Wall Street Journal

Last week, the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition sent John Jurgensen, an entertainment features reporter, to Austin, in order to spend a day observing Thumtronics’ search for the funding needed to bring the Thummer to market.

John had written a WSJ piece on Les Paul, his contributions to inventing the modern electric guitar, and the fact that he was still playing regularly in New York (at 92). I emailed John, suggesting that now that he’d covered the past of musical instruments, he should consider covering their future, too. He liked the idea, his editor approved, and voila! out he came. Cool!

His angle on the story appears to be, “New musical interfaces are proposed frequently but not one has gained mainstream acceptance for over a century [with a few debatable exceptions]. Jim Plamondon thinks his new interface, the Thummer, can beat those odds – but to bring the Thummer to market he needs cash. Let’s observe as he makes his case to potential investors.”

John joined me at the following meetings:

• OpenLabs: Hank Coleman and Victor Wong stated that today’s commercially-successful musicians & producers were (a) computer-based and (b) not classically trained, so that they had everything to gain and nothing to lose by using an easier-to-learn and more-expressive computer-based music-control interface such as the Thummer. They demonstrated the surprising realism of software music synthesis using physical modeling (specifically waveguide synthesis) and emphasized how useful the Thummer would be in unleashing its expressive potential.
• CTAN: Jamie Rhodes discussed the relationship between angel investors & VCs and what both groups looked for in an “ideal” investment. No specific discussion of the Thummer, because Thumtronics had only submitted its proposal a few days earlier and CTAN had not yet had time to review it.
• Fito Kahn and David Peterman: Angel investors who are considering investing in Thumtronics. Asked questions about IP ownership, possible partnership with Chinese OEMs, other issues preparatory to making an offer (probably this week).
• Ian Varley: An archetypical Music Brain, Ian is a serious musical hobbyist – with an extensive home studio and a busy performance schedule – who works as a computer programmer. He demonstrated the Thummer and discussed its merits, including the simplicity of its patterns, its stimulation of creativity, the importance of novelty in capturing the attention of the audience, and the Thummer’s infectiousness. John videotaped much of this discussion, which will hopefully appear on the WSJ’s website.
• Wes Cole: A Venture Capitalist with Austin’s Gefinor Ventures, Wes was kind enough to set up this meeting on short notice. His responses to the presentation were right in line with those of other VCs – and more clearly enunciated than most – which was ideal for this meeting’s purpose.

In between meetings, John and I discussed issues such as why previous new musical interfaces had failed to gain mainstream commercial success, the characteristics needed for any innovation to succeed, and the reasons why some investors shied away from Thumtronics (all of which I will address in subsequent blog postings).

I also introduced John via email to people who could comment credibly on relevant issues, such as Stan Leibowitz on the Lock-In Fallacy, Roger Linn on new musical interfaces, Reuven Brenner on finance, Ajit Kambil on Value Maps, etc. (all without endorsing the Thummer per se).

John said that he could not guarantee that the story would appear, but that he was confident that it would – else his editor would not have approved sending him out to Austin in the first place.

If it does appear, it should be in one of the next few issues of the WSJ Weekend Edition.

This could be very cool. :-)