Articoli - Musica Elettronica

MUSIC-GLOVE: THE NEW EXPRESSIVE FORMS Cybertracks Records has quickly established itself in this new musical sector where creativity, technology and music blend together to become a single fascinating adventure: a valid demonstration of this perfect union is supplied by the application, in certain musical compositions, of a special data-glove with which amazing sound evolutions can be created in real time, purely by executing hand movements. In this way one of the main expressive forms is achieved, allowing the user to integrate directly with the sound universe. The hardware aspects were especially designed and developed by M.Naglieri, in charge of research, in collaboration with A.Katajama, one of the first composers on the Team to use this system. The data-glove comprises a series of sensors which transmit its position in space and all its movements to a computer; the computer in turn elaborates this information, sending it to the synthesizers by means of MIDI connections. It therefore becomes possible to play a synthesizer without actually laying hands on it, but by moving the hand or fingers through space the same results as a keyboard player has can be achieved. The application of this technique clearly requires a little familiarization and practice but it provides new and interesting effects which would otherwise be difficult to program because they are based precisely on the spontaneity of the user. This musical application was presented for the first time in Italy by the Virtual Audio Project Team in a series of concerts/demonstrations carried out in October '94 during the "Realtà Virtuale Expo" in Rome.