#1

Hi lines,

It’s a bit short notice, but: I’ll be in the Netherlands probably for a week and a half to work on my MIDI-enabled hurdy gurdy project with an interaction design student there. tl;dr we’re fitting a hurdy gurdy with sensors to turn it into a MIDI controller as well as electro-acoustic instrument, to create an experimental platform for new hybrid performance techniques.

Right now we have a working prototype and a few demo applications. In order to get a better idea of how to design the configuration and performance interfaces, we’re looking to meet up with people interested in using or designing hybrid systems to get a sense of how they would want to use such a system.

Is there anyone here in NL who might be interested in experimental hybrid instruments, or does anyone have any contacts who might be?

Here’s a little lo-fi taster of the first demo of the system: processing the MIDI and sound signals to allow the (monophonic) gurdy to play polyphonically in real time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sk5YNtWM84

Many thanks,
Barnaby

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#2

I neither happen to be in the Netherlands nor have extensive experience in hybrid instrument design. I just wanted to say this is really cool. I don’t know much about what’s been done in the field already and what there is left to explore, but I think this is a really interesting way to extend an instrument and integrate it with software — that poly demo is exciting already!

#3

Have you reached out to STEIM?

#4

My friend Fieke is a hurdy-gurdy player, has a sound engineering degree and runs her own studio: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/fiekevandenhurk. I bet she might be interested in this.