• Demonstration piece for a sonar controlled MIDI instrument, the Sonaphone
• Composed while at NYU for a classes in Advanced Computer Music Composition and Java Music Systems
• Developed using the MIT Handyboard, a Polaroid Sonar transducer, and interactive C

The Sonaphone was my first foray into building interactive musical instruments with electronics, microcontrollers, and desktop computers. The main gesture-capturing device is a sonar unit developed by Polaroid to measure object distance for camera auto focus electronics. In this architecture, however, it was rigged up to an MIT Handyboard microcontroller and object distance converted to MIDI pitches. Though I’ve moved on from the Handyboard as a data acquisition interface, it played a crucial role in the realization of the Sonaphone. The Sonaphone is a monophonic instrument, so what you hear in the Big Bang Theory #1 was created with overdubs.

special thanks to Pete Weiss, Nick Didkovsky, and James Forrest