It may be 2009, but you can still play electronic music as though you’re an invading alien visitor from the future. Just ask The Sonic Manipulator, an electronic musical performer and inventor, alias Claude Woodward. His musical creations range from warped radios to instruments derived from turntable scratches and Theremins. And then there are some instruments that seem to be sonic weapons. (Apologies to recent protesters in Pittsburgh.)
CDM reader Andrew Cordani caught Claude at the UK’s British Invention Show. Claude is apparently a Perth, Australia transplant, by way of Cambridge, though Andrew writes that he “has been known to travel about a bit (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Indi, Teegarden’s star and further).”
What’s the cutest conceivable musical instrument? It’d be tough to top an anthromorphic musical note, complete with eight-note flag, whose smiling face opens when it “sings.”
Boing Boing Gadgets (by way of Tokyo Mango) gets the story on this latest creation of art group Maywa Denki and lead creative instigator Novmichi Tosa. The Otamatone is only barely practical as an instrument; it sports a nasal tone from its simple electronic oscillator and, at the end of the video, demonstrates an entirely new way to render the US National Anthem slightly out of tune. (Apologies to Jimi Hendrix.) But it also exhibits sheer genius, like shaking it to get vibrato and adjusting formants by squeezing the character’s mouth open and closed. And it easily trumps those horrible plastic Yamaha recorders we were all forced to play in school.
It’s almost a surprise to see Maywa Denki with something selling at retail, as their previous creations have been designed to be completely absurd. Take the Tsukuba Series of instrumental devices, which includes:
An instrument built to punch bubble wrap (packing tape)
A “voice vibrator” you strap to your throat
A Brazilian percussion robot
“Guitar-la,” an array of six guitars played by a pedal organ.
You can see those and other creations by clicking through the “Art” section of the project’s site; there are other wonderful (and kawaii) toys, too, called “nonsense toys”:
(If you don’t know what he’s talking about, see here.)
Yes, in case you’re looking for a creative way to practice your Theremin playing, here you go. Now, where’s our Theremin Hero game? From the description by Glasgow-based YouTuber conquerearth, previously seen using the Theremin to play “Still Alive.”
This is even more fun with two people playing! One person controls left/right, the other controls jump.
Its not just limited to the theremin. Its even possible to hook up a microphone and use your voice to control the game! Or a guitar! Or a violin!
Heres how it works:
The sound from the theremin is split into its frequency and amplitude components in real time, which are then mapped to values in a linear scale representing the X and Y axis. Pitch becomes horizontal control, and Volume becomes vertical control.
The X and Y scales are then cut up into different zones. In this case, Left; Right and dead zones for the horizontal, and a single trigger and dead zone for the vertical.
The trigger zones are then mapped onto a virtual joystick hooked into an emulator.
The end result is a fairly usable input control for playing games like mario. The bars give the much needed visual feedback as to how “in tune” you are, so you have a better feel of where the trigger points are.
I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning I could extract about gestural controllers, expressive musical instruments, and the meaning of life, but it’s Friday and it’s lunch break time. If you can do my job, feel free – add in comments. (If your cat walks across your keyboard, it’ll still probably come across as more intelligent than an average YouTube comment, so have at it!)
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