FAQ

Q:   New musical instruments always fail commercially.

A:   New musical instruments which don’t leverage well-known user-interfaces do indeed always fail. Those new musical instruments which have succeeded – such as the electric guitar and the keyboard synth – leveraged user interfaces that were already well-known to musicians. The Thummer is a novel combination of user interfaces – the computer keyboard and video game controller – that are already well-known to non-musical consumers. By leveraging the user-interface skills that a huge number of consumers already have, the Thummer has the potential to succeed far beyond any previous “new musical instrument.”

Q:   People today don’t want to do the hard work that’s necessary to understand music or to play a musical instrument. They only want instant gratification.

A:   You’re right – and that fact is very much to Thumtronics’ advantage. Traditional musical instruments, notation, theory, etc. make music much harder to learn than necessary. Thumtronics’ approach has the potential to deliver such rapid progress that each individual lesson can deliver the instant gratification that modern consumers crave – gratification similar to that experienced by video-game players (Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution), for whom endless hours of “practice” are no obstacle, so long as the player is getting better. It’s stagnation that makes a game, or a music education, boring. This gives Thumtronics’ products and services a compelling advantage.

Q:   Keyboards that offer “the same fingering in every key” have been offered before, and have always failed, so the Thummer will fail, too.

A:   Your facts are correct, but your conclusion is wrong. It is true that “isomorphic” keyboards have been offered before (e.g., the Chroma, Terpstra, Wilson 990, and C-Thru) without achieving mainstream commercial success. What this proves is that ease-of-learning alone is not enough to deliver commercial success. Some additional benefit is needed. The Thummer delivers two additional benefits. First, its “beginner version” is absolutely free – the QWERTY Thummer software-only version (try it!) – and its “step up” versions are a tenth of the price of other isomorphic keyboards. Secondly, the Thummer is uniquely expressive, which makes the Thummer worth learning. That’s a very powerful combination of benefits, which has never before been offered to the market.

Q:   New music notations have been proposed before, and have always failed.

A:   You are mistaken. Guitar tab has been so successful since the late 1980’s that a patent on it would be enormously valuable today. Tab succeeded because it made it easier to learn to play the widely-available guitar. Likewise, Thumtronics’ ThumLine notation makes it easier to learn to play the universally-available computer keyboard (and the Thummer, too). Furthermore, recent technological advances – such as the Internet, the MusicXML data interchange format for sheet music, and software plug-ins for music notation software – make it possible for all of the world’s music to become instantly available in ThumLine, just by downloading and installing a plug-in. These recent developments were not available to previous “new” music notations – or even to guitar tab. The success of guitar tab despite the absence of these facilitating technologies suggests that with them, a new notation could succeed much more easily.

Q:   No musician is going to bother to learn a new interface.

A:   You are mistaken. Music Brains cite the Thummer’s novelty as a reason FOR adopting it, not as a barrier to its adoption. There are enough Music Brains out there to give us great demos on YouTube, hereby initiating the “I want to do that, too” effect among non-musical consumers. That’s the key. In the long run, Thumtronics doesn’t need to get experienced musicians to “switch” to the Thummer (any more than the electric guitar needed to get jazz musicians to “switch” away from their horns). After tapping the Music Brain market, Thumtronics only needs to get non-musical consumers to choose to learn music using the ThumMusic System on their computer keyboards, and thereafter “step up” to Thummers.

Q:   But the computer keyboard is a terrible musical controller – it’s completely inexpressive!

A:   Absolutely true. The computer keyboard (try it!) is just good enough to let absolute beginners learn the fundamentals of music's structure, from which they can progress to a Thummer or whatever.  We think that most students who start learning music with a computer keyboard and the ThumMusic System will move up to a Thummer rather than a piano or guitar, but we're happy either way.

Q:   With pressure-sensitive buttons, joysticks, and even motions sensors, surely the Thummer will be too hard for beginners to control.

A:   This is could be said of the violin, too; it requires the student to master intonation, bow technique, etc. all at once, or sound horrible, as any violin student’s parents know all too well. But the Thummer’s expressive controls can be turned off, and then enabled one after the other as the student’s ability grows. You can’t do that with a violin.

Q:   The ThumMusic System makes music easier by “dumbing it down,” right?

A:   Quite the contrary. The ThumMusic System exposes the structure of the meantone regular temperament of any p-limit Just Intonation – a structure that is common to the music of many different cultures and eras. This new scientific understanding has revealed the elegance of the underlying reality, from which both simplicity and power naturally emerge. Think of the Thummer’s keyboard as the “Periodic Table of the Intervals.” That’s not “dumbing music down;” it’s “smartening music up.”

Q:   You call the X_System “simple”? This paper has math in it – and proofs, too, fer cryin’ out loud!

A:   That X_System paper was written for scientists, not consumers or musicians. It proves that the simplicity of the ThumMusic System results from exposing the deep structure of musical sound, NOT from glossing over that structure or otherwise “dumbing down” music. Indeed, because of its simplicity, the ThumMusic System has the potential to be considerably more powerful than traditional systems for displaying and controlling musical information. However, consumers don’t need to understand the X_System’s deep music theory; all they need to do is play some chords and wiggle a joystick. The X_System does the rest.  Nonetheless, you may find this non-mathematical X_System Overview to be more easily understood.

Q. What is this "Dynamic Tuning" stuff, anyway?

A: Dynamic Tuning is our name for the ability to change tuning smoothly in real time, maintaining consonance by adjusting (a) the pitches of all notes and (b) the timbres of all sounds.  You could be the first composer to create a hit song using Dynamic Tuning.  You can try a VERY preliminary test version here.

Q:   You guys sound like cranks. Surely no one takes any of this seriously!

A:   Actually, Thumtronics' first academic paper on the X_System was recently (June 2007) accepted for publication into the Computer Music Journal, the leading peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field.  The second is under peer review at the Journal of Mathematics and Music.  Thumtronics' work is being taken very seriously indeed.

Q:   You’re never going to get schools to adopt this.

A:   First, we don’t need to -- schools are not our initial target market; Music Brains are.  Second, school-based music educators are actually among our strongest supporters, because they, too, are tired of having their students fail. Third, school administrators are desperate to (a) save money while (b) satisfying the broad public demand for school music programs. Thumtronics’ innovations give school administrators the freedom to teach more students a better music education at a lower cost. Everybody wins.

Q:  You're never going to get private music teachers to adopt this.

A:  First, we don't need to.  Self-paced online music education is growing by leaps and bounds, giving Thumtronics an alternative path to deliver its music education services, for which its QWERTY Thummer and ThumLine notation are ideally suited.  Second, private music teachers are among our strongest supporters, because our innovations can give them a unique competitive advantage and help more of their students succeed.

Q:   You bastard! You’re going to make traditional instruments obsolete!

A:   No, we’re not. Thumtronics can become a large and successful company simply by helping non-musical consumers become musical. Many of these newly-musical consumers will choose to apply their new-found musical knowledge to traditional instruments. Thumtronics’ success could actually grow the market for traditional instruments.

Q:   Everyone knows that the electric guitar is so successful because it’s a phallic symbol. The Thummer isn’t a phallic symbol, so it will fail.

A:   If being a phallic symbol were so important, then wouldn’t the oboe, clarinet, and soprano sax be the most popular instruments on the planet? I mean, really, how phallic can you get? Seriously, though, you’re not giving the electric guitar enough credit. It has been successful mostly because it is expressive, polyphonic, portable, flexible, and easy to learn – but not as expressive, polyphonic, portable, flexible, or easy as the Thummer. The real reasons for the electric guitar’s success are the very reasons why the Thummer will succeed, too.

Q:   The Thummer looks dorky.

A:   Aha! Clearly, you are just a poser, to whom music means nothing. Music Brains rate the appearance of the Thummer very highly. Sadly, making the Thummer “sexier-looking” is a simple matter of industrial design, so future versions of the Thummer are unlikely to be such effective poser-detectors. In future, posers will be able to have the Thummer’s consistent fingering, its motion sensing, and even its Dynamic Tuning – and look cool, too. Darn it. ;-)