Musical Instruments

ur2muchr

I am fairly new to physical computing...I'm not sure if I am way out of the ball park with this question, but I was wondering if their was any way one could control a musical instrument (piano) through there movement. Not movement of the fingers, but through movement of parts of the body at a distance, through use of a sensor and a basic stamp board?

Franklin

If by "physical computing" you also mean electronic circuit building and mechanical experience then I would suggest you find someone in your area with those skills to colaberate on the project. With the right parts it'a a great project... (I can see it now... dancers making their own music to dance to.)

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- Stephen

LSB

I should think that, to the limits of the Stamp, this would be a fun project. It is not clear from your post just what level of control you’re expecting; however, many sensors can detect movement and feed input to a Stamp that may trigger solenoids or motors to “play” a piano (or a trumpet for that matter). I’d suggest starting simply, then working your way up… perhaps a switch or one of the Qprox proximity sensors as an input device to the stamp—coupled to a solenoid for one note. Once you develop the means to control the attack and delay of the tone (playing a piano is much more than pressing a key), then add a second note… the stamp has 16 outputs; split evenly between input and output that is one full octave, but then I only presume that each input will control only one note.

Zoot

Have you thought about using MIDI for your sensors and protocol -- that would simplify things a lot on the user/input side of things (with off the shelf solutions) and leave the bigger electro-mechanical problem of actually activating the piano hammers (or keys). I searched around a bit with Google -- didn't find anything terribly useful, but it seems like most experimenters pursue one of two basic approaches -- solenoids or some electrical actuator to actually strike the strings (in place of manual hammers) or a robot/actuator that moves up and down in front of the keyboard and actually strikes the keys as necessary.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

ur2muchr

You guys are wonderful...you gave me a great head start for this project. I'm not quite familiar with solenoids, however I picked up a couple of helpful books that's helping me along the way...at least now I know what direction my research should move towards....I'm going to also aply with the MIDI as well..thank you!!

Forrest

Here's an interesting project posted on www.hackaday.com a few years ago. It's a midi controlled acoustic guitar and the guitar is played thru many solenoids www.me.gatech.edu/mechatronics_lab/Projects/Fall00/group3/photo.htm

Vern Graner

ur2muchr said...
I am fairly new to physical computing...I'm not sure if I am way out of the ball park with this question, but I was wondering if their was any way one could control a musical instrument (piano) through there movement. Not movement of the fingers, but through movement of parts of the body at a distance, through use of a sensor and a basic stamp board?

You might have a look at this project I did a while back:

http://www.thereping.com

Nuts and Volts magazine published an article I wrote about this project.

The "thereping" uses the Parallax PING sensor to determine your distance from the instrument, and then picks a note to play based on that distance. Hope this helps!

Vern

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Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
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Zoot

Hey -- can anybody put their finger on the article that was in Nuts n Volts a few years ago that discussed decoding and using the midi protocol? I can't remember if the article discussed the Stamp or the SX (or both). If memory serves, the article discussed the fact that the Stamp can be used in MIDI apps but with a reduction in bandwidth, etc. due to relative slowness of the Stamp, but that the SX can blaze through midi pretty easily.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

PAR

Zoot said...
Hey -- can anybody put their finger on the article that was in Nuts n Volts a few years ago that discussed decoding and using the midi protocol? I can't remember if the article discussed the Stamp or the SX (or both). If memory serves, the article discussed the fact that the Stamp can be used in MIDI apps but with a reduction in bandwidth, etc. due to relative slowness of the Stamp, but that the SX can blaze through midi pretty easily.

See if NV #94 and #95, or maybe #122,·are what you are referring to.

PAR

Post Edited (PAR) : 4/3/2007 7:41:45 PM GMT

Zoot

Yes, that's it. Thank you PAR.

ur2muchr -- visit www.parallax.com/html_pages/downloads/nvcolumns/Nuts_Volts_Downloads_V4.asp and Nuts n Volts #94 and #95 have articles and sample code discussing reading sensors with a Stamp, converting to MIDI, etc. This might a be good place to start for ideas.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST