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Versatile Player.

An electronic instrument that gives the musician more options.
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There are ten buttons, one for each finger. The 5 on the right control volume for up to 5 lines of music, one for each finger on the right hand. The more pressure, the louder. No pressure, no sound. The 5 fingers of the left hand, on the 5 buttons on the left, controll the pitch on each of the 5, or less, lines of music. The more pressure, the higher the pitch. Again, no preassure, no sound. Each of the left hand buttons start an octave lower then the the button, if any, to its right, and an octave higher than the button to its left. The player can slide from one note to the next on the same button, or play discrete notes, as on a piano, by alternating between one button and another. The different buttons can be programmed to play different instrument sounds. If this is baked, please tell me where I can buy one.
tonybe, Jan 23 2010

MIDI Glove http://www.google.c...fe=off&q=midi+glove
various implementations [csea, Jan 23 2010]

Eigenharp http://www.eigenlabs.com/
This is what came to mind as I read the idea, may not be relevant. [tatterdemalion, Jan 25 2010]

Yamaha WX5 Wind Controller http://www.patchmanmusic.com/wx5info.html
Electronic Woodwind Instrument With MIDI Capability [Jscotty, Jan 25 2010]

[link]






       Check out [link] for some ideas. Might require some custom software to create what you're after.
csea, Jan 23 2010
  

       You could just use a theremin, but you'd have to sacrifice the ability to play separate notes.
DrWorm, Jan 23 2010
  

       It's next to the any key.
Wrongfellow, Jan 24 2010
  

       This is buildable, but would it be playable?   

       Are there any instruments that translates pressure - rather than position - into pitch? Some sort of drum, maybe? I guess it's also part of applying vibrato to guitar strings, but in general, it's pretty rare.   

       I don't know if we humans are any good at applying precise pressure.
jutta, Jan 24 2010
  

       When playing the timpani, varying amounts of pressure must be applied to the foot pedal in order to attain a specific pitch.
DrWorm, Jan 24 2010
  

       // Are there any instruments that translates pressure - rather than position - into pitch? //   

       The mouse organ.
marklar, Jan 24 2010
  

       This could work if the "buttons" had enough travel - so converting pressure into movement. When pitch-bending guitar strings, you do press, but the string slides sideways a bit - giving you the motor-feedback to control it. Similarly the timpani foot pedal.   

       So instead of buttons we should be thinking about 5 short-travel levers for each hand. Perhaps a total travel of one inch per lever would allow for very fine control of pitch and volume.   

       Also, the software could be programmed to allow continuous pitch adjustment, like a swannee whistle, or alternatively the pitch spectrum could be quantised in any configuration such as 12-tone-equal-tempered, Pythagorean-diatonic, or anything else you fancied.   

       Edit - the midi glove looks great but is slightly different to this idea, which is more in the form of an instrument with 10 buttons mounted on 2 handles.
pocmloc, Jan 24 2010
  

       Yes Pocmloc, that's about what I had in mind, short travel levers, which return on their own power when released, and continuous pitch adjustment like a slide whistle.
tonybe, Jan 25 2010
  

       How about a pair of force-feedback joysticks that can move both rotationally (pitch, yaw, roll) and spatially (x,y,z) independently of one another, and with six or seven buttons on each handgrip - four for the fingers, and two plus a "top-hat" 2 axis button or scroll wheels for the thumbs ?   

       Foot pedals too ....   

       It would look a bit like a flight simulator chair.   

       That would give you plenty of combo input sot go with; a big screen or (perhaps better) VR goggles would let you see a visualisation of the sound you're creating.
8th of 7, Jan 25 2010
  

       This is a common instrument. Yamaha makes the WX-5 and Roland makes the A-90. Midi slave devices can be mapped to play certain sounds with certain keys.
Jscotty, Jan 25 2010
  
      
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