John

Talbert, Oberlin's music engineer, designed and constructed the instrument. The MIDI Horn makes

no sound by itself but rather reflects the character of the synthesizer that it controls.

The instrument consists of two boxes, a control module and a microcomputer. The control module

contains a breath pressure transducer that determines onset and release time of notes

by comparing breath pressure to a threshold. Timbre nuance can be shaped while notes are in

progress by programming synthesizers to respond to continuous changes in breath pressure (MIDI

controller 2).

The seven buttons on the top of the front panel control pitch. The top four of these buttons follow

the pattern of a brass instrument to play a chromatic scale from C down to Db. In order from the

top, the buttons lower pitch by 2, 1, 3, and 5 semitones. Normal alternate fingerings are provided.

Three additional buttons determine register within an eight octave range. These three follow the

same fingering pattern as the top three buttons but instead of lowering pitch by semitones they

lower pitch by octaves. The single alternate fingering (the third button alone) provides the longest

drop, seven octaves.

An eighth button for the little finger of the left hand serves a function similar to the shift key on a

typewriter. By pressing this button, the other seven buttons generate a program number for the

MIDI synthesizer. With all combinations of seven buttons, the full range of 128 MIDI program

numbers is available.

Eight buttons and two joy sticks on the back of the instrument send signals that instruct the

computer to control aspects of the accompaniment. The buttons transmit on/off messages via MIDI

controllers 84-91. The joysticks send continuous data as MIDI controllers 16-19 (general purpose

controllers 1-4). Since the data from the MIDI Horn passes through the Macintosh first, these

controllers can be mapped onto any musical parameter.

Cheers,

Gary

[Mark Adam]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Joshua Thorp <jos...@stigmergic.net> wrote:

It occurs to me that art is (almost) always very technical.  From paints to musical instrument design a lot of thought and tinkering has to go into making and then manipulating the media in which art finds its expression.  Artists often spend countless hours learning and experimenting with their materials until they are able to express themselves.  You can't just walk up to a big rock and turn it into a sculpture.  It takes time, skill and tools to do that.  

Yeah, I tend to agree.  I think the issue is that you can't be both *simultaneously*.  Once the techne is perfected (whether it's paint or electronics), it must be set aside for the artist to emerge.

mark

gburg, nebr

[Gary Lee Nelson]

There were many inventions that simply did not catch on - look for the serpent and the ophicleide.  Why didn't this catch on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard

It took more than 100 years to hear the first tuba concerto (Vaughn Williams).  The saxophone has taken a leading position in jazz and pop music.  Like the tuba, the saxophone "classical" literature only began to blossom in the last half of the 20th century.  The saxophone is still a rare beast on stage in a symphony orchestra. Like the violin, these instruments had to be recognized and adopted by excellent musicians before composers would see the efficacy of writing serious music for them.

It is notable that the composers we recognize as masters composed mostly for instruments that had been perfected and mastered.  There are exceptions.  Mozart wrote for Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonic but what have we heard lately?

There was a hell of a fight at the Oberlin Conservatory in the late 19th century when some wild-eyed radical proposed that there be a formal major in piano.  Jazz and TIMARA waited more that 100 years more to achieve the same status after more fights.

I guess the point is that new instruments have to wait a while to prove themselves.  When we see a laser harp or music cubes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgy1S8qymx0) on YouTube, we say "gee whiz."  Takes a bit longer to ask "where's the beef?"  Getting the artist and scientist together at the beginning of the process can significantly reduce the wait.  Even more when the two learn enough about the other side so that meaningful conversation and collaboration can occur.

Gary

On Jul 6, 2012, at 10:38 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

So there have been similar situations many times before in history when novel processes allowed the invention of instruments that hadn't been possible before.  Most instruments we play today are more or less modern inventions.  How did the artisans and the artists find and relate to each other in those earlier periods of invention?

-- rec --

[Gary Lee Nelson]

We are encouraged to think that making art is magic.  Rock musicians never mention in their liner notes how much time they spend practicing.  Can we really accept that a composer can walk into a forest and emerge with fully formed symphony? "Chance favors the prepared mind." (Pasteur)  Wendell Logan, a jazz friend told his students that "if you can't find the lick you want when you are improvising, you haven't practiced your scales and arpeggios enough."

[Gary Lee Nelson]

Amen to this, Benny.  It feels to me that, in another generation, the artist and technologist will be combined in a single body.  As always, one of the biggest barriers is where can you study within this model.  Everything in so compartmentalized. We are discouraged from looking over the fence into the next yard. 

On Jul 6, 2012, at 10:23 AM, Benny Lichtner wrote:

[Gary Lee Nelson]

There are still virtuoso Theremin players.  Have a look at http://www.lydiakavina.com/  Composers, mostly Russian, are writing original music for her because she is master of the instrument.  While she is waiting, she plays a lot of music borrowed from other instrument. That's the development stage where an accomplished performer demonstrates that a new instrument should be taken seriously.

"The Swan," originally for cello is from The carnival of the Animals by Saint Saens.  Here's Clara Rockmore.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSzTPGlNa5U

I used to play it as an encore to answer the question "is the MidiHorn a real instrument?"

[Gary Lee Nelson]

Don't forget Max Matthews, the father of computer music. He was a electrical engineer who also played the violin.  His work on digitally capturing the pitch from violin strings led to the most successful stringed instruments, the Zeta violin family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBwn3es-VCU

The woman in red is playing the Zeta cello.

[Chuck Baldwin]

July 10th is Nikola Tesla day, btw.

And I believe I know how to make ball lightning.

If I'm right, the secret is actually given away in an illustration in Margaret Cheney's book: Man Out of Time.

If you know how to see it.

Anyone up for it?

-C

[Chuck Baldwin]

I've been wrong before, probably will be again.

-C

[Kim Sorvig]

It’s worth noting that this has applied to non-electronic instruments from at least the point where keys, frets, and adjustable tuning enter the picture.  Neither Bach nor Sibelius could have built a piano, a violin, or a bassoon.

The difference with some of these is that their design was evolutionary; medieval ‘woodwinds’ like the recorder had no keys, and evolved into keyed flutes both wooden and metal, as well as hybridizing with very old reed instruments and becoming the clarinet and oboe lineage.  But keyboard instruments in particular were more along the punctuated equilibrium model: technologists had to invent and build them, in response I suspect to beery discussions with musician friends who complained about limitations of existing instruments until the anachronistic lightbulb went on for the inventor.

In some ways, what has changed in this model is the Modernist attitude’s dismissal of evolutionary development, and privileging of the unheard-of great leap ‘forwards’ – technological change as well as ‘new’ tones and methods of producing tones, have become goals in their own right, regardless whether they fit any existing pattern of musicality – and in many cases, despite the fact that such noises have been generated accidentally, decades ago, and rejected.  The circus-barker touts Never Before Seen (or heard); the critic and maybe cynic says Yeah, and for Good Reason!

Anyway – just a bit of archaic perspective from an acoustic musician!

Kim