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A new instrument found unusual success

theguardian.com

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Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#81

Post by Taikonerd »

> But does anybody really want to play them, learn them or go and see someone else perform on them?”

This is a great thing about physical instruments: it's easy to tell the relationship between what the performer does, and what sound comes out. (Like, "he hit a piano key, and the piano made one note.")

I've been to electronic music concerts, and a lot of the time it's just some guy fiddling with his MacBook, and cool music is coming out of the speakers, but it's not clear what he's really doing.

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#82

Post by mkaic »

lightlyused wrote: post #73
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #30

Jacob Collier (relatively famous musician) has a number of videos playing the Harpejji. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5T-9RPW4pg He has a lot of great content in general and musical talent, if you’ve never come across him before. Worth diving into.

Well worth going to see live. You will not be disappointed.

I'll be seeing him live next month at the Hollywood Bowl and I'm extremely excited. Can't wait to participate in the audience choir at the end of the show.

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#83

Post by otikik »

jamesash wrote: post #74

A childhood friend of mine invented the Lumitone, a microtonal keyboard with colored backlit hexagonal keys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNIxTiApig About 10 years ago I visited him in his studio where he had all mocked up in paper and cardboard, putting all the pieces together. Fun to see it finally out and in people's hands.

/Lumitone/Lumatone/

It is a very fun-looking instrument. Isomorphic keyboards are an internet black hole to me.

What kind of velocity-sensitive input sensors do these things use? Definitely not regular computer keyboard ones.

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#84

Post by beefman »

The Harpejji is based on the StarrBoard, invented by my friend John Starrett[1][2] in the 1980s,[3] as acknowledged on the Harpejji website[4]. Not sure how the Guardian got to such lengths describing Meeks as the inventor without noticing this.

Here's a photo I took of the original StarrBoard in Gainesville, FL in 1997: https://imgur.com/pilVv8b

[1] https://starrettguitars.com/

[2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q2hIMZ8AAAAJ&hl=en

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarrBoard

[4] https://www.marcodi.com/pages/about-us

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#87

Post by cush »

zarzavat wrote: post #5
cush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> patent trolling They’re just not licensing the patent to other manufacturers. Patent trolling is an entirely different thing.

It’s a form of patent trolling. The point of patents is that inventors should be compensated fairly for their inventions. Not that they should be able to prevent the production of those inventions like little dictators - that does not advance society.

Society wouldn’t advance if anyone could copy the work of others either. Gender would swoop in, create these on the cheap and completely ruin the sound that the creator intended.

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#88

Post by doormatt »

beefman wrote: post #84

The Harpejji is based on the StarrBoard, invented by my friend John Starrett[1][2] in the 1980s,[3] as acknowledged on the Harpejji website[4]. Not sure how the Guardian got to such lengths describing Meeks as the inventor without noticing this. Here's a photo I took of the original StarrBoard in Gainesville, FL in 1997: https://imgur.com/pilVv8b [1] https://starrettguitars.com/ [2] https://scholar.google.com/citatio…

What about the Chapman Stick, which came even earlier?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_Stick

Re: A new instrument found unusual success

#89

Post by flangola7 »

eesmith wrote: post #31
flangola7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what a patent is for. It may unfortunately currently be legal, but that isn't its true purpose.

That's exactly what a patent is. The purpose (at least for the US) is stated in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: > [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Now quoting from the US Patent and Trademark Office at https://www.uspto.…

Read my comment again, as you obviously did not internalize it the first time.
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