Very Slack Strings: A Physical Model and Its Use in the Composition Quartet for Strings

Edgar Berdahl, Andrew Pfalz, and Stephen David Beck

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Virtual ``slack'' strings are designed for and employed by the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana. These virtual strings are ``slack'' in the sense that they can be very easily displaced, bent, tugged upon, etc. This enables force-feedback control of widely ranging pitch glides, by as much as an octave or more, simply by bending the virtual string. To realize a slack string design, a virtual spring with a specific nonlinear characteristic curve is designed. Violin, viola, and cello-scale models are tuned and employed by the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana in Quartet for Strings.

Citation

Edgar Berdahl, Andrew Pfalz, and Stephen David Beck. 2016. Very Slack Strings: A Physical Model and Its Use in the Composition Quartet for Strings. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1175988

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{Berdahl2016a,
 abstract = {Virtual ``slack'' strings are designed for and employed by the
Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana. These virtual strings are ``slack'' in the sense
that they can be very easily displaced, bent, tugged upon, etc. This enables
force-feedback control of widely ranging pitch glides, by as much as an octave or
more, simply by bending the virtual string. To realize a slack string design, a
virtual spring with a specific nonlinear characteristic curve is designed.
Violin, viola, and cello-scale models are tuned and employed by the Laptop
Orchestra of Louisiana in Quartet for Strings.},
 address = {Brisbane, Australia},
 author = {Edgar Berdahl and Andrew Pfalz and Stephen David Beck},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1175988},
 isbn = {978-1-925455-13-7},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 pages = {9--10},
 publisher = {Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University},
 title = {Very Slack Strings: A Physical Model and Its Use in the Composition Quartet for Strings},
 track = {Demonstrations},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2016/nime2016_paper00052.pdf},
 year = {2016}
}