Joseph Thibodeau: Trumpet Augmentation Technology

Joseph Thibodeau is a Masters student in the Interactive Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory at McGill University.

November 24, 2009
12:30 - 13:30

An acoustic instrument can be “augmented” electronically through the attachment of sensors to measure performance gestures. Such measurements can be applied to a variety of musical uses such as automatic score following (ex. for automatic accompaniment), synchronization of electronic instruments, control of sound synthesis, or even for the study of the gestures themselves. As a trumpet player I am fascinated by the augmentation of trumpets which are ideal  
candidates due to the player’s “spare bandwidth”—that is to say that the left hand does not critically affect performance and can be used to interact with sensors instead of just supporting the weight of the horn.

I will be giving an overview of augmented trumpets in the literature and discussing concepts and challenges of augmentation before presenting the current state of my masters research and the work to be completed.