Sound Controlled Musical Instruments Based on Physical Models

This paper describes three simple virtual musical instruments that use physical models to map between live sound and computer generated audio and video. The intention is that this approach will provide musicians with an intuitively understandable environment that facilitates musical expression and exploration. Musicians live sound exerts ‘forces’ on simple mass-spring physical models which move around in response and produce sound. Preliminary findings from a study of musicians’ experiences using the software indicate that musicians find the software easy to understand and interact with and are drawn to software with more complex interaction even though this complexity can reduce the feeling of direct control.