Everything but the melody...

 Hey! My old friends 'Skin & Bones' just released the recording they made on my sculptural musical instrument "The MixMaster". Only 26 years after the performance! Here it is on BandCamp and I'll post my own video of MixMaster to the right!

Shared experience

Most recently, I've been working on a new instrument called the FretMorpher (it has its own page linked to the right). But today I thought I might shine a flashlight on the trail of breadcrumbs that lead up to this project. The simplified version is that I was once told that western music is based on the divisions of a string. Without any background in music theory, the term "division" was open to misinterpretation, but it led me to ponder the relationship between the two sides of a divided string, and why we pay more attention to one side of the divided string than the other... I immediately constructed an instrument with two bodies that shared a neck and -just as immediately- understood that things had become complicated. I built a few more instruments (also with a web page linked to the right) to try to cope with the various complexities of finding some new kind of music that could navigate bidirectional scales. Since there is a note I began to use the term “Complementary” to refer to these note pairs, scales, music, and even instruments that play both sides of a divided string.

Why build scales or music this way? Using complimentary instrument presents the “player” with an answer note to every “played” note; it is more of a collaboration with the instrument than the typical situation. Indeed, this is a rare case of a musical instrument with its own music theory built into it. It sets up a reflexive system where it is up to the individual player to find relationships between these note pairs, and then with other note pairs to form scales and then compositions from the intrinsic musical parameters of the instrument. This can vary infinitely, from more-or-less harmonic groups of notes resulting from the simple fractional divisions of the string, to very complex, eerie, and dissonant chords that are created in the spaces between those nodal points.

After building the physical instruments I was always left with more questions than answers and I realized that I needed to make a flexible instrument that could explore Complementary scales. The Diano (also linked to the right) is the virtual instrument I developed, thanks to a sabbatical and a Fulbright Research residency.  The Diano simulates a piano-keyboard instrument that has sets of divided strings. The Diano is extremely flexible, allowing the user to define individual and progressive tuning of strings, groups of strings and octaves, as well as having control over the mapping of notes to keys. Additionally, the Diano can output notes to different channels based on a wide variety of parameters from the string the note originated from to frequency bands. This is surprisingly helpful in composing multi-instrument work via MIDI. To the best of my knowledge,  the Diano is one of the few examples of instruments that are built for exploring complementary notes and scales. The Diano is as much a theoretical research tool as a musical instrument. 

The FretMorpher returns to the fretted instrument, opening up new frontiers in exploring alternate scales and addressing some problems encountered in building novel string instruments. It can hardly be argued that building a playable instrument requires incredible skill, quality materials, and time. Having made a number of new instruments, I encountered these frustrating issues:

• No one can play them. There aren't any virtuosi for a newly invented instrument. I gave my instruments to some of the most talented musicians in the world to try out. They liked them but explained that they couldn't dedicate the time to learn to play them and would never attempt to play them in public. The FretMorpher can be "played" with a midi-enabled guitar, cello, bass, etc. and, therefore, can be played by a guitar, cello, or bass player.
• Small changes require major amounts of work. Realizing that you hadn't taken something into consideration or suddenly realizing you want to have another feature can mean another huge investment in time/effort. The FretMorpher is incredibly flexible and accommodate almost any fretting or tuning change imaginable; if it can't adjust to your changes I want to know!(see below!)
• Showcasing different tunings. If your desire is to present different tunings for a variety of compositions or as an academic demonstration, are you going to transport an additional instrument for each composition/example? Being able to play an instrument live and switch between tuning arrangements seems the ideal solution.

 Finally, there are some features I haven't addressed, yet. The FretMorpher has a function that substitutes a different audio feed for the audio stream of the midi-guitar. The thinking was that this would be for a "drone" or a sound created by a modular synth or a microphone. However, then the audio needs to be de-coupled from the midi so it can be properly pitch-shifted, so there's a selection for that.  

One might also notice that there are gain, delay, and slide controls for the two sound bridges and the mic input. These make playing the FretMorpher more subtle and fun. The delays are particularly useful when experimenting with two sound bridges, as you can delay the second note slightly to start to get a feel for which note comes from where.