Abstract
Since the earliest times, humans have sought the ability to produce rhythms and tones using devices external to the human body. As technology developed, so too did the desire for this sound production to become automated. Initially peaking around the Industrial Revolution, traditional automated musical production devices went into a steep decline with the arrival of the phonograph. However, factors such as the ubiquitous acceptance of the microcontroller led to a resurgent interest in this field. This paper investigates the design considerations and development of the stringed chordophone and specifically the guitar. The challenge is to produce a mechatronic device capable of speedy and reliable note selection, string actuation, string damping and expressiveness. In the same manner that there is not one best way to play a guitar and no best guitar design, so too is there no “best” chordophone design. Rather, the competing factors of speed, precision, reliability, portability, expressiveness and timbral variation can be given different weightings and result in different designs. Therefore, rather than presenting a single chordophone development, this paper provides a multitude of design options providing an interested reader with the background and suggestions to create their own bespoke design. This paper concludes with the presentation of the authors’ final design as an integration of the presented ideas and design techniques. We demonstrate that this chordophone introduces expressivity at a level not achieved before, is modular yet portable, is mechanically quiet and can play at a speed beyond that of even the best human player.
Highlights
Music has been associated with human culture as far back as records can relate
A common criticism of mechatronic musical instruments is that they can sound too mechanical, too precise, and miss the variability that exists in a human performance, and yet others might value the high precision and repeatability that is achievable with a robotic system
After briefly examining the early history of automatic musical instruments, each of these subsystems is examined: how prior mechatronic chordophones accomplish pitch shifting, string excitation, string damping, and crosssystems interfacing are explored in detail
Summary
Humans sought the ability to produce rhythms and tones using devices external to the human body This has meant actuating a device using breath, percussion, or some other tactile interaction. We can categorise these devices into aerophones, or wind instruments; idiophones, that create sound primarily from the instrument as a whole vibrating; membranophones, where the sound is produced by the vibration of a stretched string; lamellophones, that require the plucking of tuned tongues of some material; and chordophones, that vibrate a tensioned spring. After briefly examining the early history of automatic musical instruments, each of these subsystems is examined: how prior mechatronic chordophones accomplish pitch shifting, string excitation, string damping, and crosssystems interfacing are explored in detail. The string’s vibratory length may be quantized with fixed-position frets (as seen on most guitars) or may be chosen from a continuous range of values (as on violins and related instruments)
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