A new digital musical instrument
The Rulers is a self-contained musical performance system called a digital musical instrument (dmi). This means that it includes a software synthesizer, a gestural interface to manipulate the software, and a stable mapping between the two (see the Wanderley paper listed below for more details). The first design of the Rulers was completed in 2004 as part of Stanford’s Summer music technology seminar. In 2006 it was outfitted with a USB port; in 2007 it underwent further design revisions to improve the physical interface; and in 2008 Stephen Sinclair greatly improved the sensor signal processing software. It premiered in Spring of 2008 at Pollack Hall in Montreal.
How it’s played
The instrument evokes the gesture of plucking or striking a ruler that is fixed at one end. Because the seven aluminum tines have different lengths, each tine oscillates for a different amount of time when struck. This provides an element of visual and haptic feedback to the player. The dampers and keystops, inspired by similar mechanisms in a piano, minimize the acoustic component of the tines’ oscillation. While they vibrate silently, their motion is sensed by infrared reflect sensors placed under each tine.
Here’s a video (with no sound) that shows some of the gestures that can be used to play Rulers.
How it looks
The most striking visual aspect of the instrument is the artwork painted on the baseboard and keystops. During the Renaissance many intricate works of art were painted directly on musical instruments.
Inspired by these beautiful instruments, like the harpsichord above which I saw in the Musée de la Musique in Paris, I asked a prominent Montreal stencil artist embellish the Rulers with a modern take on the old tradition.
How it sounds
You can see and hear the Rulers being performed in the videos below. For details on sound synthesis and music composition for the Rulers please contact the McGill Digital Orchestra.
Here’s the Rulers in “Sounds Between Our Minds” by D. Andrew Stewart, performed during the Music+Technology Incubator at CIRMMT in Montreal.
Further reading
Pestova, X., Donald, E., Hindman, H., Malloch, J., Marshall, M., Rocha, F., Sinclair, S., Stewart, D. A., Wanderley, M. M., Ferguson, S. The CIRMMT/McGill Digital Orchestra Project. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. Montreal, Canada, 2009.
Full text (pdf, 2.6 MB)
Pestova, X., Donald, E, Stewart, D.A. The Digital Orchestra Project: Digital musical instruments and performance practice. Presented at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2009.
Full text (pdf, 3.3 MB)
Malloch, J., Birnbaum, D., Sinyor, E. and Wanderley, M. M. Towards a new conceptual framework for digital musical instruments. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects, pp. 49-52. Montreal, Canada, 2006.
Full text (pdf, 336 KB)
Wanderley, M. M., Depalle, P. “Gestural control of sound synthesis.” In Proceedings of the IEEE Special Issue on Engineering and Music — Supervisory Control and Auditory Communication, vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 632–644, 2004.
Hi i’d be delighted to see a video of your cultural/musical artifact in performance, is there any available???
nice interface!!!
[...] I’m excited to announce that, as I write this post, a musical instrument that I designed and built is being shown at WIRED magazine’s NextFest conference and trade show in Los Angeles. The first version of the Rulers came out of a physical interaction design workshop hosted by Stanford University’s CCRMA music technology program. Later I gave it a full version upgrade and it was purchased by the Digital Orchestra at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. Since the Digital Orchestra is at NextFest, so are the Rulers. Here’s the press release for the exhibition. [...]
[...] in Montreal’s Pollack Hall. The lovely and talented Xenia Pestova will be playing the Rulers, an instrument I invented. The piece she will be playing, which I haven’t heard yet, was composed by D. Andrew Stewart [...]