Smart Musical Instruments: Key Concepts and Do-It-Yourself Tutorial

This chapter aims to provide sound designers with theoretical principles and practical skills to understand anddevelop new musical instruments featuring intelligent sensing and Internet connectivity, the so-called smart musical instruments (SMIs). After reviewing related works on augmented instruments and networked music performance systems, we describe the key concepts related to smart musical instruments which combine (i) sensing/actuating, (ii) artificial intelligence enabling proactivity and context awareness properties, (iii) network connectivity, and (iv) interoperability. By appropriate use of sensor technology and embedded systems, it is possible to turn a traditional musical instrument into a smart musical instrument or design a new interface for musical expression from scratch that can react and adapt to performers’ gestures and context in programmable ways.