Michailidis, T., Hockman, J., 2018.

Affordances of vibrational excitation for music composition and performance

Mechanical vibrations have typically been used in the performance domain within feedback systems to inform musicians of system states or as communication channels between performers. In this paper, we propose the additional taxonomic category of vibrational excitation of musical instruments for sound generation. To explore the variety of possibilities associated with this extended taxonomy, we present the Oktopus, a multi-purpose wireless system capable of motorised vibrational excitation. The system can receive up to eight inputs and generates vibrations as outputs through eight motors that can be positioned accordingly to produce a wide range of sounds from an excited instrument. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed system and extended taxonomy through the development and performance of Live Mechanics, a composition for piano and interactive electronics.