NEW DIGITAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: CONTROL & INTERACTION BEYOND THE KEYBOARD

In New Digital Musical Instruments Eduardo Miranda and Marcelo Wanderley focus on musical instruments that use the computer as the main sound-generating device. Such instruments often consist of a gestural controller driving the musical parameters of a sound synthesizer in real-time. The book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter discusses the notion of musical gestures, their acquisition and their mapping onto the variables of a synthesizer. The second chapter focuses on practical issues of gestural controller design and reviews various examples of gestural controllers. The third chapter follows with an introduction to sensors and sensor-to-computer interfaces. It reviews the application of these sensors in the design of various digital musical instruments and discusses methods for converting the sensor signals onto data that can be used to control software sound synthesizers. The following two chapters introduce the use of electrical signals produced in the body, such as nerves, muscles, and brain signals, to control music. It presents different types of biosignals and introduces basic techniques to render these signals useful for musical control. Finally, chapter five discusses an interesting route to new instrument design, which involves the provision of artificial intelligence in order to render such instruments interactive. 295 Pages | 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 cm