Join Marco Donnarumma for an intensive 3-day workshop exploring the biophysical generation and control of music, creating your own low cost biosensing wearable device for muscle sounds. The workshop offers hands-on experience and both theoretical and practical training in gestural control of music and bodily musical performance, deploying the Xth Sense (XS); a brand-new biophysical technology. Participants build their own XS biosensor and learn how to generate interactive music from the muscle sounds of their bodies.

Developed within a research project at The University of Edinburgh, XS is a framework for the application of muscle sounds to the biophysical generation and control of music. The XS was recently awarded the first prize in the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Georgia Tech, US 2012) as the “world’s most innovative new musical instrument”. Muscle sounds are captured in real time and used both as sonic source material and control values for sound effects, enabling the performer to control music simply with his body and kinetic energy. At the end of the workshop, participants will be free to keep the XS biosensors they built and the related software for their own use.

The workshop is open to anyone passionate about sound and music. Musical background and education does not matter as long as you are ready to challenge your usual perspective on musical performance. No previous experience in electronics or programming is required, however participants should be familiar with digital music creation. Participants need to provide their own headphones, external soundcards and laptops. We will work either on Linux or Mac OSX (system have to be 10.6 or newer). Participants should have Pd-extended 0.42.5 already installed. Free download is available at: http://puredata.info/community/projects/software/pd-extended. Musicians interested in augmenting their favourite musical instrument by means of body gestures are encouraged to bring their instrument along too.

http://marcodonnarumma.com/works/xth-sense/

The workshop costs £50 and takes place over 3 sessions:

6 – 7.30pm Friday 22 June

11am – 6pm Saturday 23 June

10am – 12pm Sunday 24 June

Spaces are limited to just 10 participants so don’t delay, book online here: http://www.beamfestival.com/tickets-2/