VOICES OF UMEÅ: SINGING INSTRUMENTS!

VOICES OF UMEÅ: SINGING INSTRUMENTS! is an exhibition with a bunch of interactive instruments built from everyday objects, with the purpose of exploring experimental music composition through a playful and inspiring process. No instrument training is needed to compose complex music where:

- 4 wheels and a skateboard becomes a rhythmic quintet,

- 4 water taps becomes a harmonic singing quartet,

- 7 drawers becomes a sound composition machine.

MAX/MSP was used as the master controller of the electronic process when interacting with the instruments. Different sensors are connected to the everyday objects through an arduino mega card. Then the signals are translated through MAXUINO into MAX/MSP. A number of samplers with different buffers and sound controller elements are created in MAX/MSP to play different sounds and control different sound parameters. Each instrument explores different parameters of music composition such as pitch, rhythm and timbre.

The exhibition is a part of VOICES OF UMEÅ - an artistic research project by swedish composer Anders Lind at the department of creative studies/ Umeå university/ Sweden.