When Diana S. Young and her colleagues first presented the world of classical music with an improvement on a centuries-old instrument, the response was less than enthusiastic.
“I had the distinct impression that they hated us,” Young said, recalling a 2002 encounter with the musically conservative German Symphony Orchestra in Berlin.
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For more information
The Hyperbow premiered at the 2002 Conference on New Instruments for Musical Expression in Dublin. You can hear samples of Hyperviolin music at www.toysymphony.net. Follow the links for Sound and Images/Dublin-National Symphony Orchestra/AUDIO Samples.
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Young, a 31-year-old engineer and musician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, had dared to improve on a device of simple beauty: the violin bow.
Adding accelerometers, gyroscopes and force sensors to a conventional horsehair bow, the graduate student created what she calls a Hyperbow. The device, which has since been embraced by members of the Royal Academy of Music in London, vibrates an instrument's strings like a conventional bow. It also records the most minute changes in position, acceleration and force applied to the bow. By digitally altering the sound, it has the capacity to expand the possibilities of stringed instruments, Young said.
Since 2001, she has logged thousands of data recordings from her bow's sensors. She's found that although musicians may sound the same, some rely more on the force of the bow, while others move it quickly across the strings to produce the same clear, strong notes.
“They come in and play the same thing, but each one – students from the same music school, under the same faculty, in the same ensembles – is totally different,” Young said of the approximately 35 musicians who have taken part in her study. “To me this is an extra window into the individual expression of the musician.”
First concert planned
The California Institute of Technology called Young during her senior year of high school to ask why, with her interest in engineering and high scores on standardized tests, she hadn't applied there. Hoping to boost its abysmal female-to-male ratio, the school paid to fly her out from her native Pennsylvania and extended her application deadline.
As much as she liked engineering, Young – who took voice, piano and violin lessons and was a member of two orchestras all through high school – wanted an outlet for her more artistic side. After a year in California, she moved to Baltimore to attend both the Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins University, graduating from both in 1999. Before arriving at MIT, she had never considered putting the two together as her profession.
“Now,” Young said, standing in an office overflowing with journal articles, stringed instruments and cannibalized computer parts, “it makes perfect sense.”
The Hyperbow grew out of the Media Lab's Hyperinstruments Group, a project started in 1986 to expand the possibilities of musical instruments – from a musical jacket to electronic Hypercellos, violins and violas with sensors similar to the Hyperbow.
Young, whose work is indirectly funded by the musical instrument manufacturer Yamaha, hopes to some day develop a version of the bow for consumers. The Hyperbow could be used as a teaching device, sending signals on things like how the performer is holding the bow. If the device registered too much pressure along the bow, for instance, the computer could adjust the signal's strength and avoid the unpleasant scratches that often accompany the playing of new musicians.
In the meantime, the Ph.D. candidate continues to collaborate with composers at the Royal Academy in London on the first full program of Hyperbow for the cello, to be performed next spring. On this more virtuosic end, the device can be used to enhance sound quality, creating effects including layers of sound that make it seem as if several cellos are playing at once.
“I think it's the way forward with electronic music,” said Patrick Nunn, a doctoral student in composition at the Royal Academy who works with the Hyperbow. “It's the difference between just adding effects and where the effects are controlled by the player's gestures. It gives the power back to the musician.”
For Young, the Hyperbow continues to open doors.
“It is really amazing to me that I am able to interact with musicians that I never would have been able to meet, let alone collaborate with, as a performer,” she said.
