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Has anyone seen or heard of those "futuristic music-making devices" of which I remember, long ago, hearing a reference- or simply heard a prediction of them, with the following basic form and structure- and if hasn't been invented - Mark- you can work on it with me- LOL- but don't steal the idea! LOL Here is my idea of what the instrument would be... since I only have a vague memory of wherever I saw it before- I seem to remember a PBS special- possibly NOVA- not the "It's About Time" special, with Dudley Moore- but something more truly about music making instruments and possibly those of the future... The object in my mind sphere or ball-shaped, with a rubber or latex or flexible surface, and would be moldable like clay. Underneath the external covering the are hundreds or thousands of sensors. The sensor extends from the middle of the device which inherently has a bagpipe-like structure. But with a high-tech electronic processor core kind of like the new Apples but without that flat screen popping out from a rod in the top... I'd assume at this point it would be powered from within the core of the ball and also wireless so that there would be no need to leave any part of the surface untouchable... Each sensor under the surface of the "skin" corresponds with a different sound. I suppose there are axes defined which assist in defining the nature of the sound produced at any given point when it is touched. The device I remember would have been played by the hands by doing whatever hands can do- it could be massaged, or struck. Or tapped. Etc. Note that in my own mental version of this device as I think about it, this device would feel like those old Stretch Armstrong balls in the hands, as the hands work with the ball. OOH- and that leads to an interesting thought: what if there was a layer of viscous substance in between the sensor layer and the skin surface? This would make the hand movement flow more easily and could lead to an interesting effect as the viscous liquid was heating up. Anyway- just a random thought there... I visited http://www.filmsound.org/articles/ninecomponents/9components.htm and found a definition of nine components of sound. I started thinking of how these would be defined in this device and I make the following guesses (I feel like I have so much to do but I'm also chasing waterfalls on the inspirational sort tonight): "Music components": * Pitch - defined by position of the sensors touched by the playing tool (assuming fingers and palms of hands, or other parts of hands- but possibly anything, for this device) along the various axes defining the specific pitch at the location where the tip of each underlying sensor comes into contact with the skin? Also here's a question- how would one define pitch in a non-bi-directional, but truly multidirectional instrument? * Timbre - would this be the overall nature of the specific sounds produced by the machine at any specific moment in time? * Harmonics - this would be dependent, I think, upon the quality of the device as manufactured, the talent and skill of the player, and the number of sensors available - the coordination in the audio processor of all the sounds produced by all the sensors coming into contact with the hands or parts of hands as the instrument player plays the "ball"? The management of the sound so that the hypothetical wave crests and troughs associated with the sounds where the device is being touched by multiple fingers simultaneously? * Loudness - this would be partly managed by overall combination of sensors hit AND the depth at which they are hit AND the pitches (or timbre?) of the sensory points being stuck or massaged to produce sound? * Rhythm- I envision this device as primarily melodic, but any person with the musical sense of someone like Bobby McFerrin - who I think can makes two sounds at once in this throat(?)- could probably make this percussive or both percussive and melodic... "Sound envelope components": I'm thinking that in designing these parts of the device the model would come from percussive instruments? * Attack - defined by speed of the hand in making contact (does this sound right?) From merely slapping the "skin" in an area to "pushing gently" into it? * Sustain - defined - hm - by the timing or duration of the placement or contact of the instrument-playing tool- finger or (part of) hand- stays and then slides off or away from a specific sensory point on the ball surface? * Decay - defined by the - hm - perhaps by the amount of time the "skin" sensory area, just touched, takes to return to it's original position after the finger (or part of hand) moves away? But with regard to "reverb" - could this BE defined on the surface? * ** I assume that there would be greater power in this instrument is it was a partner effort: you have the player playing the ball, then you have someone managing the audio output... "Record and playback component": * Speed - the pace of the movement of hand, hands, fingers, etc. along the surface of the ball? OK... So I'm no master of any instrument, but I felt the desire to pass this on.... Particularly because I kept hearing ads today for the "Invention Submission Corporation" and I thought- if this has not been invented- we should invent it!!!! -----Original Message----- From: Tim Thompson [mailto:tjt@nosuch.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 8:52 PM To: 'Mark Sottilaro'; Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com Subject: MIDI looping > How do you do you're MIDI loops? I usually do them with a program called typo(), which I wrote using KeyKit. When I run typo(), the computer keyboard becomes my controller - each keypress (such as pressing the letter 'A') triggers a note or phrase. If I am holding down the SHIFT key when I press the letter 'A', the note that it plays will be added to the current loop. The loop plays continuously, and I can play along with it or add things to it. I can switch between 10 different loops by pressing '0' through '9'. I can process the MIDI data in a loop (for example, control-W followed by 'F' will apply a fractal algorithm to the current loop). Some documentation can be found here: http://nosuch.com/keykit/doc/lib/typo.html An MP3 file of a performance with typo() is here: http://nosuch.com/audio/wsh/2001/07_thompson.mp3 That performance was improvised live (only the drum patterns were pre-determined), using only typo() and me typing on a computer keyboard in my lap. Recently I've also been doing MIDI looping using playstation dance pads as a controller - see http://nosuch.com/tjt/wsh2002.html for a little description of that. ...Tim...