information aesthetics.
a few years in the making, Yamaha's TENORI-ON is finally available. this digital music instrument (or "visible music interface") consists of a unique touch-sensitive 16 x 16 color LED button matrix that provides a compelling visual experience in-sync with its musical performance.
now the question is: does beautiful music always correspond with stunning visual effects, & vice versa, do boring visuals leave behind arrhythmic tunes?
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This is great. But I'm afraid that the musician only watches the blinking LEDs instead of making good music :-)
Overall a musician has to say if this one is a good way to make music. To me it looks quite complicated.
Pity it's already been done better.
http://monome.org/
nice point, ben.
i do still think this would be fun to pay with though.
Cool but, check out The Reactable. Amazing.
http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/
demos in Youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc
Björk uses it in the Volta Tour.
Ziczac,
The Tenori-on is incredibly intuitive.. have you ever used a step sequencer? It is a back to basics visual interface sans 1,000,000 plug-ins, controls. It is no accident that Toshio Iwai enlisted artists like Atom Heart and Jim O'Rourke to "test drive" the Tenori.
Comparing the Tenori to the Monome is apples and oranges, in many ways the Tenori is a toy - and I don't mean that in a dismissive sense. The Tenori is about simplicity, the price point is unfortunate but I still applaud Yamaha for launching a (relatively) experimental instrument like this. Obviously anybody that has the technical know-how to get under the hood of the Monome will prefer it.. think of the Tenori like a high grade Nanoloop. I've heard people talk about picking up the essence of the Tenori in less than 10 min!
I think you'll get a better sense of Iwai's motives when you look at elektroplankton - another toy/game musical interface.
"Now the question is: does beautiful music always correspond with stunning visual effects, & vice versa, do boring visuals leave behind arrhythmic tunes?"
That really depends upon the rules you set up for visual rendering system in response to the audio signals, no?
Its a shame that it seems to be an exact copy on the monome. I remember seeing info on the monome released a cupla years ago now, and I even wrote a simple midi simulator to work with a touchscreen to mimic the style of interface.
Still an interesting concept to play around with though id say.
This is great. But I'm afraid that the musician only watches the blinking LEDs instead of making good music :-)
Overall a musician has to say if this one is a good way to make music. To me it looks quite complicated.