Instrument Selection

Every three years, NAMM hires Gallop to conduct a telephone survey of American households. I can't find the 2006 survey online, but the 2003 survey concluded that

1. 64% of instrumental music-makers started studying music when they were 5-11 years old; 18% starting 12-14; 7% 15-18; and 6% after 18.


2. 75% chose for themselves the instrument that they learned to play, with 15% making the decision jointly with parents and 10% having the choice of instrument made by the parent alone.


3. 30% took lessons at school, 26% took private lessons, and 22% taught themselves. The “taught themselves” percentage has risen over time (and may be rising much faster now due to the Internet). Boys teach themselves three times as often as girls do.

It is illuminating to make a chart of the ages at which music-makers started studying music (below).


The chart shows the percentage of instrumental music-makers who started learning music at each given age (in red) and the culumative total up to that age (in green).

The ages 5-11 are clearly critical. 69% of people who will ever learn to play an instrument have started learning by the end of their 11th year, and 87% by the end of their 14th year. Clearly, if I want to sell a lot of Thummers, I need to *eventually* meet the needs of very young students (although it may not be efficient to target them first).

NAMM’s surveys don’t ask what instrument is played, or why that particular instrument was chosen. There is little research into the factors which affect musical instrument choice among beginners, and that limited research tends to constrain the available options to band & orchestra instruments. A better understanding the factors affecting instrument-selection could suggest opportunities for improving the Thummer such that it would consistently win this selectrion process.

NAMM's survey data suggest that

• Ensuring that the Thummer meets the needs of beginners aged 5-11 is critical to its long-term success;


• We can emphasize self-teaching (online) initially, but will need to penetrate the private lesson and school-based lesson channels, also, to maximize Thummer sales;


• The ability of a given instrument to help a teenage boy “get chicks” is not sufficient, in itself, to maximize Thummer sales, as (i) it doesn’t help sell instruments to girls, and (ii) more than 80% of music-makers have already selected their instrument before their mid-teens, leaving at most 20% to be affected by this benefit.

People usually mention the "get chicks" factor with regard to the guitar -- but history suggests that jazz instrumentalists did pretty well in that regard, too, so there appears to be more to that benefit than just instrument choice.

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?