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

• Year: 2016
• Location: Brisbane, Australia
• Track: Demonstrations
• Pages: 9–10
• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1175988 (Link to paper)
• PDF link

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:

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}
}