Sam Downie's Tech:casts

Once in a Blue Moon an invention comes along which seems to turn conventional wisdom upside-down and kick it around a bit for good measure. But I think it's fair to say that most bright new ideas never see the light of day But at Sounds-Expo 2007 I spotted a experimental musical instrument project from Yamaha called the Tenori-on, a device with involving lights and buttons, but the fact it is going into production is still pretty impressive. Its a device thats the brainchild of media artist Toshio Iwai, it consists of a hand-held square panel with a matrix of LED switches. Working with both sound and light, making music becomes a rather more intuitive and immediate interaction between player and instrument - a refreshing counter to the increasing complexity of many modern music tools. But what's it actually like? Well, I interviewed Peter Peck of Yamaha UK who was clutching the only example currently in the whole of Europe, who told us all about it! The Tenori-On should be shipping later this year, but i