Created by Dennis P Paul, An Instrument for the Sonification of Everday Things is a “serious musical instrument” which rotates everyday things, scans their surfaces, and transforms them into audible frequencies.
A variety of everyday objects can be mounted into the instrument. Their silhouettes define loops, melodies and rhythms. Thus mundane things are reinterpreted as musical notation. Playing the instrument is a mixture of practice, anticipation, and serendipity.
The instrument was built from aluminum tubes, white POM, black acrylic glass, a high precision distance measuring laser (with the kind support of micro-epsilon), a stepper motor, and a few bits and bobs – Dennis writes. A custom programmed translator and controller module was written in Processing and using JSYN, transforms the measured distance values into audible frequencies, notes, and scales (minor, major, pentatonic, … ). It also precisely controls the stepper-motor’s speed to sync with other instruments and musicians.
