Author Archives: amateurmusicology
Musical Circuits @ KNOBCON 2016
Experimental Music: Composition with an Arduino MIDI Controller Knobcon Chicagoland, September 2016 With an Arduino, a breadboard, and a handful of parts, you can build a MIDI controller that works as a sequencer or a classic beatbox. But the same … Continue reading
Binary Beethoven: Coding a Musical Idea
The first four ominous notes of the Fifth Symphony are well known: da-da-da-dum! That musical idea seems so obvious now, but think just for a moment about how radical it was and is. First, this is a symphony that doesn’t … Continue reading
A Musical Stylus for the World’s Simplest Oscillator
“Rule #17: If it sounds good and doesn’t smoke, don’t worry if you don’t understand it.” ~ Nicholas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, Second Edition, Routledge, 2009, p. 144. Collins describes it as the “world’s simplest … Continue reading
Arduino MIDI Circuits
“What really makes an instrument musical is that a musician decides to make use of it.” ~ Allen Strange, Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls (2nd Edition, 1983, p. 2). This post documents two circuits connecting an Arduino to electronic … Continue reading
Arduino and Midi for Beginners
This is a brief introduction to the Arduino, MIDI, and how the Arduino can be used to communicate musical messages. This guide is not a tutorial. This guide provides a quick, concise explanation of these technologies and links to some … Continue reading
