A percussion controller comprises an instrumented striker including devices for obtaining inertial measurements and a wireless transmitter, a sensor-enabled striking surface that receives an impact from the instrumented striker, and a data processing system that receives the inertial measurements and predicts at least one of the force or location of impact of the instrumented striker on the sensor-enabled striking surface before impact actually occurs.

Embodiments are directed to a musical instrument having buttons, where the buttons determine the magnitude of the interval by which the melody will jump from the last note played. With a small number of interval buttons and an up/down strum bar, embodiments can play almost any melody and more notes than a piano. One embodiment is directed to an interval-based guitar including fret buttons whose input signals are used to calculate the interval by which to change the pitch of the prior note. Providing input via a strum bar or a sensor, a new note is generated by adding or subtracting the interval to/from the prior note to generate a new note.

Bowing platforms are disclosed for use in playing a bowed musical instrument without reliance on strings. A bowing platform includes a support and a track that replace the strings, bridge, and tailpiece on a conventional bowed instrument, to provide an alternative vibrational bowing surface. The bowing platform can be attached to a conventional fingerboard or to the body of the instrument. In one aspect, the bowing platform is useful as a bow guide to improve bow technique by restricting the player's bow angle to be within a desirable range, while still allowing for natural arm movement. The bowing platform can be further equipped with piezoelectric sensors to sense bowing motion and to create sound electronically in response to the sensed motion. A stringless bowed instrument includes a bowing platform, bowing sensors, and pitch sensors that sense finger placement along the fingerboard.

A method for generating music is provided, the method comprising receiving, on a capacitive touch sensitive interface such as a keyboard, multi-finger gesture inputs having a first component and a second component, wherein the second component has a temporal evolution such as speed; determining the onset of an audio signal, such as a tone, based on the first component, analyzing the temporal evolution of the second component to determine MIDI or Open Sound Control OSC instructions; modifying the audio signal based on the instructions, in particular by decoupling the temporal relationship between specific gesture inputs (e.g. at key onset, during a note and upon key release), thus mapping gesture and motion inputs, to thus obtain previously unachievable musical effects with music synthesizers.

A musical sound producing apparatus includes a plurality of keys; a sound production information generator configured to generate sound production information for producing a musical sound based on a first key operation on any key among the plurality of keys; a control information generator configured to generate control information for controlling, on the basis of a second key operation different from the first key operation, a mode of the musical sound produced on the basis of the first key operation; and a musical sound signal generator configured to generate a musical sound signal on the basis of the sound production information and the control information.

A human interface device including a processor coupled to a memory. A plurality of switch banks, also coupled to the processor and a rotary dial and a slider, both coupled to control circuitry, said control circuitry operable to provide positional information from the dial and the slider to the processor. The rotary dial and slider are disposed on the human interface device to form an association with the switch bank, a drive transducer coupled to said processor, said drive transducer including a plurality of LED sources spatially positioned on a positioning ring, a set of non-transitory processor instructions operable to direct the processor to provide MIDI commands through a BLE port.

Systems, devices, media, and methods are presented for playing audio sounds, such as music, on a portable electronic device using a digital color image of a note matrix on a map. A computer vision engine, in an example implementation, includes a mapping module, a color detection module, and a music playback module. The camera captures a color image of the map, including a marker and a note matrix. Based on the color image, the computer vision engine detects a token color value associated with each field. Each token color value is associated with a sound sample from a specific musical instrument. A global state map is stored in memory, including the token color value and location of each field in the note matrix. The music playback module, for each column, in order, plays the notes associated with one or more the rows, using the corresponding sound sample, according to the global state map.

An input device includes a touch bar having an operation area for receiving a contact operation performed by a user, a switcher that switches between a first mode (continuous mode) in which a continuously changing value is receivable in response to an operation performed on the operator and a second mode (grid mode) different from the first mode, and a section presenter that presents section information representing a plurality of sections of the operation area during the second mode.

A button unit is suspended vertically and has a button body with an actuating surface and a shaft extending downwardly therefrom. An X-Y sensor unit is arranged below the button body for detecting X-Y positions on the actuating surface. The X-Y sensor unit has one opening such that the shaft can move therethrough. One transfer element is elastically suspended below the shaft and moved downwardly upon downward movement of the shaft. A Z sensor unit is arranged below the transfer element. The Z sensor unit has a detection element for detecting downward movement of the transfer element. The X-Y sensor unit may include a capacitive sensor. The Z sensor unit may include an inductive sensor, a capacitive sensor, or a magnetic sensor. The shaft and the extension may include a translucent material to form a light guide for illuminating the button body via a light source.

An electronic percussion instrument and a method of detecting a percussion position are provided. The percussion position in a left-right direction is calculated by comparing an added-up value of output values of a first edge sensor with an added-up value of output values of a second edge sensor. Compared with a case where peak values of the first and second edge sensors are used, it is possible to make a great difference between an added-up value in a case where the vicinity of the first edge sensor (the second edge sensor) is percussed and an added-up value in a case where a position away from the first edge sensor (the second edge sensor) is percussed.