The Carpet Maker’s Hafted Tool: A Hackable Instrument for Sonoric Textile Practice

Joseph Burgess, Toby Gifford , and Alex Wixted

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper presents the Carpet Maker’s Hafted Tool (CMHT), a hackable, ESP32-based musical interface and electroacoustic instrument for sonoric textile production. The CMHT draws its conceptual inspiration from the percussive soundscape of prehistoric lithic tool production, specifically the bifaces of Box Grove (UK). Physically, the CMHT is a single-piece construction—not unlike a neck thru guitar, carved from a single block of wood which is hafted to an antique carpet-making tool. In this paper we detail an interpretative framework that supports critical engagement with the instrument’s design, particularly for those seeking to adapt, extend, or recreate it using open-source resources and low-cost audio development boards. The CMHT serves as a provocation to expand the range of textile production devices in the NIME canon, promoting a paradigm of mutual implication between sonoric and textile practices, which we term sonotextility. Ultimately, this work models how social practices of instrument-making and open-source contribution can foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Citation

Joseph Burgess, Toby Gifford , and Alex Wixted. 2026. The Carpet Maker’s Hafted Tool: A Hackable Instrument for Sonoric Textile Practice. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784413 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_134,
 abstract = {This paper presents the Carpet Maker’s Hafted Tool (CMHT), a hackable, ESP32-based musical interface and electroacoustic instrument for sonoric textile production. The CMHT draws its conceptual inspiration from the percussive soundscape of prehistoric lithic tool production, specifically the bifaces of Box Grove (UK). Physically, the CMHT is a single-piece construction—not unlike a neck thru guitar, carved from a single block of wood which is hafted to an antique carpet-making tool. In this paper we detail an interpretative framework that supports critical engagement with the instrument’s design, particularly for those seeking to adapt, extend, or recreate it using open-source resources and low-cost audio development boards. The CMHT serves as a provocation to expand the range of textile production devices in the NIME canon, promoting a paradigm of mutual implication between sonoric and textile practices, which we term sonotextility. Ultimately, this work models how social practices of instrument-making and open-source contribution can foster interdisciplinary collaboration.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {134},
 author = {Joseph Burgess and Toby Gifford  and Alex Wixted},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784413},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {6},
 pages = {1102--1107},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/KXTsMzhWmRk},
 title = {The Carpet Maker’s Hafted Tool: A Hackable Instrument for Sonoric Textile Practice},
 track = {paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_134.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}