Designing an Expressive Pitch Shifting Mechanism for Mechatronic Chordophones

Juan Pablo Yepez Placencia, Jim Murphy, and Dale Carnegie

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

The exploration of musical robots has been an area of interest due to the timbral and mechanical advantages they offer for music generation and performance. However, one of the greatest challenges in mechatronic music is to enable these robots to deliver a nuanced and expressive performance. This depends on their capability to integrate dynamics, articulation, and a variety of ornamental techniques while playing a given musical passage. In this paper we introduce a robot arm pitch shifter for a mechatronic monochord prototype. This is a fast, precise, and mechanically quiet system that enables sliding techniques during musical performance. We discuss the design and construction process, as well as the system's advantages and restrictions. We also review the quantitative evaluation process used to assess if the instrument meets the design requirements. This process reveals how the pitch shifter outperforms existing configurations, and potential areas of improvement for future work.

Citation:

Juan Pablo Yepez Placencia, Jim Murphy, and Dale Carnegie. 2020. Designing an Expressive Pitch Shifting Mechanism for Mechatronic Chordophones. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4813375

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME20_59,
 abstract = {The exploration of musical robots has been an area of interest due to the timbral and mechanical advantages they offer for music generation and performance. However, one of the greatest challenges in mechatronic music is to enable these robots to deliver a nuanced and expressive performance. This depends on their capability to integrate dynamics, articulation, and a variety of ornamental techniques while playing a given musical passage. In this paper we introduce a robot arm pitch shifter for a mechatronic monochord prototype. This is a fast, precise, and mechanically quiet system that enables sliding techniques during musical performance. We discuss the design and construction process, as well as the system's advantages and restrictions. We also review the quantitative evaluation process used to assess if the instrument meets the design requirements. This process reveals how the pitch shifter outperforms existing configurations, and potential areas of improvement for future work.},
 address = {Birmingham, UK},
 author = {Yepez Placencia, Juan Pablo and Murphy, Jim and Carnegie, Dale},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.4813375},
 editor = {Romain Michon and Franziska Schroeder},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {July},
 pages = {309--314},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/rpX8LTZd-Zs},
 publisher = {Birmingham City University},
 title = {Designing an Expressive Pitch Shifting Mechanism for Mechatronic Chordophones},
 url = {https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2020/nime2020_paper59.pdf},
 year = {2020}
}