| as something new happened for the music lovers. | | | | instrument inspired by solving a Sodoku puzzle |
| They'll be now able to hear some more good | | | | using wooden blocks. |
| music produced by 25 new innovative musical | | | | The contest for discovering the best ideas for |
| instruments that competed against each other at | | | | innovative musical instruments was organized by |
| the first annual Guthman Musical Instrument | | | | Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology and |
| Competition. | | | | Harmonix, the company that gave the popular |
| The 'Silent Drum' invented by Jaime Oliver won | | | | video games 'Guitar Hero' and 'Rock Band'. More |
| the first prize. The winning drum has a flexible | | | | than 60 musicians, inventors and hobbyists applied |
| drum head which forms black shapes in front of a | | | | for the competition. 25 applicants were given an |
| white background when pressed by fingers. The | | | | opportunity to show off musical instruments |
| shapes are recorded by a video camera and sent | | | | devised by them. The prizes included $5,000 for |
| to a laptop where Max/MSP software turns the | | | | first place; $3,000 for second place; and $2,000 |
| shapes into sound in real time. | | | | for third place. Apart from the three top prizes, a |
| The Second prize was won by 'GuitarBot' devised | | | | copy of Rock Band video game was awarded to |
| by Eric Singer. The instrument not only performs | | | | the winners of fourth, fifth and sixth places. |
| guitar parts for Lemur (League of Electronic | | | | The competing musical instruments were |
| Musical Urban Robots), but can also perform | | | | evaluated by an expert panel of judges based on |
| complex solo compositions. | | | | musicality, design and engineering. The Judges |
| The third prize went to David Wessel, a Berkeley | | | | included Eran Egozy, who is the co-founder of |
| University professor and an electronic music | | | | Harmonix Music Systems; Parag Chordia, who is |
| veteran, who performed on the 'Slabs'. Slabs is an | | | | Georgia Tech Professor; and Digital music expert |
| interface for the Max/MSP audio program having | | | | Eliot Van Buskirk, who is an author, columnist and |
| touchpads sensitive to fingertip pressures. | | | | blogger writing for technology magazine Wired |
| There were many other innovative musical | | | | that has presented a photo gallery of musical |
| instruments. One of them made drum and bass | | | | instruments, with description about how each |
| sounds by running fabric through lasers. Yet | | | | instrument works as well as samples of the music |
| another mounted a keyboard on a motorcycle | | | | each of them produces. |
| engine while another contestant made an | | | | |