It's A Computer! It's An Instrument!

First of all, never mind how long it's been since my last post. I'm not even gonna go there. School and plays and natural forgetfulness have all played their parts in getting us to here and now.

What's more important is that I just found out about the first annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held at Georgia Tech on February 28th. Basically, tech-savvy - and maybe music-savvy, but not necessarily - people competed for lotsa money with the creation of unique electronic musical instruments.

I'm not huge on tech lingo, but I will let you have a look here and ogle. There are videos for most, audio samples, pictures, etc. Of particular interest to me are the following:

- The first-prize-winning Silent Drum, by Jaime Oliver;
- Hye Ki Min's lovely-sounding Sorisu. It combines music with electronics... and Sudoku;
- The vocal and versatile Toob from Arvid Tomayko-Peters. I think I'd have lotsa fun with that one;
- The Disc.o from Andrea Haider, which gives CDs new life in the music world;
- The showmanship of Thomas Gerhardt (aka DJ Porcelain and the Plates), in spinning plates and activating samples. It's like DJing on crack;
- The paper-and-ink wonder of Greg Kellum's Touch Plane. Frankly, I am more sympathetic to this one than to any of the others; and
- The future of the Blue Man Group, if they know what's good for them - D. Andrew Stewart and Joseph Malloch's T-Stick. A great blend of music and performance.

I should say, however, that none of these instruments are in any position to replace those that I know and cherish. The GuitarBot is a nice experiment, but there's no emotion whatsoever. And I really don't have anything good to say about MIDI approximations of guitar and piano sounds.

Regardless, some of these instruments are simply beautiful. It's nice to see technology going in a human direction sometimes. When people find a nice symbiosis between emotion and technology, the results can be remarkable.

What do YOU think?