UDOO to create a musical instrument – #jazz, #theremin
Hi guys!
On Tuesday we had a fantastic night involving UDOO and Jazz Music.
No, don’t u worry, this is not one of those funky blog posts (that I know u love indeed, regardless u’ll admit it or not).
Did u know u can use UDOO also to play music? Ain’t meaning stuff like the awesome Volumio or Archphile – u can actually use it to create YOUR OWN DIY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
Curious?
Well, meanwhile eat this:
Does it taste good?
The girl is playing a Theremin, u could fast-check it out here but actually the Wikipedia page is far too ancient to really understand what a Theremin is today.
How does a Theremin work?
Here’s an interesting piece-of-precious-knowledge with Roberto Nannetti, a musician with expertise in digital music, we met at Un Tubo the night of the Jazz-session.
“Nowadays a Theremin works through ultrasounds. The sensor inside the Theremin
generates a stack of ultrasound waves. If you interrupt the stack with something, the Theremin will produce a sound.
I worked to make it “musical”, choosing the proper musical frequencies for the jazz-session u’ll hear tonight. U can choose the musical scale u prefer, to reach the effect u prefer. In this case I implemented a musical reverberation as an add-on, plus two accompaniment harmonicas to fill the main sound and make it treble.
With two voltage-controlled oscillators (VCO) you can produce all the sounds you can produce with a modern synthesizer. With Pure Data or Max you can program the Theremin.
UDOO gave me a great help with the Theremin, ‘cos it’s an all-in-one solution: the alternative would have been Arduino + a PC to process all the information.”
But who’s this cute girl u see below?
Maybe u remember Irene as the voice of Sillaby english version.
“She’s Irene Monteverde from Pittsburgh” quoting Roberto “She studied music at Siena Jazz here in Siena, and last weekend came back here to get her diploma, and as we are used to at Siena Jazz, tonight’s the ritual Jam-session to celebrate it.”
SO, do u want to know her?
“I play music” she said “but I know nothing about technology. Roberto did all the programming stuff. I studied harmony with him at Siena Jazz, but NEVER played together in a concert. Tonight’s the first time!”
“So I guess u studied music at Conservatory.”
“No, not at all 🙂 I graduated in Business, worked four years in finance, studied jazz since I was ten years old.”
“And u are going to finance again I imagine.”
“No, absolutely 🙂 after this experience I’m going to attend a Master in Music in Pittsburgh.”
“Cool! What’s your thesis about at Siena Jazz, Theremin??”
“Not specifically. Something about astrology and sound. Doesn’t the Theremin seems like an extraterrestrial sound?”
“Ya, a bit.”
“Well, u can think about the Theremin sound like an alien piano. The Theremin is like a piano-extension to me, a funkier piano. Ya, didn’t talk u about that but I also played rap some times ago, with a band based in Florence. But actually, I don’t like so much the technology but I have to admit now the world is more open for me :)”
P.S.: are u still curious about how-to-Theremin? Check this!