Share your ideas for the next generation of musical instruments at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

Submissions are being accepted online until December 1, 2012. Preliminary and final performances will take place in Atlanta April 11-12, 2013, where contestants will battle for $10,000 in cash prizes.

This year, winners will be selected by an expert jury panel comprised of experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson, composer, performer and educator, David Wessel, and electronic musician and sound designer Richard Devine.

More details and submission form at:

http://www.gtcmt.gatech.edu/guthman2013

Share your ideas for the next generation of musical instruments at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

An annual event to find the world’s best new ideas in musicality, design and engineering, Wired magazine has called the competition an “X-Prize for music,” and contestants have likened it to a TED Conference for new musical instrument designers.

Submissions are being accepted online until November 15, 2012. Preliminary and final performances will take place in Atlanta April 11-12, 2013, where contestants will battle for $10,000 in cash prizes.
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June 28, 2012 is Buchla and Modular Synth Madness Day :: Starting at 3:00 p.m., this will be the opportunity to get your hands on some of these devices, and talk to makers & players :: Plus 5hrs of performances by Alessandro Cortini (Los Angeles), Carlos Giffoni (NYC), Mark Verbos (NYC), Xeno and Oaklander (NYC), and not-to-be-missed Loud Objects (NYC):: All taking place at Southstreet Seaport, New York City.

image: Buchla 100

This is all part of our 35th Anniversary Events, and the River To River Festival! Each summer, the Festival activates more than 25 indoor and outdoor locations in the neighborhood with an unparalleled collection of music, dance, theater, visual art, film, and participatory experiences by renowned and breakout artists from New York City and beyond.

The Eyeharp: a Gaze-Controlled Musical Instrument :: A Talk by Zacharias Vamvakousis :: Wednesday, May 30,2012, 19:30h :: Fabra i Coats. Sant Adrià 20. Barcelona. Metro Sant Andreu :: Entrada lliure / Entrada libre / Free admission ::

The main goal of the EyeHarp was to create the first gaze or head controlled musical instrument with similar expressive potentials to a traditional musical instrument. Zacharias Vamvakousis was inspired by the EyeWriter, a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus & custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes. Interacting with other people through music or creating new musical compositions might not only improve the quality of life of people with disabilities, but also be part of a rehabilitation process. Continue reading

Dave Cole :: The Music Box, 2012, installation :: March 30, 2012 - May 19, 2012 :: The Cleveland Institute of Art, Reinberger Gallery, 11141 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 :: a compactor turned into a musical instrument ::

For the national debut of his “Music Box” installation, opening Friday, March 30, 2012 at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cole turned a vintage 1980s CAT Model CS-553 smooth drum vibrator soil compactor, donated by Ohio CAT President Ken Taylor, into a colossal music box. Continue reading

Scientists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver have invented gloves that sing when you move your hands.

The musical mittens generate a computerised voice that replicates the sound of real vocal chords with every gesture. Yet – because the movements inside our larynxes are much more refined – the noise produced sounds remarkably like the Star Wars villain Darth Vader.

The inventors are confident the system could one day be simplified to help people with speech problems communicate.
But right now, it is enormously complicated and takes about 100 hours to play the extensive range of sounds that it is capable of.

Sidney Fels, who led their development, told New Scientist: ‘It’s very hard, it’s like trying to do your email while talking on the phone.’ Continue reading

The Xth Sense,( Marco Donnarumma), a biophysical, wearable interactive technology for musical performance and responsive milieux has been awarded the first prize at the prestigious Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition as “the world’s most innovative new musical instrument.” The GNMIC is an annual event to find the world’s best new ideas in musicality, design, and engineering. It takes place at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, US.

This critically acclaimed event seeks to provide a fertile platform for the advancement of the studies on New Musical Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME).

The Xth Sense is a new and original, biophysical interactive system based on free, open source tools. The project goal is to investigate exploratory applications of biological sounds, namely muscle sounds, for musical performance and responsive milieux.

Complete information and a blog documenting the research can be viewed on-line. Continue reading

After presentations in Wrocław, Lviv, and Minsk, two final showings this year of Paweł Janicki’s EU_tracer performance with internet and acoustic instruments will take place in Paris and Brussels. Continue reading

Music Hack Day is coming up!:: Microsoft NERD, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA. :: November 5th and 6th, 2011 :: Attendance is free but you need to register to guarantee a spot :: The site: http://boston.musichackday.org/2011/

The goal of Music Hack Day is to explore and build the next generation of music applications. It’s a full weekend of hacking in which participants will conceptualize, create and present their projects. Music + software + hardware + art + the web. Anything goes as long as it’s music related.

What happens at a Music Hack Day? Lots of hacking, lots of pizza, very little sleep. Send your questions to boston.musichackday@gmail.com Or, Sponsor the event :: We are looking for sponsors to help with the event. Interested? :: Contact us at boston.musichackday@gmail.com

Drawdio — by Jay Silver and Mitchel Resnick — lets you draw musical instruments on normal paper with any pencil (cheap circuit thumb-tacked on) and then play them with your finger.