3DMIN - Design, Development and Dissemination of New Musical Instruments

The emergence of electronic sound synthesis not only gave birth to a vast repertoire of new musical sounds and techniques, yet it allowed performers to disconnect the aspects of sound production from its control. This not only leads to a complete abandonment of staging expressiveness in the post-1945 era of new music, furthermore, it put forward that the formerly immanent relation between player, instrument and sound generation. Fixed media music established itself as a musical genre in its own right.

Over the course of the last decades, though, live electronic performance has been rediscovered in and for contemporary music. The paradigm of absolute control for the composer was again complemented by an urge for interpretation and improvisation. This trend calls for instruments that embody sound processes in such a way that their synthesis parameters are accessible for real-time control, even in improvisational sessions together with other musicians.

Within the NIME community, a multitude of such concepts and prototypes of musical instruments (termed electroacoustic, hybrid, or digital) are presented each year. The team of researchers associated with the3DMIN project gathers expertise in fields as diverse as musical acoustics and technology, art and design research, musicology and composition. The project’s goal is to identify requirements for successful new musical instruments, document and exhibit key concepts, and develop prototypes, which will be concurrently tested in live artistic contexts and empirically evaluated using qualitative and quantitative research methods. To inspire composers, performers and listeners of contemporary music, a series of innovative and versatile instruments are developed and disseminated.

www.3dmin.org

Universität der Künste, Berlin
Hybrid-Plattform, Berlin
Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin– Division I and III
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, Paris
Norsk Senter for Teknologi i Musikk og Kunst, Oslo
Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam
Stanford University – Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics
McGill University– Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory
The Louisiana State University School of Music – Edgar Berdahl

Prof. Dr. Stefan Weinzierl
Dr. Hauke Egermann
Alexander Förstel
Andreas Pysiewicz
Sarah-Indriyati Hardjowirogo
Gina Emerson

Student Research Assistants:

Marten Seedorf