Music transformed by technology at QMUL’s Christmas Lecture

Traditional instruments were transformed by computer science to create sounds previously impossible at the annual Children's Christmas lecture at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Thursday 22 December 2016 The lecture, hosted by QMUL and the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) on December 14, was given by Dr Andrew McPherson who discussed the limitations of traditional instruments and presented some of his own creations to the audience of students, parents, teachers and the public. 'There are lots of things you can do with a piano, but one of the things you can't do is continuously shape a note after you've played it,' Andrew explained. 'You press a key, the hammer hits the string, and that's it.' As a viola player, Andrew is used to altering notes by bending the pitch or playing vibrato, for example. Willing young helpers were enlisted during the talk to improvise on one of Andrew's own creations the Magnetic Resonator Piano (MRP) which - when you alter pressure, position and other elements - allows you to keep shaping the sound even after pressing down. 'There's this whole world that lives between the notes, and in some ways the world that exists between the notes is more interesting,' said Andrew. He also demonstrated TouchKeys, a new musical instrument that transforms the piano-style keyboard into an expressive multi-touch control surface.