Successful New Musical Interfaces: Why So Rare?

Why is the mainstream commercial success of new musical interfaces so rare?

Here’s my reasoning:

1. The characteristics required for ANY new product to be successful are that it be simpler, cheaper, and/or more powerful;
2. All new musical interfaces are inherently disruptive;
3. A disruptive new product has to be two or three times better than current offerings along at least two of these dimensions (simplicity, affordability, power);
4. The vast majority of proposed new musical interfaces do not deliver benefits sufficient to disrupt the status quo.

If there's any novelty to this analysis, it's in the observation that any new musical interface is inherently disruptive. You can introduce a "new and improved" synthesis algorithm to a keyboard synthesizer, electrify a guitar, or even make drum heads electronic, without requiring significant changes to the instrument's interface. These are sustaining innovations, as far as the musical instrument consumer is concerned. But any change to a musical instrument' interface is inherently disruptive -- and disruptive innovations must deliver a much higher level of benefit to become successful.

There are other minor issues, such as:

• The availability of complementary goods, which in the music products industry include compelling demonstrations of the new interface’s virtuosic potential, interface-specific arrangements of popular music, and interface-specific education materials. However, these days, such materials can be generated free, rapidly, and with high quality by the interface’s early-adopter community, and shared over the Internet.
• The Long Tail favors products which have low inventory & shipping costs, such as tiny instruments which can be manufactured on demand by any consumer electronics-capable factory (without the need for specialized music-related skills or equipment).
• YouTube and other viral marketing mechanisms favor products which provide visually-engaging benefits, such as the use of internal motion sensors to control musical effects.

For any proposed new musical interface, the question then becomes: “is it sufficiently better in ways that matter to the potential market and which facilitate rapid diffusion?” For the vast majority of proposed new interfaces, the answer has been “no.”

Does the Thummer meet this stringent standard? Time will tell – but I think that it does, and I’m not alone in this belief.