Speaker Bio
Andrew McPherson is Professor of Musical Interaction in the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. A composer (PhD U.Penn 2009) and electronic engineer (MEng MIT 2005) by training, his research focuses on digital musical instruments, especially those which extend the capabilities of traditional musical instruments. Within the Centre for Digital Music, he leads the Augmented Instruments Laboratory (http://instrumentslab.org), a research team investigating musical interface design, performer-instrument interaction and embedded hardware systems. He currently holds a Senior Research Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Notable projects include the magnetic resonator piano (http://instrumentslab.org/research/mrp.html), an electromagnetically-augmented acoustic grand piano which has been used by dozens of composers and performers worldwide; TouchKeys, a sensor overlay which transforms the electronic keyboard into a nuanced multi-touch control surface; and Bela, an open-source embedded hardware platform for ultra-low-latency audio and sensor processing. TouchKeys (http://touchkeys.co.uk) and Bela (http://bela.io) both successfully launched on Kickstarter (2013 and 2016) and are now available to the public via spinout companies.
Technological and Cultural Values in Digital Musical Instrument Design
Andrew McPherson, Queen Mary University of London
Tuesday 21st September 2021. 13:00-14:00 GMT. The Buncar.
Every year, many new musical instruments are created in research and industry. New instruments are often promoted for technical novelty, range of sonic or expressive capabilities, or accessibility to novice players. However, most new instruments drop out of regular use after just a few years, while classic acoustic and electronic designs remain ubiquitous in many styles of music, highlighting the central role of human factors in determining instrument uptake.
This talk queries the broader context of why we build new musical instruments and examines some of the values we embed into them. The aesthetic context in which an instrument is created will strongly influence its design, regardless of what technology is used. At the same time, our tools and materials are not aesthetically neutral: they contain subtle assumptions about the form and structure of music, and they make certain design choices easier or more apparent than others. This talk will consider several examples illustrating these technical and cultural influences, concluding with open questions and reflections for creators seeking to engage with the human factors of new music technologies.