Questions and Content
An interdisciplinary association between musicology, musical acoustics and music technology, composition, computational art, and design science works to develop new electronic musical instruments in contemporary music.
For quite some time compositional studio work has played a greater role in contemporary electronic music than did live electronic music performance, and the resulting on-stage virtuosity and expressiveness. Today, interest in performative and experimental approaches is steadily on the rise, and thus intensifies the search for new instruments that bring the person within the musician to the fore again.
Year after year electro-acoustic, hybrid or digital instruments are presented in numbers one can hardly keep track of, yet to this day none of these instruments has been able to establish themselves.
In the project “Design, Development and Dissemination of New Musical Instruments” (3DMIN), the conditions for the artistic success of musical instruments were investigated. In parallel, the interdisciplinary research team collaborated with musicians and performers on designs for various prototypes of new musical interfaces that allow musicians to realize their artistic visions for music. These prototype instruments were explored in an artistic context, i.e., in the projects of the musicians involved, and have been evaluated by qualitative and quantitative methods. All of the hybrid instruments’ features – from physical design, interface design, mapping, to the sound synthesis software – were published open-source for the scientific and artistic communities.
Benefits and Target Audience
The series of new musical instruments created should be intuitive to use and versatile enough to be effective in artistic practice over the long-term and as a source of inspiration for musicians as well as composers.
Support from the Hybrid Plattform
Advice and assistance in funding research, fundraising, proposal preparation and application process.
