Ian Kaneko LO – 10

In the prompt it mentioned discussing new computational instruments. I asked my friend who is a member of CMU’s exploded ensemble what their favorite piece of tech that they used in the ensemble. What I found out about was a cool instrument called the Seaboard Rise.

What I admire about it is that it took one of the most harmonically capable instruments (the piano) and addressed its main weaknesses. Those being the the lack of different timbres and the limited expressiveness.

The seaboard is very akin to a super synthesizer. You can download and install different sounds that you want the instrument to produce and can change them real time which addresses the timbre problem I previously mentioned. It also allows for slides and vibrato, two very expressive aspects of music that are unavailable to real pianos.

The product was created by the company ROLI, so it hard to pinpoint a specific creator of the project. I think that the pure quality of the instrument shows how much the creators really cared about this and saw the effects it could have on the future of music.