New Concepts of Musical Instruments

Abstract

As we create a means to cogitate the future of music composition, we need to consider the relationship between composer and the medium in which music is performed. The concept of the development of musical instruments finds its foundation in the need for musicians to create sounds in ways that require more than one’s own physical body. Currently we organize musical instruments in a system based on the production modality of sound. We distinguish acoustic instruments, which generate sounds in a mechanical way, from electroacoustic instruments which create sounds by electromagnetic devices. With the groundwork of instruments being steadily refined, the focus of development of musical instruments can generally be accomplished by two strategies. The first is the expansive realization of an instrument, i.e., the improvement of the versatility of an existing instrument. The second is the creative realization of a new instrument, which has been the primary focus of development for the majority of music.