HELiX

April 1 - April 5, 2019

For this course MUSIC 220c I propose to design and implement an Augmented Flute that can act as a controller for a variety of music making and performance applications.

Motivation

Sensory Percussion by Sun House

In October of 2016 I attended the SF Music Tech Submit, discovering many new innovations and designs in the music tech industry. However, Sensory Percussion by Sun House stood out the most to me. The idea was to have the ability to play and trigger electronic sounds and samples through the acoustic drum itself. No external drum pad was needed. This allowed drummers to explore electronic music production without having to go through the learning process of a whole new system or apparatus. They could intuitively and easily create electronic tracks and pieces based on their language and knowledge of playing the drums. An example of how the system works can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNASyYWshQc

After hearing a live demo of this system all I could think of was that I wanted one, but for my flute. So for this course I plan to design and build an augmented flute that will allow me to easily and intuitively create electronic music through my existing knowledge and facility of playing the flute.

April 8 - April 12, 2019

Requirements

This week I began laying out the requirements for HELiX: