need for global co-operation in order toovercome this historic injustice.
Patricia was an impressive figure; herpresence was felt wherever she went. Her
diplomatic skills, her vision, her dedication,
her high standards, her attention to detail,her empathy and friendship, and her sheer
hard work brought her (and with her, theaspirations of so many creative women) to
the attention of cultural gatekeepers at thehighest levels. A tall, elegant woman withflowing auburn locks, stylishly dressed, she
could not be ignored. Her energy seemed tobe limitless, and her imagination for multinational projects was prodigious. Working
right up to the last moment, “Time” eventually ran out on June 12, 2018. Her death
was a shock to all of the members of Women in Music UK, and they have expressed
their tributes to her.
To conclude, I am quoting from Patricia’s email to me on May 16, just a month
before she died. It is about her most recent project: a Global Call for New Music for Human Rights to be performed andrecorded at the 70th Anniversary of theCampaign for the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. The concert is scheduled
to be performed in the Teatro Argentina,

Rome, on November 5, 2018. “Women’smusic is an essential part of world heritage. The fundamental role of women in
the creation and transmission of tangible
and intangible cultural heritage, and thecreation and practice of music belongs, notonly to a people or a culture, but to all of
humanity.”
By Tsippi Fleischer:
I met Patricia Adkins-Chiti in Alaska,in August 1993, at the wonderful Women
Composers and Performers Festival organized by Suzanne Sommerville. Patricia
and I were the only “outsiders,” since weboth lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. We immediately connected. Afterhearing my Ballad of Expected Death in
Cairo, sung in Arabic by the AmericanJewish mezzo-soprano Isabelle Ganz,
Patricia approached me and insisted on
performing my music. She invited me toRome, in spring 1996, to work with her on
my song-cycle Girl-Butterfly-Girl, withlyrics by Lebanese and Syrian poets, andshe insisted on singing it in Arabic. Patricia had a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice,and her training was in the traditional European bel canto style.

The performance at the Vatican on Radio Vaticana is like in a dream in my memory. Of course, Patricia would not miss thatoccasion for an extensive broadcast interview with me; she served as the interviewer. She was so kind and treated me almost
like a mother, encouraging me to pursue
my career as a woman composer, despite
the difficulties of living in Israel with theconstant threat of terrorism and war. As she
got to know me better, she initiated and produced a film featuring my work using manyof my documentary videos. Those were theearly days of the Donne in Musica project,which she discussed extensively with me.
Her players were enthusiastic about
performing a purely instrumental version ofGirl-Butterfly-Girl in addition to the original
vocal work. Once such an idea was raised,
Patricia would push it wholeheartedly. You
may listen to and download these two separate versions on my website: (1) I recommend listening to Patricia singing the entire
song cycle (click on “Discography” and CD
tract list: “Israel at 50: A Celebration withMusic of Tsippi Fleischer.”) (2) For the instrumental arrangement (flute, bass-flute,
piano), see “Girl-Butterfly-Girl ─ A World
Journey,” song No. 3 from the cycle.

New Interfaces, New Sounds: On Electronic Musical Instruments and Controllers
SARAH REID

I dream of instruments obedient
to my thought and which with
their contribution of a whole newworld of unsuspected sounds, will
lend themselves to the exigenciesof my internal rhythm.1
This famous quote from Edgard Varèse illuminates a familiar desire for many performers and composers: to extend one’s personal practice beyond available tools andcommon standards, and to venture toward
unfamiliar and idiosyncratic sound worlds.
For some, this may mean pushing the limitsof pre-existing instruments and exploringnew sonic territory by adopting experimental performance or compositional techniques. For others, this desire may extend
well beyond extant tools and practice into
an imaginary world of entirely new musicalinstruments, interactions, and sounds.
This article presents an introduction
to the world of designing and building
new musical instruments, interfaces, andcontrollers for electronic and hybrid electronic/acoustic music. We will look at a

few examples of such projects and their inventors in order to gain a glimpse into thisfascinating field. This article is the thirdand final installment in a series discussing
the integration of electronic and acoustic
instruments in composition and performance. Previous installments explored thedevelopment of a performance practicewith electronic instruments, integrating
electronic and acoustic instruments in ensembles through improvisation, as well assome approaches to notation for primarilysound-based electronic/acoustic music.2 3
Initial Thoughts: Instrument andController
To some, the terms “instrument” and“controller” may be deeply interwoven,
and, indeed, as with many terms and concepts used to describe creative tools andpractice, there is no absolute definition thatwill cover all use cases and approaches.
That being said, it is perhaps worthwhile tospend some time considering these words
and their function in order to provide somecontext and framing for our discussion.

Reid, New Interfaces, New Sounds: On Electronic Musical Instruments and Controllers

An acoustic piano produces soundwhen a series of strings are struck (andthereby vibrated) by small hammers. The
body of the piano acts as the resonator forthe sound. The most common means of interacting with the piano is by playing the
keyboard—pressing a key activates thecorresponding hammer, which vibrates thestring, and so on. With this image in mind,
one could say that the keyboard portion of
the piano is the “controller” while the hammers, strings, and resonating body are the“instrument.” On the other hand, one mightargue that a “piano” is necessarily the sumof all of these various components, and to
remove or alter one aspect would result ina different instrument altogether.
When a performer strikes, plucks, orbows an acoustic instrument, it produces
a sound that comes from the instrument
itself. The range of sounds produced bya given instrument is also relatively limited—an acoustic piano will always soundmore or less like a piano, a trumpet like a
trumpet, and so on. There are, of course,3exceptional acoustic instrumentalists who
have a very wide range of command andexpression on their instruments. This statement is not intended to devalue their virtuosity, but simply to bring attention to therelative range of sounds that can be produced by acoustic instruments in comparison to most electronic instruments (manyof which have virtually unlimited sonicpalettes). The black and white keyboard isa control interface that is used for a large
variety of electric keyboard and audio synthesizer instruments. But in many of theseelectronic instruments, striking the middle
C key may not produce a middle C at all—the keys are removed from their originalfunctionality of activating hammers andinstead become neutral sources of control
data. This data can, in turn, be mapped tovirtually any result.
So then, what makes an instrument,
an instrument? Is it the way it sounds, theway sound is produced, the way it’s interacted with?
The goal of this section is not to answer these questions in any official capacity, but rather to simply consider them.
When approaching the world of electronicand hybrid electronic/acoustic musical instruments, these considerations become all
the more relevant. In the first article in thisseries, we discussed some fundamental differences between acoustic and electronic
instruments. One of these differences is
the instrument’s means of control (input)
and sound production (output). As briefly
illuminated above, many electronic instruments have completely independent meansby which to control and produce sound.
This means that the same key or button canbe used to trigger or control any numberof sounds, or that the same type of soundcan be produced using a large number ofmethods and tools. In a 1983 interview with
Polyphony magazine, pioneering electronic
musical instrument designer Don Buchla
refers to this independence when he says: “Ilike to regard the instrument as consistingof three major parts: an input structure that
we contact physically, an output structurethat generates the sound, and a connection
between the two. The electronic family of
instruments offers us the limitation, if weapproach it traditionally, and the freedom if
we approach it in a new way, of total independence between input and output.”4
Laptop musicians may consider eachindividual program they run on their com4

puter its own digital instrument, or theymight consider the computer itself to be theinstrument and the programs to be compositions. Their controller of choice may be
the keyboard that comes attached to thecomputer, or they may opt to interact withthe computer using an external MIDI controller with sliders and knobs. Similarly, an
ensemble of musicians all playing modular
synthesizers may consider themselves tobe playing the same instrument while having completely different modules and controllers in each of their setups.
This freedom that Buchla speaks ofis something that many have explored inperformance, composition, and the designof new interfaces and controllers. Oftentimes, the result of these explorations issomething very personal to the artist who
creates it—a tool or solution to interacting with sound that feels right, and helps
the artist achieve her own creative goals.
Electronic instruments that offer relative
independence between input and output afford the opportunity to use any input structure or control source. So long as data canbe transmitted from the control source tothe sound source, anything can become thecontroller: a cell phone, a custom array of
buttons and knobs, the performer’s body, acoffee cup.… In fact, some electronic instruments may require little to no human
input whatsoever, instead, relying on selfperpetuating or automated processes.
In the next section, we will look at a
few examples of how different artists havechosen to design and build their own custom instruments and interfaces as a meansby which to interact with sound in entirely
unique ways.5
Daphne Oram“Imagine yourself a ‘painter in sound’.
Your blank ‘canvas’ is a piece of magnetic
recording tape….The whole evolves justlike an oil painting….You can use any
colour of sound that you can imagine, forany duration, with any rhythm, and at any
pitch.”6
Daphne Oram was a British composer,
electronic music pioneer, and instrument
inventor, born in 1925. From a very youngage, Oram was fascinated by the possibility of being able to draw sound—to create markings on a piece of paper and havethem translated into audible frequencies.
To Oram, this interest was not centered
upon being able to graphically represent asound in an abstract form, but being able toconstruct and “manipulate every subtle nuance of sound”7 through the precise drawing of waveforms and other fundamentalbuilding blocks.8
In the early 1960s, Oram designed
and built a machine called the Oramics,
which allowed her to accomplish just this.
The Oramics is a large analog audio synthesizer that produces sound by reading
markings on transparent strips of 35mm
film. The instrument contains ten tapeloops that are passed over photocells (sensors that detect light). The drawings on thefilm cause the light received by the photocells to be modulated, producing voltages which in turn control oscillators andvarious aspect of the sound.9 The strips offilm that are fed to the Oramics machine
are in essence the musical score, containing information about pitch, note duration,
timbre, and vibrato. However, instead ofa five-line staff and traditional Western
symbols, Oram’s notation looked more
like squiggly lines, irregular shapes, anddots. For those familiar with digital audio
workstations, there is a striking similarity
between Oram’s notation and MIDI automation lanes and piano roll editors—butof course, the Oramics pre-dates thesetechniques by several decades.
Laetitia Sonami
Laetitia Sonami built the first prototypeof the Lady’s Glove in 1991, as a means of“finding a more fluid way to perform withthe computer.”10 (See Figure 1.) The Lady’s Glove went
through numerous iterations anddesigns, eventually evolving
into a nuanced
and flexible gestural instrumentwith which Sonami performed
for many years.
Embedded in the
glove are numerFig. 1. Laetitia Sonami
ous sensors towith the Lady’s Glovedetect subtle finger bends and wrist movements, as wellas the overall speed and movement of theperformer’s hand in space.11 Instead of being restricted to performing from behind acomputer, the Lady’s Glove enabled Sonami to explore a freer, more physicallyengaging means of interacting with her instrument and audience.12
IAWM Journal Volume 24, No. 2 2018

More recently, Sonami developed a
new instrument called the Spring Spyre.
(See Figure 2.) The Spring Spyre incorpo-

Fig. 2. Laetitia Sonami performingon the Spring Spyrerates a series of intersecting springs attached
to a circular metal frame. In performance,
the springs are plucked, rubbed, and tapped
to generate control information for real-time
audio synthesis. Sonami uses a machinelearning software called Wekinator, developed by Rebecca Fiebrink, to teach thecomputer physical gestures and how theyshould be mapped to musical output.13
Kristina Warren
Composer, improviser, and researcher
Kristina Warren created a full body, wearable instrument called Exo-Rosie.14 (SeeFig. 3. Kristina Warren presenting
Exo-Rosie(photo by Gregory Taylor)

Figure 3.) The instrument is a “wearable
exoskeleton”—a jumpsuit covered in resistors and other electrical components, connected with wire and conductive thread.
When the performer connects different partsof her body together (e.g., touching the rightwrist to various points along the left arm),different circuits are closed, resulting in theactivation of various analog oscillators andthe output of digital control information. In
describing the project, Warren mentions that
Exo-Rosie is not just an instrument, but alsoa persona (Rosie the Riveter), and expresses
that the “limb-to-limb choreography” required in performance “conveys strengthand subjectivity.”15
Akiko Hatakeyama
Myaku is an instrument developedby Akiko Hatakeyama that uses candlelight as its main input source. A series often light sensors are placed on a table surrounding small candles, which are lit andrepositioned during performance. The lightfrom the candles is used to control loudness of various audio samples, creating an
undulating and flickering texture. Candle
flames emit strong light compared to electric lights, and the dancing motion of theflames is visual as well as audible in thispiece. Hatakeyama says that she makes“compositional decisions by considering the light intensities and movementsof different candles to place them to create a desired yet autonomous sound environment.”16 Compared to some electronic
instruments, Myaku is relatively simple
in terms of technical design, but the application of this instrument in performanceyields a truly compelling, mesmerizing audiovisual experience.
Sarah Reid and Ryan Gaston
The work of the individuals mentioned
above has greatly inspired my practice as aperformer-composer. In fact, the world of
instrument-building and new musical interfaces was what initially piqued my interest in music technology altogether, compelling me to learn the basics of electricalengineering and computer science in addition to my musical studies. Coming from aclassical background as a trumpet player,
I became very interested in the possibilityof integrating new, custom electronics withmy acoustic trumpet.
One of the projects that emerged fromthis work is a wireless interface for trumpet
called MIGSI (Minimally Invasive GestureSensing Interface).17 I developed MIGSIin collaboration with Ryan Gaston. It features a number of sensors embedded on
the trumpet to capture gestural information
during performance. The sensors detectvalve displacement, instrument tilt, as wellas hand tension and pressure while holding
the instrument. (See Figure 4.)
One of the goals behind MIGSI was toextract data from gestures that are inherent
in playing the instrument (such as pushingvalves and holding the trumpet) instead of
adding new buttons, switches, and knobs.

Reid, New Interfaces, New Sounds: On Electronic Musical Instruments and Controllers

The unique challenge of this design is oneof parsing and mapping the data in compelling ways, such that the integrity and playability of the original acoustic instrument
is maintained while new sonic control isadded. Since the completion of the initial
prototype in 2015, a large number of compositions have been created for MIGSI, including a recent piece in which data fromthe trumpet controls an ensemble of mechatronic drums and percussion instruments.
Final Thoughts and Next StepsElectronic instruments are unique intheir ability to provide independence between input control and output. As we haveseen above, working with these types of instruments affords a wealth of possibilities
for designing customized means of controlling and interacting with sound. With
these new tools, performers can define thenature of interaction with their instrument:
they can create a controller that outputs
precise data for highly repeatable performances and traditional development of
virtuosity; they may create a controller thatuses their input to initiate processes thatyield unpredictable results; they may evendevise a system that enables input control
to directly alter the relationship between
input and output, in effect creating an instrument that changes behavior depending
on how it is played.
The work shared in this article may
seem advanced—indeed, each project outlined above is the result of many years of
research and iteration—but that should notdiscourage you from exploring this field if
you have interest. My hope in presenting
this work is to spark interest and curiosity,and perhaps even to compel a few readers
to venture into new territory with their personal creative practice.
Perhaps the most important concluding remark to make is this: Every project
begins with an idea and a simple prototype.
In Sonami’s case, the prototype was fabri-Fig. 4. Sarah Belle Reid playing MIGSI
5

cated from a pair of yellow rubber kitchen
gloves.18 Almost all of the technical projects I have created start with brown cardboard and tape. This is important to realize because often it can be challenging forsomeone—especially someone new to thisfield—to see the steps involved in progressing from initial idea to completed musicalinstrument. However, getting started andtaking those initial steps is actually simpler than one might realize. The availabilityof open source microcontrollers, electrical components, sensors, and project kits
makes it easier than ever for individuals to
begin learning the necessary skills to prototype new ideas. Many of these tools areaccompanied by informative tutorials, thor-

ough step-by-step guides and code examples. For those curious about how to start orwhere to go next, a brief annotated resource
list is included at the end of this article.
When Varèse dreamed of new, strange
instruments, he did not have access to affordable, pocket-sized computers and online retailers specializing in parts needed
for DIY technology projects. But the creative dreamer of today does. This opens
a world of possibilities for sonic exploration and new modes of interaction thatare rich with potential—a merging of established practices with new curiosities,
traditional instruments with those not yet
invented, acoustic and electronic, bizarre
and beautiful.

Resource List
Adafruit: an online resource for open
source hardware, electronic parts, andDIY project kits. They have a number of
excellent, free learning resources including a community blog, tutorials, guides,and demos for all of their products. https://www.adafruit.com
Instructables: a very wide range ofcommunity-submitted DIY project guides
and instructions, often including usefulsnippets of code to help jumpstart yourproject. https://www.instructables.com/
Kadenze: for those looking to diveinto some serious studies, Kadenze is an
online course provider that offers classes
in topics ranging from introductory audio

MUSIC AND THEATRE CONSERVATORY DEGREES:Classical Performance | Music Composition | Music Education
Music Education and Performance Double Major
Orchestral Studies | Bachelor of Musical Arts | BFA Acting
BFA Musical Theatre | BFA Musical Theatre: Dance Concentration
MA Theatre Directing | Performing Arts Administration
Professional Diploma in Opera (in conjunction with Chicago Opera Theater)

Learn more: roosevelt.edu/ccpa-performs
6

IAWM Journal Volume 24, No. 2 2018

synthesis to advanced machine learningand audio/visual programming. https://www.kadenze.com/
Make Magazine: an online magazine with extensive DIY projects ranging
from e-textiles to 3D-printing to robotics.
https://makezine.com/
NIME: an annual conference on
New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
where artists and scholars come together
to share new developments in the field of
instrument and interface design. The entire
proceedings archive for this conference isavailable free and is a wonderful resourceand source of inspiration. http://www.
nime.org/
NOTES
1
E. Varese, “The Liberation of Sound,” ed.
Chou Wen-chung, Perspectives of New Music 5,
No. 1 (1966): 11–19.
2
S. Reid, “Approaching Electronic/Acoustic Performance Practice Through Improvisation,” Journal of the International Alliance for
Women in Music 23, No.1 (2017): 2–7.
3
S. Reid, “Notation Strategies for SoundBased Electronic/Acoustic Music,” Journal of
the International Alliance for Women in Music23, No.2 (2017): 10–16.
4
J. K. Diliberto, “An Interview with Donald Buchla,” Polyphony 8.5 (1983): 14–17.

This article will introduce just a few artists and their work. A more thorough (yet still
far from comprehensive) list of works in thisfield can be found in S. Reid, S. Sithi-Amnuai,
A. Kapur, “Women Who Build Things: Gestural
Controllers, Augmented Instruments, and Musical Mechatronics,” Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (Virginia, 2018).
6
D. Oram, “Electronic music, the present
and the potential,” Musical Events XV (December 1960): 20.
7“End or Beginning,” BBC Radio 3,
September 26, 1972. Presented by Thea Musgrave, with Tristram Cary and Daphne Oram.
National Sound Archive.
8
D. Oram, An Individual Note: Of Music,
Sound and Electronics (London: Galliard Paperbacks, 1972).
9
J. Hutton, “Daphne Oram: innovator,
writer and composer,” Organised Sound 8.1(Cambridge University Press, 2003), 49–56.
10
http://sonami.net/ Accessed September
10, 2018.
11
T. Rodgers, Pink Noises: Women on
Electronic Music and Sound (Duke University
Press, 2010).
12
E. Karp, “Artist Interview: Laetitia Sonami.” Available at: http://www.somarts.org/laetitiasonami/
13
R. Fiebrink, “Machine Learning as Meta-Instrument: Human-Machine Partnerships
Shaping Expressive Instrumental Creation,” T.
5

Bovermann, et al. (eds), Musical Instruments inthe 21st Century (2016), 137-151.
14
http://kmwarren.org/ Accessed September 10, 2018.
15
http://kmwarren.org/exo-rosie.html. Accessed September 10, 2018.
16
http://akikohatakeyama.com/v_chi.html.
Accessed September 14, 2018.

S. Reid, R. Gaston, C. Honigman,and A. Kapur, “Minimally Invasive Gesture Sensing Interface (MIGSI) for Trumpet,” Proceedings of the International
Conference on New Interfaces for MusicalExpression (Brisbane 2016), 419–424.
18
http://sonami.net/ladys-glove/ Accessed September 10, 2018.
17

Sarah Belle Reid has presented and performed
with MIGSI at institutions and festivals aroundthe world, and her compositions have been
performed by renowned musicians. In 2017,
Flux, for amplified percussion quartet, won the
Grammy-nominated Los Angeles Percussion
Quartet’s Next Wave Composer Initiative. She
has premiered over 40 works for solo trumpet
as well as multiple chamber and performanceart pieces, and she is a founding member of thetrumpet/modular synthesizer duo Burnt Dot.
Reid has published technical and theoretical papers on the subjects of interdisciplinary process
and collaboration, musical interface design, andalternate methods of musical notation.

Oh, the Places You’ll Goh
YEN-LIN GOH

Congratulations to Yen-Lin Goh! She wasrecently selected as a 2018 OneBeat Fellow
by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureauof Educational and Cultural Affairs from apool of more than 1,500 applicants. OneBeat is an international music exchangethat celebrates musical collaboration andsocial engagement through innovative people-to-people diplomacy. Musicians (ages19-35) from around the world come together in the U.S. for five weeks to collaboratively write, produce, and perform original
music, and develop ways that music canmake a positive impact on our local andglobal communities. Yen-Lin’s residency
was for September/October 2018.
The IAWM is delighted to welcome
Yen-Lin, our first member from Malaysia.
I invited her to tell us about her unusual
career and her experiences in three very
different countries.
From Malaysia to the United States
As a pianist, composer, and teacher,
I have traveled widely and lived in threedifferent countries, starting and ending in
Goh, Oh, the Places You’ll Goh

Malaysia. Although I was born on Penang
Island in Malaysia where my parents lived,
we moved to the capital Kuala Lumpur because of better job opportunities. But were
there opportunities for musicians? When I
was young, I was told that my career options would be very limited if I chose thearts, so I majored in science, like most other “good” students, even though I was notespecially interested in science.
I was anxious to travel and continue
my education in America. Since Malaysia
is a tropical country, where it is summer
all year long, I wanted to go where I could
experience the four seasons and snow, andI was accepted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in communication
arts/radio-TV-film and piano performance.
That was a milestone in my musical journey and probably one of the most important
decisions I have made. I enjoyed my musicclasses the most, and through my participation in an ensemble I re-discovered my loveof improvisation, became fascinated with
contemporary music, and realized that I had

ability as a composer after creating a piece
for the improvisation ensemble inspired by
Malaysian culture. This was also a period ofsocial adjustment for me. Living in a large
country and attending a large school meantthat I was no longer a prominent student, as
I was in the small Yamaha music school in
Malaysia. I also had to adjust to the American education system, which was quite different from the one I grew up with in Asia.
In Malaysia’s exam-oriented educational
system, students focused on doing well in
the final exams, whereas in my experiencein American universities, coursework andperformance throughout the semester tookprecedence. In other words, there was much
more emphasis on the learning process.
For financial reasons, I had expected toreturn as quickly as possible to Malaysia,
but my planned two-and-one-half years in
the U. S. extended to ten years. I was fortunate to receive a full scholarship to Oklahoma City University for graduate study. It
was a fruitful two years; I could focus on
piano playing and music making at a small
7