Inside-out Orchestrions: designing new embodied and reflexive acoustic modular musical instruments

This practice-led research project will result in the creation of several new acoustic, modular, mechanical musical instruments, technologies and associated repertoire. Through this development my research will explore new sonorities (tunings, tonality, timbre) across technological (material, mechanical design, roboticisation), compositional (scope) and performative (agency, gestural) concerns.

My research probes what has been overlooked through the decline of acoustic machine music, as electrophones took hold, around 100 years ago. It will directly address criticisms made of musical machines at the time, as merely reproductive tools, by creating embodied and reflexive instruments that can be adapted in real-time. Thus far, I have termed them 'inside-out orchestrions' as they are akin to fairground organs, but with the workings exposed to allow hands-on playing and manipulation.

I have devised a recursive (re)design and (re)experimentation methodology, with incremental results published online. This practical experimental approach is vital, as much of my research falls beyond what is published or can be modelled. Key areas of investigation include: modular design approaches, acoustic musical instrument design in a post-electronic (Wilson, 2012) context and new, visual, performative opportunities. To inform my practice and position my findings, as part of a wider literature review, I have begun examining lapsed mechanical instrument patents (e.g. mechanical synchronisation tools).