Moog Dance

I was messing round with my Moog XL this morning like I always do chilling on Sunday.

Here is and example of what I was up to

https://soundcloud.com/phattcharlie/sounds-from-sunday-afternoon-2

After messing around with the expression control’s excessively a thought occurred to me
Has technology advanced to the point of someone being able to put on a interacting Synthesizer dance performance?
Sort of like a light harp extreme

A Computer system powerful enough perhaps using infer red camera’s instead of simple laser breaks
A laid out three dimensional grid
Something powerful enough to interpret a dancers motion on the grid and convert it into control voltage preferably.
I wonder if anyone is working on this type of dance /music integration with current technology?
I think it might be very compelling even though I’m not much the dance fan myself
I think it would add and element as yet unexplored.

Very possible - I build the system one would purchase to do this. IR 3D camera and either passive or active targets.

The issue for most would be cost. It’s still fairly expensive to track a light source with the accuracy one may seek for such a performance. Never the less, totally possible.

You could create software to interpret specific body parts as specific controls. The limitation would simply be the volume that you perform in. Our largest “research” grade camera could be set up to cover a small theatre stage, but no much bigger. Using numerous cameras would increase the volume, but again you need a large sum of cash.

Leon Theremin did this a very long time ago with the Terpistone.
Bob Moog helped John Cage, David Tudor, and Merce Cunningham do this in 1965.

In both instances, it had to do with electromagnetic fields and capacitance… like the theremin. Far more beautiful than computers.

The only advantage I could see to using computers is to make it more engaging and natural feeling easier in some fashion
And also to provide more sonic/rhythmic options easier to store and change scene’s on the fly.
It would perhaps require multi computer computational speed which possibly has come to fruition of late

It would all be converted to Control voltage as a kind of buffer between controling analog exclusively
Exploring the possibility’s of more powerful computers and find out what further options they might provide without making thing’s sound crappy and artificial as they often do these day’s musically.

I’m not a big fan of digital synthesis either digital control might be more interesting option wise in some respect controlling analog gear as long and the final interface is flowing pulsing C.V.

Check out some of these from the N/O/D/E festival earlier this year:

Overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UpqjO9Wr8LQ

KINECT-based theremin:




The terpsitone (seriously, the original)

Murat Ombombe, various arduendo sensors triggering Ableton:

Learn more here:
http://www.node-rdv.ch/ (French)

Yes that look’s great interactive synthesis good exercise too
I have a Theremin with C.V out and I have tried a bit into the Voyager and Minitaur
and a bit through my Mooger foogers not a lot though still learning the Voyager mostly endless possibility’s

With an outboard custom signal to CV converter, you could run an IR system on most laptops.

All very cool methods of control, but IR is computer reliant.

Right, many are hard pressed not to dance during play back… The most shaking and rolling goes down when I use DSI/RL’s Tempest. Such technological partnerships should happen more often, and pertaining to this venture, I think a likely alliance (as far as known greats) would be Ray Kurzweil’s Information Technology + the timbres of Moog Music!

[I imagine Moog isn’t always guaranteed to be Analogue, for the day digital somehow surpasses Analogue… Time will tell.]

The more powerful and compact computers get, the greater the possible outcome as far as appearance will go… Sweet Sally Struthers. Built for speed AND sound.