GoKawiilBrand new sounds floated through a concert hall at Georgia Tech this weekend, as the 28th annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition showcased an array of new instruments from around the world—and crowned one champion.
Ten finalists, chosen from candidates who built all kinds of new music-making devices, converged in Atlanta, Georgia, to present their instruments to a panel of judges. They ranged in size and shape from behemoths like a 6-foot-11 combination of a double bass and a Rudra Veena to a stringed instrument shaped like a bicycle wheel to a collection of modules activated by electrical impulses in salt water.
Jeff Albert, an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Music and the head of the Guthman competition, says that selecting the finalists largely revolves around creativity, but it is hard to pin down.
“Once you say this is what we're defining as an instrument, it leaves some stuff out, and it makes it hard for new things to break in,” Albert says. “A little bit of it has to do with what makes a good concert. Does it sound good for 5 minutes?”
Albert says the instruments get points for being well-crafted and looking nice, but also for being novel in some way. Audio quality matters too. Finalists showed off their devices to the judges on Friday, then were paired with local Atlanta musicians for a performance on Saturday, where each inventor showed their chops playing their instrument. The presentation was a sonic bath of drones and chaotic, unpredictable weirdness—which is the point.
The Demon Box by Alexandra Fierra, Bryn Nieboer, and Jordan Bortner. An ominous portal into a dark sonic world of electromagnetic frequencies. Sensors atop the box are triggered by just about anything passing over, be it a finger or a power drill. Frequencies translate into audio signals, MIDI data, or trippy visuals. Courtesy of Georgia Tech School of Music
“We just made this Pandora’s box of things,” says Alexandra Fierra, one of the creators of the Demon Box, an ominous-looking electromagnetic synth that can pick up frequencies from anything from a finger to a power drill.
The award is a $10,000 grand prize. This year, the winner is the accessibility-focused Masterpiece, an open source touch-based synth inspired by fidget toys and sensory devices—it can be played by pressing just about anything on the surface. Second place went to the Fiddle Henge, an installation of four fiddles standing upright around a spinning circular bow that creates rather haunting drones. The people’s choice winner—chosen by audience vote—was the Lethelium, an instrument built out of bicycle and guitar parts and shaped like a wheel.
The Guthman Competition can be a helpful barometer for sensing trends in the music-making world. Case in point, the concerted efforts to make instruments more accessible.