William Weir writes in The Atlantic about the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology (previously highlighted on Mewzik), focusing on how experimental musical instruments don’t often find their way into the mainstream.

tromba marina

Stroh Violin

This is true, but I think it’s always been true. Instruments come and go. The tromba marina was fairly popular for a couple hundred years, if extant examples in musical instrument collections are any indication. But who today has ever even heard

Chapman Stick

of the thing? Before Amati and the Cremonese school more or less standardized what we now think of as a violin, there were lots of variations on the theme — some unique, some

baryton

actually semi-popular for a time. The baryton was a favorite of Haydn’s patron prince Nikolaus Esterházy, so there are 120 trios by Haydn for this now obsolete instrument. Some instruments like the Stroh violin were developed to take advantage of technologies –in that case the early acoustical recording process that valued an instrument’s ability to project over its tonal depth. When electronic recording arrived, the Stroh became obsolete.

In modern times we see many innovative new instruments, and it’s not clear how many will have a sustained life. The Chapman Stick has been around since around 1974, and while it is not even as popular as accordions or tubas  (perhaps due to its $2100 base price), it’s still in production and continues to be fairly widely used. Other “fad” instruments abound, like the Hang drum  and its imitators, spurred by viral marketing and an apparently intuitive playing technique.

Hang

Weir rightly discusses the impact of audio synthesis, essentially divorcing the sound from the controller. Many of the latest innovations in musical instrument design are focused on the user interface, attempting to make it more intuitive and functional. And in some cases, attempting also to restore the haptic responsiveness of an acoustical device.

Who knew Georgia Tech was a hotbed of musical instrument innovation? Well, apparently a lot of people knew, but I sure didn’t. They actually have a Center for Music Technology and next month they are presenting the 2012 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. Check out the Resistor JelTone, a “partially edible toy piano” by Brooklyn-based hacker collective, NYC Resistor, or the Audio Skin, incorporating on-body textiles in a sculptural and performative musical instrument, by Vienna, Austria-based Martin Rille.

Resistor-JelTone

Musical instruments are brilliantly complex devices that, from an engineering perspective, are a tremendous challenge to combine ergonomics, sound, and aesthetic nuance. An instrument must not only produce a desirable sound, it must interface with the human body in such a way that the function is sufficiently intuitive as to become an aid rather than a hindrance to music making.  Having an instrument that is also delicious is simply a bonus.

There have been numerous attempts over the years to create an entirely digital guitar interface. By which I mean a digital interface in the shape of a guitar. The YourRock guitar is a recent addition to the list and is a little more earnest than most. While it’s still not much more than a toy, I can see how it has possibilities for new expressive music making. As long as you realize it’s not a guitar, but an interface. The main difference from a player’s perspective is nuance. You can use the whammy bar to add expression to the notes, but most real musicians understand the importance of the left hand in bending notes and adding vibrato, etc. Despite its frets, a guitar is not a discreet-pitch instrument. The most attractive feature of this device is likely the tap playing capability. For those who want to try experimenting with this  technique, a machine like this could well be a useful controller.

I always look for what they don’t tell you in a promo ad or video. Obviously they want to highlight only the instrument’s best and coolest features. On almost none of the video promos did anyone play polyphonic music. There were a few chords strummed at the beginning of one, so I know it has polyphonic capability. But they don’t promote that at all, which makes me wonder why.

As we all know, the Chinese have grown their industries in the last couple of decades to become the global economic engine. This is both a good thing and a not so good thing. The rest of the world reaps the benefits of a strong trading partner, buying goods in local currencies that the Chinese have to trade or reinvest in the world’s economies. While Asian goods have carried a stigma of poor quality in the past, that is clearly no longer the case with many Chinese companies.

A rather brilliant example is Eastman, a company begun 20 years ago by a young Chinese graduate of Boston University. Eastman gained a huge following by focusing on the manufacture of quality stringed instruments, especially violins. They sent their builders to the top lutherie schools in the US and Europe to learn the traditional skills. But then they built a factory to produce hand-made violins in a production process, with specialist teams overseen by master luthiers carving bellies or scrolls or framing bodies  in a process inspired by the great workshops of Markneukirchen and elsewhere in the late 19th-early 20th century. They also focused on using the best possible materials they could find.

Eastman, now a major manufacturer of violins and bows, is keenly aware of the problems of sustainable resources. Violin woods are becoming scarcer all the time, most especially the tropical hardwoods like ebony and pernambuco (the historically prized species of mahogany used for violin bows). Eastman donates a percentage of all bow sales to the International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative, an effort by world musicians, instrument makers, and manufacturers to save habitat and reforestation in the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil.

Over the years, Eastman has expanded its reach, first into handmade archtop guitars made in the same manner as its violins, and then into the woodwind and brass markets through acquisitions of American companies (like the flutemaker Haynes), and partnerships with Chinese companies. Most recently, Eastman acquired a Chinese company that primarily supplied clarinet and sax reeds to the Chinese market. They have focused on quality, noting that the reeds were well made, but the cane used was not the best. So they have secured a long-term exclusive source of cane  (“Canne de Provence” (Arundo donax )) from the Var region of southern France, considered to be the home of the world’s best reed cane.

(As an aside, woodwind players are notoriously persnickety about their reeds. And for good reason. The reed is in direct contact with the player’s mouth and must perform in an intimately responsive way. While most clarinet and sax players rely on quality manufactured reeds, double-reed players (oboe, bassoon, etc.) often learn to make their own reeds to their specific requirements. This is one of the few instances where the musician must learn a precision handcraft.)