Eigenharp

Some time ago, I found out about this "instrument":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8294355.stm

To summarize, the article describes a bassoon-like electronic instrument, capable of creating basically any kind of tone you could want. It's played by manipulating the fingerboard on either its front or the sides, or by blowing into the mouthpiece (this is where it gets its resemblance to the bassoon). The video demo in the article is actually pretty cool.

One quote from the article really made me think about the body's involvement in all of this: "It's not just the sonic thing - they are visually compelling, and there's a reason for that - we've got pretty fed up with watching people twiddle knobs on stage."

This made me think of how technology has impacted our performance space. It seems logical that setting up a show with a laptop and a few speakers makes less of a corporeal connection with the audience than does a rock band jamming on physical instruments. To me, part of this stems from the idea that while their minds compose the music, it is the body itself that actually creates it, by plucking, bowing, blowing, or drumming its way to sound. This instrument attempts to re-create the impression of a human body creating the sound in electronic music.

Here is the Wikipedia page for the Eigenharp, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenharp