Non-Western Cultures

The endpoints of the syntonic tuning continuum are 7-tone equal temperament (7-tet, P5=686 cents) and 5-tone equal temperament (5-tet, P5=720 cents).

This is particularly interesting because some non-Western cultures use these tunings (or tunings very similar to these). For example,
- The traditional Indonesian slendro scale is similar to 5-tet.
- The traditional scale of the Thai renat is similar to 7-tet.
- The traditional scale of the Mandinka African balafon is similar to 7-tet.

It has been suggested that these cultures' instruments emit sound spectra which (in isolation or when crossed with a harmonic timbre such as a human voice) are maximally consonant when played in these tunings.

This is not to say that these cultures necessarily use other musical structures from the syntonic temperament -- scales, chords, etc. But...who knows?

If the human mind categorizes tonal relationships in a tuning invariant manner, then perhaps tuning invariance can provide the foundation for a unified theory of music that generalizes music theory beyond the Harmonic Series to embrace a wide range of pseudo-harmonic tunings/spectra, from 7-tet to 5-tet and everything in between, including the ubiquitous Western 12-tet.

New Car!

There is more to life than music. Today I bought a new car. Well, a used car, actually, although it's new to me.

I was going to buy a Toyota Matrix for its headroom, mileage, and versatility, but a little research on the Web showed that the Pontiac Vibe was exactly the same car with a Pontiac logo slapped on it. I was able to find a loaded 16-month-old 2006 Vibe in excellent condition for $13,900. That's slightly under Edmonds' recommended dealer price of $14,694 (to the extent that that means anything) and $2,000 less than the equivalently-equipped Toyota Matrix ($15,922).

As with music theory, sometimes it pays to find the commonalities lurking just beneath the surface. ;-)

Industrial Design

I've met with a number of design & engineering firms in the Austin area, looking for one that can (a) make the Thummer more appealing and (b) finish the engineering work needed to get the Thummer on the market.

Personally, I like the way the Thummer looks now. However, (1) I have poor taste, and (2) the one negative comment that I often hear about the Thummer is that it "looks dorky."

It's very hard to shake an "uncool" rep in the music technology business. Look at Casio, for example. Its name is still associated with the toylike CasioTone keyboards it introduced in the 1980's, so the excellent high-end keyboards it offers today don't earn the unit sales, revenues, or margins that they otherwise would. In the music technology business, "cool" matters -- and there are no second chances.

So I need to fix this problem in advance, by spending money on industrial design to improve the Thummer's cool factor.

Hence, my meetings with industrial design & engineering firms. I'll announce Thumtronics' eventual decision here when I can.

It Works!!!!

Two new things on Thumtronics’ website:
1. Online Thummer: an online implementation of the Thummer’s note-layout, driven by your computer’s keyboard (Windows only).
2. Dynamic Tuning, Mark I: A Max/MSP implementation of Dynamic Tuning & Timbres (DT&T), also driven by your computer keyboard.

[Added 23rd June: The latest version of the main Max/MSF file, which is undergoing rapid evolution, can be found here. Use it instead of the .MSF file that's in the above .zip file.]

A simple test of Dynamic Tuning is as follows:
- Set the width of the tempered perfect fifth to 700 cents (12-tet).
- Press the M & W keys at the same time. These two notes are the major third and diminished fourth of QWERTY’s B key, respectively (the actual pitches don’t matter). In 12-tet, they are the same pitch.
- While the notes are sounding, slide the tuning slider up to 702 cents.

In 12-tet, the pitches sounded by pressing the QWERTY keyboard’s M & W are the same – but in any other tuning, they aren’t. When the tuning is at 701.7 cents (call it 702), the two notes are discernibly different. In the schismatic temperament, you’d play “major” triads with the diminished fourth instead of the major third, because with a harmonic timbre, at that tuning the diminished fourth’s fundamental lines up perfectly with the root’s fifth partial (ignoring an octave or two), maximizing consonance.

But this app’s timbres aren’t harmonic. The timbre’s third partial lines up exactly with the tempered perfect fifth, whatever width you set the perfect fifth to be (a couple of octaves aside) – thereby eliminating the Pythagorean comma from both the tuning and the timbre. Likewise, the fifth partial has been adjusted to align with the major third all across the tuning continuum – so the syntonic comma has been eliminated, too, from both tuning and timbre.

What’s going on here? The background is discussed here, which is a draft of an article recently accepted for publication by MIT’s Computer Music Journal, and here.

Another interesting test is to play the chord progression from Pachelbel's Canon while changing the tuning dynamically (rather like Herman Miller’s Warped Canon, but dynamic, and timbre-adjusted). I found that it’s easiest to work out the note-pattern on the Online Thummer, then, having understood/memorized it, play it on the Dynamic Tuning test-app.

The additive synthesis algorithm used in this bare-bones synth is just a toy. We expect, in future, to be able to adjust the partials of any synth's output in real time, so that electronic musicians will have complete freedom of timbre within Dynamic Tuning.

This is all pretty bare-bones, of course, but it shows that Dynamic Tuning actually WORKS.

Whee! :-)

Dynamic Tuning, Mark I

Bill Sethares has recently implemented a demonstration of Dynamic Tuning & Timbres, running on top of Max/MSP. You can try it for yourself!

To run it, you need to already have the Max/MSP Runtime installed.

Then, right-click and "Save as..." this WickiSynth.zip file, unzipping them with WinZip.

Run Max/MSP, and open the wickisyn~.MXF file. There's a volume button to the lower-left; click it to activate your sound. Your QWERTY keyboard is now a QWERTY Thummer, with the Wicki note-layout. On the right-hand side, you'll see a slider controlling the width of the tempered perfect fifth. With your mouse, click and drag it up to increase the P5's width; drag it down to decrease the P5's width.

While playing (say) a major triad, drag the slider up and down. The pitches of the triad's notes will be adjusted automatically. So will the pitches of the partials that make up the tones sounded at those pitches.

The QWERTY keyboard is not an expressive instrument, nor are the timbres produced by with WickiSynth impressive. We don't expect that anyone is going to use this implementation in public (although, if you do, please post a video to YouTube and let me know!)

But...when you mess with this stuff, you are changing tuning and timbre dynamically, baby, using the Thummer's tuning-invariant note-pattern. That has never been done before.

Online Thummer

A team of students at Curtin University recently completed a project in which they implemented an "Online Thummer"(tm). You go to their web page, use your computer keyboard as if it were a Thummer keyboard, and voila! You can test-drive the Thummer's note-layout online.

That's not just cool -- that's bitchin'.

Any Online Thummer's polyphony is inevitably limited by your computer keyboard's implementation. Some keyboards support only allow certain combinations of button-presses at a time, some keyboards allow other combinations. My laptop's computer keyboard allows all of the major & minor triads in root position, but any 7's or extended chords.

I've asked the student team (a) to add an "about box" describing themselves and their project, and (b) to add the resulting Online Thummer to Thumtronics' web page. I'll make another post when and if this gets done.

Well done, y'all!

Other Thum Blogs

Ken Rushton, a Music Brain and ThumClub member, is blogging about the Thummer, in hiw Music Science Guy blog. He can't wait to get a Thummer-brand jammer, so he's building his own: the ZipEx jammer.

"Thummer-brand jammer?" Jammer is the generic name of any electronic musical instrument that combines a 2D button-field with the Wicki note-layout, whereas Thummer(tm) is the trademarked name of Thumtronics' version thereof. So, anyone can call their instrument a jammer, the way anyone can call their instrument a piano or a guitar -- but only Thumtronics can call their jammer a Thummer.

Euler's Tonnetz

Check out page 147 of Leonhard Euler's Tentamen Novae Theoriae Mvsicae, published in 1739. This work is often referred to as being the first known occurrence of a musical tonnetz ("harmonic lattice"), but I'd never seen the actual image before today.

Hugo Riemann improved on Euler's tonnetz in the late 1800's, drawing it as a diamond pattern.

Wikipedia has a nice, short article on the tonnetz.

The tonnetz is an integral part of the ThumMusic System.

Isomorphic Controllers and Dynamic Tuning

On Monday of this week, the article “Isomorphic Controllers and Dynamic Tuning— Invariant Fingering Over a Tuning Continuum” was accepted for publication by Doug Keislar, the Editor of MIT Press’ Computer Music Journal.

A draft version can be found here. The final version – to be published in the CMJ by year’s end – was improved considerably by comments from very knowledgeable reviewers and especially by extensive, detailed, and insightful comments by Doug.

The article was co-authored by Andrew Milne, Bill Sethares, and me. Andy did most of the heavy lifting on music theory and mathematics, with Bill contributing to both of those subjects and also the academic tone & references. Mostly, I contributed a relentless focus on isomorphism and lots of motivating questions. We have been working on this article since May of 2006. More than a year! I hadn’t realized.

I have no idea what reception the paper will have in the academic community. Euler’s 1739 treatise on music was described by Nicolas Fuss as having “too much mathematics for musicians, and too much music for mathematicians,” and that is very likely to be true of our paper, too. We are certainly no more deserving of a positive reception than was Euler.

I do hope, however, that our paper will be seen in future as having laid the groundwork for three significant musical advances:

Dynamic Tuning: New musical effects arise from the ability to change the tuning of a polyphonic keyboard instrument in real time while retaining consistent fingering across a tuning continuum. Potential effects include polyphonic tuning bends, temperament modulations, and even new chord progressions.

Dynamic Timbres: Adjusting timbres in real time, such that their partials align with the notes of the current tuning, may be able to deliver consonance all across a tuning continuum and thereby help make Dynamic Tuning pleasing to the ear.

Dynamic Music Theory: The consonance of tuning-aligned timbres may be able to extend the rules of tonal harmony – previously restricted to harmonic sounds – to a wider range of pseudo-harmonic sounds. This generalization could eventually be seen as being both simpler and more powerful than traditional music theory.

For more information on the above, see this page and the documents to which it refers.

Tuning Invariance and the Brain

I had a great "first contact" meeting with Bob Duke yesterday. He’s the Director of UT/Austin's Center for Music Learning, and Google suggests that he's very well regarded by the music education world, with an international profile.

We're meeting again next week.

Bob wanted more information on two points I raised in my presentation, so I sent him links to two papers: the first describing Bill Sethares' work on the relationship between tuning and timbre, and the second (Burgoyne, 2005) showing the brain's perception of tonal pitch-space. This posting is an extended answer to the issues Bob raised.

Tonal Pitch Space & the ThumMusic Note-Layout
Figure 3d in Burgoyne's paper is the result of using Maximum Variance Unfolding (MVU) instead of Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) to measure & display the relationships in Weber, Krumhansl, Kessle, & Lerdahl's tonal pitch space.

Why use MVS? To quote Burgoyne:

Like MDS, this algorithm produces an embedding from a matrix of pair-wise distances, but while maximizing the variance of the output embedding, it seeks to preserve only the distances between nearest neighbors. This subset of distances is locked, and a nonlinear optimization technique is used to expand the data as much as possible given these locks, analogous to stretching a ball-and-stick model in which the balls correspond to harmonies and the sticks correspond to the locked distances.

What Figure 3d shows, then, is one slice through the relationships among nearest neighbors in tonal pitch space – and along that slice, the relationships match those of the ThumMusic note-layout.

Relationship of Tuning & Timbre
The Indonesian gamelan, Thai renat, and Mandinka balafon are all traditionally tuned in an inharmonic manner. Bill’s research shows that the tuning of these instruments is closely "related" (his term) to the timbres produced by those instruments. Clearly, then, the human ear/brain/mind can accept a wide range of tunings as being "musical," as long as those tunings are "related" to the timbres in which they are played (or vice versa – same thing). The X_System's use of X_Spectra is based on this insight.

Bill's work supports the argument that the ear/brain/mind's hardware and software can process, as tonal music, a wider set of tuning relationships than has been investigated by Krumhansl, Lerdahl, etc. as above, so long as the tuning and timbre are "related."

Tuning and the Brain
Importantly, the geometry of the ThumMusic note-layout is tuning invariant – i.e., the pattern of notes is the same no matter what the tuning (with some caveats). Since the perception map shown in Burgoyne’s Figure 3d is identical to the tuning invariant ThumMusic note-layout, then it seems likely that the brain's perception of tonal relationships ought to be tuning-invariant (with related timbres), too.

I hadn't made this connection before.

Cool!

Research Projects

I am occasionally asked if Thumtronics can propose research projects associated with its innovations. Please find a list below. I regret that I do not have the time to supervise such projects. If you undertake any research project related to Thumtronics' innovations, I would be happy to learn know how it turns out! :-)

Ease of Learning: Test the efficiency with which human subjects learn musical concepts using the piano and traditional notation vs. the ThumMusic PLUS System, and relate the human subjects’ differences in learning outcomes to differences in the systems’ respective Kolmogorov complexity.

Ergonomic Risk: What criteria are relevant to the ergonomic risk posed by playing musical instruments, what metrics are appropriate to these criteria, and how can all musical instruments’ ergonomic risk be normalized to a single common metric, such that the ergonomic risk of a given novel instrument can be benchmarked against the ergonomic risk posed by various traditional instruments?

Expressive Potential: What culture-independent criteria are relevant to the expressive potential of musical instruments, what metrics are appropriate to these criteria, and how can all musical instruments’ expressive potential be normalized to a single common metric, such that the expressive potential of a given novel instrument can be benchmarked against the expressive potential of traditional instruments?

ThumLine: Implement a ThumLine plug-in for Finale! or Sibelius. Add ThumLine support to Calliope, Lime, LilyPad, or any other open-source music notation editor.

ThumMusic Pedagogy: How should ThumMusic-based music pedagogy be different from traditional music pedagogy, to leverage the strengths of the ThumMusic System? What concepts should be introduced sooner, later, or differently, relative to the traditional system?

ThumMusic-based Music Education Materials: What materials should be developed to make the ThumMusic System’s pedagogical approach simple to deploy, use, and assess? How can modern digital media be leveraged to increase the cost efficiency of ThumMusic-based music education – that is, to maximize the positive learning outcomes while minimizing the cost of deployment, use, and assessment? How can these materials best support traditional approaches to music education?

Pressure-Sensitive Keyboard: Design a pressure-sensitive 57-button Thummer keyboard that uses a button-pressure sensing technology similar to that used by the Sony PlayStation 3 SixAxis game controller.

Motion Sensing: Design a motion-sensing module that uses a motion-sensing technology similar to that used by the Sony PlayStation 3 SixAxis game controller.

QWERTY Thummer: Implement the ThumMusic note-pattern on a standard alphanumeric (QWERTY) computer keyboard such that it emits standard MIDI and/or OSC, thereby allowing electronic musicians to use their laptop keyboards to control musical data using the ThumMusic note-pattern.

Web Thummer: Implement a Web-based applet that implements the ThumMusic note-pattern on a standard alphanumeric (QWERTY) computer keyboard such that the Web page responds to keyboard button-presses by (a) sounding the pressed note, and (b) indicating, on an interactive web page, the buttons/notes currently being pressed/sounded.

ThumTone Synth: Implement an electronic music synthesizer that implements some or all features of the X_System, e.g., (a) Dynamic Tuning, (b) tuning-aligned timbres, and (c) primeness, richness, dissonance, etc..

Dynamic Tuning: Compose music that creates and releases tension using the unique musical effects of Dynamic Tuning (tuning bends, tuning modulations, temperament modulations, new chord progressions, etc.). Induce or deduce the rules governing the effective use of these effects

Commas: Commas are ratios of small whole numbers that arise from the structure of the Harmonic Series to plague traditional music theory. Examples include the Pythagorean comma, the syntonic comma, and the schisma. Tunings such as 12-tone equal temperament "temper out" commas...but they're still in the timbre of harmonic sounds. Tempering the partials to match the tuning could eliminate the commas from the timbre, too. This suggests that pesky commas can be truly eliminated from the music theory of the X_System. Prove that this is or is not so, and if so, demonstrate the musical consequences of the result.

Ethnomusicology: Examine the tunings, timbres, and musical structures associated with the indigenous gamelan, renat, and balafon, to see if they can or cannot be explained by the X_System's pseudo-harmonic approach in a manner identical to the approach's treatment of the Western 12-tet. What do these results say about the X_System's generality?

Music Perception: For the human ear/brain/mind to accept a continuum of pseudo-harmonic tunings and timbres as being tonal, it would need to categorize pitch relationships in a tuning invariant manner. There is a hint of evidence that this is exactly what happens. Perform experiments to explore the perception of tonal structures when using a wide range of pseudo-harmonic tunings, timbres, and temperaments. What does these results say about the tuning invariance of pitch perception?

Musical Paradoxes and Illusions: Explore, using pseudo-harmonic timbres/tunings, a variety of musical paradoxes that are known to exist in harmonic/just music, such as the Missing Fundamental, Combination Tones, Shepard Tones, and Diana Deutsch's paradoxes and illusions. In what ways (if at all) does the perception of these paradoxes and illusions differ (a) among different pseudo-harmonic timbres/tunings, and (b) between harmonic/just timbres and pseudo-harmonic timbres/tunings?

Expressive Potential

I had an interesting discussion with sysphus13 on YouTube recently. Commenting on a Thummer demo there, he stated that it was "pretentious" for me to claim that the Thummer was more expressive than the piano.


I looked up the definition just to make sure, and a pretentious claim is one that is "unjustified or excessive."


So, is my claim of the Thummer's expressive power unjustified or excessive? It all depends on the metric that is used to measure "expressive potential."


It's all about potential, after all. The violin, piano, etc., are just objects, expressing nothing (except perhaps as statuary).

I don't know what the ideal metric of expressive potential might be, but it's certainly not "how expressive famous musicians of the past have been with it." That's not a metric of expressive potential; that's a measure of expressive realization. Any musical instrument that's been around for a while -- including the kazoo -- has a higher degree of expressive realization than a new instrument that's still on the drawing board. But the one on the drawing board might have much more expressive potential.

Until the ideal metric for expressive potential is found, a reasonable rule of thumb might be the instrument's Degrees of Freedom (DoF) -- the number of independent control variables a performer can affect in real time. More DoF == more expressive potential.

The Thummer has pressure-sensitive buttons (1 DoF), two joysticks (4 DoF), two optional foot-pedals (2 DoF), and optional internal motion sensors (up to 6 DoF). That's 13 DoF.

The piano has velocity-sensitive keys (1 DoF) and three foot pedals (3 DoF). That's 4 DoF. Keyboard synths have more DoF, but you've got to stop playing with one hand or the other to manipulate their extra controls, and none of them come close to poviding 13 DoF.

If the Thummer has 13 DoF, the piano has 4, and the number of DoF is a reasonable metric for expressive potential, then the Thummer's expressive potential is considerably greater than that of the piano.

Also, many experts' opinions support the claim that the Thummer's expressive power is revolutionary.

So the claim that "the Thummer is more expressive than the piano" is neither excessive nor unjustified, and therefore not pretentious.

How long it will take musicians to realize the Thummer's expressive potential is another question entirely.

ATI Seminar: Early-Stage Funding

On Tuesday evening, 31 attendees gathered at the MCC Auditorium to learn about “Early-Stage Funding” from three speakers: Isaac Barchas, Director of the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI); Hall Martin, Director of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), and Jamie Rhodes, Chair of CTAN.

The various presentations covered:
- Angel investing in general and CTAN in particular
- The role of the Austin Technology Incubator
- Texas’ Emerging Technology Fund (ETF)
- Q&A from the audience

Central Texas Angels’ Network
I schmoozed beforehand with Hall Martin to learn more about what CTAN looked for in its investee companies. In brief, it sought investees which:
- Had skilled & experienced management
- Had products that were already selling or were “near complete” (defined as “being within six months of shipping”)
- Had a low risk of excessive future dilution
- Sought less than $1.5 million (with investments of under a million being preferred)
- Were headquartered in Central Texas.

During his talk, CTAN’s Jamie Rhodes described the “beauty contest” process by which CTAN selected the firms in which it would invest. Basically, its 40+ members sift through one-page descriptions of each investment opportunity, voting for their favorites. Those four which get the most votes, get the opportunity to present. Of these four, two are usually funded by CTAN’s members as a direct result of the presentation (although some of the non-presenting companies are sometimes funded, too). Jamie emphasized that angels invest as much money in start-ups as VC’s do – investing less money per deal, across a lot more deals.

He also encouraged start-ups to form high-powered advisory boards to (a) get good advice and (b) demonstrate to investors that the founders had the potential to attract top-notch future employees. He also said that such advisory board members should not be compensated (with stock or otherwise) unless they were being held to strict accountability in meeting explicit performance targets.

CTAN is working with angel groups Houston, and to a lesser extent with Dallas and El Paso, to inter-connect Texas’ angel groups to facilitate the syndication of angel investments across Texas. CTAN is a non-profit group, and non-profits have a very different structure and culture than for-profit groups, which significantly affects their ability to work together.

Austin Technology Incubator
Isaac Barchas described the Austin Technology Incubator, of which he’s been Director for about a year now. ATI’s operational expenses are funded directly by the University of Texas at Austin. It currently has focus areas on IT, Clean Energy, and Wireless, and is now attempting to establish focus areas in Digital Media and Life Sciences.

Within each of these areas, ATI’s goal is to get its member companies investment-ready, through:
- Mentoring and advice, by providing a “virtual Board of Directors”
- Accountability
- Access to business and capital networks
- Professional services & infrastructure

In choosing which firms to admit to the ATI, it looks for:
- Risk: Is it likely to succeed?
- Fit:
o Can the ATI add value?
o Can the University add value?

Emerging Technology Fund
The Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) was also discussed as a potential source of funding for early-stage companies, but I neglected to take notes on the brief discussion thereof.

Conclusions
My take-aways from this seminar were:
1) Thumtronics is a great fit with the ATI.
a. Thumtronics fits ATI’s emerging focus on Digital Media
b. Thumtronics is a perfect fit with the University’s
i. Electronic Music Studios and
ii. Music Learning Center.
2) Thumtronics is not such a good fit with CTAN.
3) Thumtronics may not be a good fit with the ETF.

CTAN’s “beauty contest” is focused solely on short text-based descriptions of the investee opportunity. This might seem reasonable – after all, if you can’t make compelling case for your product in a short piece of text, how are you ever going to sell it? – but it completely overlooks the power of video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth millions. There’s no way that a 300-word blurb about the Thummer can convey the information that a 30-second video can. This bias towards text is remarkable in the age of iTunes and YouTube (he writes, in text).

How?

How will Thumtronics make its innovations successful?

In the long run, Thumtronics’ innovations in the display and control of musical information – the ThumMusic System – are likely to have the biggest impact on the world, by making it possible for essentially everyone to understand, play, and create music. However, the ThumMusic System is going to be a tough sell, because its benefits are hard to communicate in a 30-second “elevator pitch.”

On the other hand, the benefits of the Thummer are obvious from a 30-second demo video (such as this one, and this one). Musicians playing the Thummer in a band, in live performances, or in YouTube videos will be “advertising” the Thummer for us, making the Thummer extremely viral, which is likely to lead to very rapid exponential growth sales growth.

How rapid? ThumClub members tell us that, if the Thummer lives up to their expectations, they expect to be able to convince an average of five other people to buy one. If they can do that in six months, with those five each “selling” five more, and so on, then Thummer sales will simply explode. Even if each Thummer buyer convinced only 1.4 additional people to buy Thummers, then from first year sales of just 1,500 units, Thummer revenues would exceed $10 million within three years and $100 million within six years (all else being equal). It’s the self-advertising, viral nature of the Thummer that makes it such a compelling commercial opportunity.

The success of the Thummer can pull the ThumMusic System along in its wake, just as the increasing popularity of the guitar made guitar tab popular. Once the ThumMusic System gains a foothold in the market, its growth rate can exceed that of the Thummer, because the ThumMusic System is also applicable to the standard computer keyboard and to the human voice.

At that point, the commercial opportunity of the ThumMusic System should be considerable – online lessons, sheet music downloads, certification exams, etc..

But first we have to make the Thummer successful.

We’ll do this by raising the capital needed to finish the design, engineering, and testing of the Thummer; selling the Thummer directly to consumers over the Internet from Thumtronics’ website; encouraging the independent development of associated websites (like Amazon Associates) through revenue-sharing; leveraging the free PR that we’ve already been offered by FOCUS, I Want That!, and other relevant media; and accelerating the viral marketing process through a variety of means, such as “discount for a friend” coupons, online video contests, and aggressive promotion of those musicians and bands who best show off the Thummer’s unique abilities. The incredible new possibilites presented by Dynamic Tuning – which only works on a Thummer – will tend to accelerate this process, once creative artists show the world how powerful Dynamic Tuning can be.

That’s the plan, anyway – loose and flexible, allowing us to respond to the market as we go along.

Where?

Thumtronics started in Busselton, Western Australia, because that’s where I happened to be living when I thought up my first musical innovations. Busselton is a very pleasant seaside resort town – but it’s a lousy place to start a new high-tech company. It’s three hours’ drive south of Western Australia’s capital city, Perth, which is “the most isolated major city in the world.” It’s as far from the next large Australian city as LA is from New Orleans (about 1700 miles), with absolutely nothing in between but sand, salt flats, and stranded Japanese tourists. Perth is a great place to raise money for a new nickel mine, but a lousy place from which to launch a high-tech disruptive innovation.

Australia’s venture capital community is absolutely clueless. This is not just an opinion; it’s a demonstrable fact. Over the decade from 1995 to 2005, American venture capitalists earned a whopping 41.4% Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on their investments (overall). Over that same decade, Australian venture capitalists earned 0% – that’s right, zero, nada, zilch. Even the top quartile only earned 2.7%, which was less than inflation. Whatever else people might say about American venture capitalists, they know how to pick companies that earn incredible returns – and, demonstrably, Australian venture capitalists don’t. Australian venture capitalists wouldn’t recognize the next Google if it hit them in the face.

So, I couldn’t get funding in Australia, despite the recognized disruptiveness of Thumtronics’ innovations. To get funding, it became clear that I would have to move Thumtronics to the USA.

But… where in the USA should Thumtronics go? Perhaps a high-tech center, like Silicon Valley, Boston, or Raleigh? Or perhaps a center of the music industry, such as New York or Los Angeles? What I really needed was a single city that had successful industry clusters in both electronics and music.

Austin has both. Although its much-touted claim to be the Live Music Capital of the World is somewhat dubious, there is no doubt that Austin takes music – and the music industry – very seriously. Whereas in other cities, having a CEO play live gigs in a local band would be considered somewhat flaky, in Austin it is normal and well-regarded. Austin’s live music scene is mentioned repeatedly in Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class as being one of the hallmarks of, and contributors to, its success as a high-tech city.

Likewise, Austin has a deep local electronics industry, with numerous large firms such as AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, Freescale, IBM, Intel, National Instruments, Samsung, Silicon Laboratories, Sun Microsystems, United Devices, and others having headquarters or major facilities there, and thousands of smaller electronics firms. Importantly, Austin also has a deep and broad infrastructure of service providers such as lawyers, accountants, patent attorneys, etc., that understand the needs of innovative high-tech start-ups. Austin’s rapid growth has also spawned a host of high-tech millionaires, who are ready and able to invest in the Next Big Thing.

Austin is Texas’ state capital, giving me access to Texas’ government decision-makers and influencers. This will become important as Thumtronics’ innovations start to move into government-funded educational institutions. With 23 million people, Texas is the USA’s second-most-populous state after California, so influencing Texas can influence the USA, which can influence the world. Furthermore, Austin is still a relatively small city (at 1.5 million, about the same population as Perth), so it’s relatively easy to gain access to Austin’s movers and shakers.

Austin is also a remarkably nice place to live, which has attracted (and will continue to attract) top talent from elsewhere. Finally, its cost of living is low enough to allow Thumtronics to minimize its burn rate.
Fortunately, Austin’s investor community understands disruptive innovation, so I am quite confident that, one way or another, Thumtronics will get the funding it needs to disrupt the $30 billion musical instrument & lesson industries from its new home here in Austin.

Who?

Thumtronics’ innovations have been a team effort with contributions from a lot of people.

The Thummer Prototypes
Bussleton, Capel, Bunbury, & Eaton Designs
These early prototypes were developed in Busselton, Western Australia. The prototypes were named after a string of towns running north from Busselton along the Indian Ocean.

Bruce Wahler contributed to the Busselton’s electronics, but the lead electrical engineer on all of these prototypes was Matthew Darke. A man of diverse talents, Matthew also implemented the Bunbury’s motion sensors, and performed most of the demos on the gold-colored Capel and Bunbury prototypes. The Eaton’s ThumSetup software was developed by Leigh Smith. All of these prototypes were designed by Mike Dixon, who also did the heavy lifting on the size, shape, and spacing of the Thummer keyboard’s buttons. Andrew Lavorgna was invaluable in organizing beta testers for these prototypes, and Gavin Healy was great at demonstrating the red-colored Eaton prototypes.

ThumLine Staff Notation
ThumLine notation was the result of collaboration with many contributors, including Thomas Reed, Founder of the Music Notation Modernization Association; Ron Gorow, author of “Hearing and Writing Music;” and Recordare’s Michael Good, inventor of MusicXML.

The X_System
Dynamic Tuning & Dynamically-Tempered Timbres
Andrew Milne of The Tonal Centre was the lead contributor to the X_System. His deep knowledge of music theory and mathematics was essential to identifying the novel elements of the X_System and proving their correctness. Bill Sethares’ recognition of the relationships among tuning, timbre, spectrum, and scale were, along with the Wicki note-layout, the seeds from which Thumtronics’ innovations have sprung. Bill also made major contributions to the mathematics, music theory, and computational aspects of the X_System, also helping whip our scientific papers into proper academic form.

Thumtronics Pty Ltd & Thumtronics Inc
Any entrepreneur will tell you that coming up with an idea is easy, compared to successfully commercializing it. Lots of people have helped Thumtronics move its ideas closer to reality. Bob Gaskins, the creator of Microsoft PowerPoint, has been a veritable fountain of useful advice. George Spix was an early investor, as were many of the friends and family of Scott Horsburgh, Thumtronics Pty Ltd’s excellent CFO. Watermark went well out of its way to be helpful with Thumtronics’ many patents.

Nonetheless, Thumtronics had to move to the USA to further its commercialization efforts, landing in Austin, Texas. There, many noted Austinites have been very supportive.

When?

I started working on Thumtronics’ innovations in September of 2003. Since then, as my long-suffering family can attest, I have been obsessed by the challenge of developing and commercializing Thumtronics’ innovations.

Shipping an affordable, expressive Thummer is Thumtronics’ one and only mission at present. Only after it reaches a high enough level of sales to make Thumtronics profitable can we consider devoting additional resources to commercializing Thumtronics’ other innovations, such as the ThumMusic System, Dynamic Tuning, or Dynamically Tempered Timbres.

Currently, Thumtronics is raising capital to fund the final design & engineering work needed to get the Thummer to market. It is expected that the Thummer will reach the market within approximately nine months of this capital becoming available.

At the moment, I’m collecting quotes from credible folks in Austin and beyond about the market potential of the Thummer. Although everyone knows that disruptive innovations can make huge profits, investors usually approach a given potentially-disruptive innovation with great skepticism. Because disruptive innovations redefine the market, exploit new channels, and attract new customers, it’s very hard to prove that the disruptive product will actually sell – until it starts selling. The quotes that I’m gathering are intended to reduce this perceived market risk, by establishing that experts in the relevant fields believe that the Thummer will sell.

I expect to start approaching potential investors in a couple of weeks. It’s hard to predict how long the capital-raising process will take. One smart guy with money, and I’m done – but more likely, I’ll need to find a half-dozen, and they’ll all debate the valuation & term sheet, so it’ll take months.

So don’t expect to see any Thummer for sale until mid-2008, at the earliest.

What?

Thumtronics’ musical innovations, taken together, abstract to a higher level both (a) the structure of musical sounds, and (b) the higher-level forms of music arising from that structure. This higher level of abstraction is both simpler and more powerful that that used in the Western musical tradition.

Thumtronics’ first breakthrough is the combination of a concertina-like keyboard with tiny thumb-operated joysticks (like on a video game controller) and motion sensors (like on Nintendo’s Wii game controller), thereby delivering the most expressive polyphonic musical instrument ever: the Thummer. This expressive power is needed to control the many new expressive opportunities enabled by Thumtronics’ other breakthroughs.

Thumtronics’ second breakthrough is the combination of the Wicki note-layout, a chromatic staff, a tonnetz, tonic solfa, and the computer keyboard, thereby producing an easily-deployable system for the display and control of musical information – the ThumMusic PLUS System – which makes music easier to teach, learn, and play.

Thumtronics’ third breakthrough is its recognition that generalized note-layouts (such as the Wicki) have the same fingering not just in every key, but also in every tuning of a given temperament. That enables Dynamic Tuning, in which the performer can change the Thummer’s tuning in a smooth continuum while retaining the same fingering. Dynamic Tuning enables tuning bends, temperament modulations, and new chord progressions, all within the time-honored framework of tonality.

Thumtronics’ fourth breakthrough is Dynamically Tempered Timbres (X_Spectra & X_Timbres), in which the partials of a given timbre are adjusted, in real time, to align with the notes of the current (dynamic) tuning, to which they are related. This can deliver perfect consonance all across a given temperament’s tuning continuum, with additional real-time effects such as dynamic dissonance, primeness, conicality, and richness. These novel musical effects can make dynamic tunings sound pleasing and familiar, while giving composers an entirely new means of creating “tension and release.”

In Thumtronics’ approach, what matters are the relationships among intervals – that is, temperaments – but not pitches. A musical composition can be specified completely, yet leave the choice of key (i.e., tonic pitch) to the needs of the performing group (to reflect its current tessitura). Computer scientists will recognize this as an example of dynamic binding.

Taken together, Thumtronics' innovations hoist the description and control of musical information to a higher level of abstraction which is both simpler and more powerful than the traditional view.

These innovations also generalize music theory beyond the Harmonic Series, to embrace a wider set of timbre-structures. This widening consequently broadens music theory beyond Just Intonation to a wider set of tunings which are related to those timbres (or vice versa -- same thing).

Why?

With the help of many people, I've made what appear to be a significant scientific breakthrough which has implications to musical instrument design, music notation, electronic music synthesis, and music theory. I am attempting to bring these innovations to market through a start-up company -- Thumtronics Inc. of Austin, Texas. People keep asking me "how's it going?" This blog is the answer.