Gallery: Eight Futuristic Musical Instruments

: Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
In the future, cars will fly, cloned dinosaurs will live happily confined to zoos, and live concerts will feature musical instruments that use touchscreens, lasers and solar power.




Bad news: We're not quite there yet. Your Chevy is more likely to undergo a biodiesel conversion than a hover mod. And the tech needed to clone and cage dinosaurs still only exists in Michael Crichton's crackpot cranium. Good news: Musical instruments that use touch-sensitive controls, contain lasers and use the power of the friggin' sun are already here. Here's a look at a few of these high-tech instruments that are creating music for our geeky ears.




Left: The Tenori-on looks like a '60s-era Lite-Brite ? only it's $600 and one of the most unusual musical instruments in existence. The board is composed of a 256-button LED landscape with a unique instrument programmed into each bulb. To play notes, you plot points on the dot-matrix as if you're drawing a picture. Bonus: The Tenori-on is so dead-simple, even those with no musical talent can master making music in mere minutes.




$600, yamaha.com

: Photo: BrickTablePeople love touching their gadgets (Exhibit A: iPhone), and the creators of the Brick Table are banking on that trend. Created by California Institute of Arts students Jordan Hochenbaum and Owen Vallis, the multitouch screen surface contains a camera that detects finger gestures and movements. Dragging your digits across the screen creates a litany of odd, yet rather cool sounds. Just imagine what this would look like and sound like at your next house party.




Prototype, bricktable.wordpress.com

: Image: Tony RairdenRock me, Stradivarius! We've seen synthesizer keyboards play digital sounds of various instruments, but imagine how interesting it'd be to hear a violin playing notes from an electric guitar or a piano. That's the main gist of the Future Violin, a gadget in development at UC Santa Barbara. It also sports a video camera that can download captured media directly to a computer.
: Photo: Beamz InteractiveThe Beamz system is a W-shaped device that consists of six laser beams. To play it, you wave your hands through the lasers and trigger preloaded sample sounds. Initially released by Sharper Image (before the company went belly-up), the device hasn't been a big hit, but it opens doors to a future of laser-controlled instruments. And one of the weirdest videos we've ever seen on YouTube.




$400, thebeamz.com

: Photo: Tony RairdenAnother prototype from UC Santa Barbara, the Boing Boing's design is pretty ballsy. Essentially an interface consisting of four sensor-equipped pingpong balls, a performer fiddles with sounds by raising or lowering the corresponding rod attached to each sphere, while simple knobs above each ball adjust pitch. The Boing Boing's springs create vibrations at lower frequencies than most traditional instruments, as a result producing sounds such as bounces, collisions, trembles, shudders and shakes.
: Image: CelemonyAsk a musician about Melodyne, and they might tell you it's an invention poised to change the music industry forever. Or they might tell you it's snake oil. Here's what it is: software that captures audio and then separates and visualizes each note. The big deal? It allows you to move notes around however you want. You'd be able to strum a single guitar chord and create an entire song out of it just by moving around the pieces.


In development, celemony.com

: Photo: Square BandDeveloped by New York University student Rory Nugent, the Square Band is a wrist-mounted gizmo containing solar panels, a light sensor and a miniature square-wave synthesizer. Through a combination of arm movements and sunlight, you can control the pitch and frequency of the square waves. You'll look crazy when using it, but hey, sometimes you gotta throw your hands way up in the air and wave them all around like you just don't care.

Prototype, squareband.net
: Photo: Gypsi MIDI: XaOS/FlickrNo, this isn't a new device for autoerotic asphyxiation: It's the Gypsy MIDI. Strap this exoskeleton over your chest and around each of your arms to control any MIDI-compatible music-creation software or MIDI instrument. Check it: You can program a loop to play when you raise your arm ? and a different loop when you lower it. It may look a tad freakish, but think how, uh, stimulating a live concert would be.


$1,000 per arm, sonalog.com









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