The CIRMMT-McGill Digital OrchestraAn interdisciplinary project on digital musical instrumentshttps://www.cirmmt.org/en/research/projects/digital-orchestrahttps://www.cirmmt.org/en/research/projects/digital-orchestra/@@download/image/rulers-fmgloves.jpeg
The CIRMMT-McGill Digital Orchestra
An interdisciplinary project on digital musical instruments
The CIRMMT-McGill Digital Orchestra was a 3-year interdisciplinary research-creation initiative focused on the design, development, and performance of novel Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs). The project aimed to integrate technology, composition, and performance to create new artistic paradigms.
Objectives
Design and develop new DMIs with expressive capabilities comparable to those of acoustic instruments.
Create a compelling repertoire for DMIs and explore notation systems.
Foster interdisciplinary collaboration among technologists, composers, and performers.
Address reproducibility and reliability in DMI performance by developing appropriate notation methods.
Timeline
2005 – 2008
Status: complete
Approach
Digital technologies have transformed music creation and performance. The Digital Orchestra Project addressed the need for long-term interdisciplinary collaboration to develop DMIs beyond laboratory prototypes, ensuring artistic viability and adoption among performers.
The project’s approach centred on interdisciplinary teams of DMI designers, performers and composers, working closely over 3 years.
Activities included designing several DMIs and software tools for prototyping mapping strategies and sound design (libmapper, Digital Orchestra Toolbox), and iterative refinement through rehearsals and concerts.
Outcomes & Impact
Erika Donald and the Soprano T-stick - click on the image for a demonstration
Several DMIs were built and used in artistic creations, including the T-Stick, the Rulers, the T-Box and the FM-Gloves. Composers devised studies in the form of short pieces to explore the capabilities of the DMIs, which were extensively used in practice by the project's performers.
Team members participated in the design, creation and refinement of new instruments, which were then used in the composition and concert performance of original musical works. A final concert featuring three full-length compositions was presented at the MusiMars 2008 Festival in Montreal.
Important goals were to:
leverage the expertise of expert musicians,
work closely with designers and composers to address reproducibility in DMIs-based performance by developing appropriate notation methods, and
create instruments that remain viable and in use after the end of the project.
Compositions were created and premiered at MusiMars 2008:
Sean Ferguson’s Ex Asperis, for two gestural controllers (FM-Gloves and augmented cello) and chamber ensemble.
People Involved
Lead Researchers: Denys Bouliane*, Sean Ferguson*, Marcelo M. Wanderley*, Philippe Depalle*, André Roy*, Gary Scavone*
Collaborators: Joseph Malloch*, Mark Marshall, D. Andrew Stewart*, Heather Hindman, Xenia Pestova*, Fernando Rocha, Chloé Dominguez, Bryan Jacobs, Bertrand Scherrer*, Erika Donald*, Stephen Sinclair*, Rodolphe Koehly
“The CIRMMT/McGill Digital Orchestra Project.” Xenia Pestova, Erika Donald, Heather Hindman, Joseph Malloch, Mark T. Marshall, Fernando Rocha, Stephen Sinclair, D. Andrew Stewart, Marcelo M. Wanderley, and Sean Ferguson. In Proceedings of the 2009 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC09), pp. 295-298, 2009.
“The Digital Orchestra Toolbox for MAX.” Joseph Malloch, Marlon Schumacher, Stephen Sinclair, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. In Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2018). Blacksburg, VA, USA.
"Libmapper (A Library for Connecting Things)." Joseph Malloch, Stephen Sinclair and Marcelo M. Wanderley. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2013), pp. 3087-3090, Paris, France, 2013.
