Our assignment was simple: to create our own instrument and write a composition for the instrument. We were free to use whatever we wanted to for our instrument, and we could even make up our own notational system if we wished to do so. Our primary teacher, Dr. Peter McCoy had mentioned that electronic instruments were fair game, and that only one person had done it in the past. I thought about the assignment quickly and decided that I would like to make my instrument using my Korg X3 synthesizer, seen below.
While the class worked on their instruments in class,
I worked back in my dorm creating a new sound to use for my instrument.
I wasn't sure just how I was going to make this new sound, so I decided that I would call on a friend for help. The single-voice sounds on my computer are in two banks (A and B respectively) and are individually numbered from 00--99. I asked my friend to pick 8 random numbers starting them with either A or B. The results that I got were: B27 (Pan Mallet--a marimba sounding instrument with an airy chorus-like background), A12 (Brass Band), B16 (Bass Solo--sounds like a bowed electric bass), A75 (Log Drums--Pitched wooden percussion instrument), A10 (Machine Age--Pitched metallic percussive instruments with lots of reverb), A98 (Bright Pad--A coarse, synthesized sound with a lot of reverb), B01 (ExpressoPF--the upper-range of a piano), and A09 (Total Kit--a all-inclusive drum set).
From there, I decided to use all of these instruments together to make my "instrument"--and then I ran into my first major problem. The drum kit that I was using sounded a different drum for every pitch I played. I didn't want to hear the random drums for my composition, so after some careful thought, I decided to make the drums only play for the lowest two octaves, which left me with a more basic drum set. That gave me ideas to make other instruments only apply to certain ranges, and once I had overcome this problem, the instrument nearly created itself.
I incorporated several other effects that were available in my synthesizer to make this a totally unique sound. I intentionally detuned instruments to create dissonance just by sounding a single pitch. I made certain instruments play only when the velocity (how hard the keys are depressed which determines how loud the pitch sounds) exceeded a set amount. I set the scale tuning from equal-temperament to an Arabic scale, which greatly increased the dissonance between intervals. Finally, I added digital effects to the sound to give it give it an echoing delay as well as having the panning (seperation of left and right) move at random.
Finally, I was ready to begin composing my piece!
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