Musical instrument designers are pushing their creations in new and unexpected directions. In the process, the instruments themselves are becoming a lot more than just tools for making music.
Adam Place had always been musical. He鈥檇 grown up singing and playing the piano, and at university he dove headlong into sound production. His world was one of DAWs, or Digital Audio Workstations, the cumbersome industry name for the music production software behind most modern recordings.
And it was while playing around in one of these that Place had an intriguing thought. He was looking at the in-built software instruments 鈥 the synths and samplers 鈥 and realised that no matter how complicated the sounds they emitted were, they were all triggered in the same way: a keyboard.
鈥淚 realised that the hardware 鈥 the keyboard 鈥 was designed for a piano, and not for electronic music,鈥 Place explains. 鈥淭he piano itself is designed for attack and felt hammers and steel strings inside an instrument, and the keyboard is based on that design but doesn鈥檛 work to the sounds that you have inside synthesisers and samplers. It didn鈥檛 do it justice.鈥
Here was a true time warp, one which had occurred without almost anyone noticing. A device invented in the Middle Ages was still being used, almost unchanged, in the 21st century. While it still functioned elegantly as a way to trigger sound, Place thought he could do something different: 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 necessarily want to make music based on the Western tradition. The piano is very much a part of that. I was more interested in exploring something beyond that. I wanted to find a different kind of playing style.鈥
He started looking critically at other instruments, noting the alternative playing styles and the curves of instruments like the steel drum. Then he started designing and prototyping. His team grew from just him to four people. And now, his creation 鈥 called the AlphaSphere 鈥 is about to go into production. It is simultaneously brilliant and utterly bonkers.
The AlphaSphere resembles a creature from the Mariana Trench, hauled to the surface and given to a cackling scientist with an interest in experimental cybernetics. It comprises several tactile, pressure-sensitive circular pads jutting out from the centre and forming a rough sphere. The sounds it gives off change depending on how you touch, tap, push or massage the pads. Place was tooling up his first couple of hundred production units when this story went to print.
Place鈥檚 creation is a perfect example of the way instruments are pushing the boundaries not only of musical expression, but also of aesthetic and artistic merit as well. The AlphaSphere doesn鈥檛 just sound good 鈥 it looks good. The promotional video on Place鈥檚 website shows it displayed on a gallery plinth, like something bearded art critics with quizzical expressions and notepads would stand around. And it鈥檚 not just the AlphaSphere. Take, for example, the Eigenharp, which looks like a sitar that shacked up with a pianokey necktie and had a kid. Or the Tenori-On, a Japanese instrument which uses colourful LED switches.
These objects push the boundaries of what the word 鈥渋nstrument鈥 means. No matter how beautiful a piano, no matter how sumptuous a Stradivarius violin or a Les Paul guitar, they remain primarily things of function over form. The fact that they look good is almost a byproduct. If a Les Paul can鈥檛 be played, then it becomes almost pointless. Age is a factor, too. Would a Stradivarius be as revered if it was designed today? Would a Moog synthesiser from the 1960s still hold as much geeky charm?
But these ideas are changing 鈥 and the changes are being made by designers like Place, who sense that an instrument has to provoke as much in its design as it does in its output.
G眉nter Geiger understands this as well. He鈥檚 one of the designers of the Reactable, which is, as you might already have guessed, a table. It has a sensitive surface, lit from below, which changes the sound based on what you put on it. It鈥檚 a slightly bizarre instrument 鈥 you could sit us at the breakfast table for an age, and it鈥檇 never occur to us to combine it with a synthesiser 鈥 but it does indeed look and sound beautiful.
Like the AlphaSphere, the Reactable has its roots in a university environment, in this case Barcelona鈥檚 Pompeu Fabra University. Academic settings which encourage abstract thought tend to lead to some innovative designs, and the field of instrument-building is no exception. And Geiger doesn鈥檛 believe you can separate the instrument鈥檚 function from its artistic merits.
鈥淭here鈥檚 this common misconception that people don鈥檛 see music as art,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge part of art. The Reactable isn鈥檛 just about building a piece of technology 鈥 that鈥檚 not all it is. The outcome is to generate art. [Performance is] a kind of art.鈥 Of course, none of this really explains why instruments are changing shape 鈥 only that they are. It鈥檚 not hard to work out the reasons behind it, though 鈥 take one look at the Internet, home to millions upon millions of niche interests, and you鈥檒l get the picture. If something as innocuous as a waterskiing cat can generate millions of views, then something as quirky and unique as a Reactable certainly has an audience.
At no other time in history has human society thrived more on something new, on the next big thing, on an idea taken to its extremes. 20 years ago, the Reactable would have been an academic curio. Today, it鈥檚 a monster, as Geiger illuminates when he tells the story of how the legendary Icelandic musician Bj枚rk got a hold of it: 鈥淎t the end of 2006, we made a video about the workings of the Reactable. We put it on YouTube and it did really well 鈥 it made the frontpage of the site. That鈥檚 where Bj枚rk saw it, and it went from there. She wanted to use it in her show. It was amazing 鈥 this project at university [just got so big].鈥 Bj枚rk has used the Reactable in several shows, and now it鈥檚 become a recognised part of the musical landscape.
Not that instruments don鈥檛 have several hurdles to jump over before they become recognised as legitimate pieces of art 鈥 if that slightly woolly concept is even something to shoot for. They鈥檙e expensive to make. The Reactable costs 鈧9700, plus 鈧300 shipping, and the Eigenharp is a crisp 拢4950 although, cannily, they offer rentals. Even the AlphaSphere has a 拢1000 price tag. They don鈥檛 just look like pieces of art; they cost about the same too.
They鈥檙e also intensive to produce. Geiger, who has sold a respectable 50 units, says that he and his team have developed an iPad app to boost the instrument鈥檚 profile. It鈥檚 a little bit cheaper than the actual instrument. 鈥淲e got a lot of response to the Reactable,鈥 he says, 鈥渂ut, technologically, it鈥檚 really difficult to produce. When tablet devices came out, we saw that and thought, we can map that very well to them. The way that it鈥檚 used to make music makes it very different from other types of music software.鈥
Of course, one might reasonably ask: why now? Software has been developing at a steady pace for years. But instrument design remained static for literally centuries, only to take a hard left suddenly in the past decade. What gives?
Place, who has experimented with techniques like 3D printing to speed up production on his spheres, says, somewhat predictably, that hardware takes a while to catch up with the much easier-to-change software market. 鈥淭he production software has been racing ahead for a long time, and there haven鈥檛 been sufficient tools to use it. Hardware is bound to take longer because it takes more energy, and there are more barriers to entry with producing.鈥
鈥淭he technology allows people to realise their dreams,鈥 says Geiger. 鈥20 years ago, you had to be a good guitarist or a good piano player if you wanted to be a musician. It was difficult to enter a creative process. Nowadays, with computers, you can.鈥
For more information on the AlphaSphere, go to and for more on the Reactable visit .
Rob Boffard
