While at CCRMA earlier this summer, I prototyped a digital musical instrument (DMI) based on an african mbira- I affectionately named it the mbira~ (pardon the in-joke). Basically, mbira~ was four tines with different kinds of sensors to measure the pressure between the tine and the mbiras bridge. This information is sent to max/msp where it is interpreted and used to trigger a physical model of a flute. There is a video of the demo I gave at CCRMA – I’ll post it when I get a chance. Anyways, here is a picture of mbira~:
I enjoyed the way mbira~ turned out – it was satisfying to play. So far, I have stuck with traditional instruments and avoided DMI’s (I think midi ruined them for me), but as I step more into the world of electro-acoustic music it seems like having a DMI to experiment with would be useful, so when I got home I began planning for a full-scale digital mbira (I haven’t come up with a name for the new instrument yet).
Unfortunately, with all of the cool things I did this past year, I didn’t have time to document the creation of anything. (There are links to documentation of the final products on my website ianhattwick.com though.) So as I build the new mbira (please, help me come up with a better name than digibira!) I am going to document it as thoroughly as I can stomach, and get in the habit so I continue to document my projects in the future.
For now, it is getting kind of late, so I’ll post a few pics of the work so far and later will give more details.
Basic frame (it’s a picture frame!)
With wooden tines:
Tines with cds photocells in the tips:
There’s fifteen of those suckers!
Looking pretty good stained:
And that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. I’ve had to wait until the physical construction is complete before doing the circuit board, and haven’t programmed the arduino firmware yet. That will have to wait til a later post!
