Actively controlled accessible wind instruments (ACAWI)

Being able to play a musical instrument is an important gateway to artistic and personal self-expression, and to participation in social activities. Upper-limb differences and disabilities can present a barrier to all these desirable outcomes. Institutions such as the Organisation for the Harmonization of Musical Instruments (OHMI) do valuable work to develop solutions such as adapted instruments, but these are often expensive because they are produced in small quantities. The most successful accessible instrument would appeal to all players, disabled or not.

Most wind instruments work by the player covering fingerholes, pressing valves etc, to change the input acoustic admittance seen by the mouthpiece. The peaks and troughs in its admittance function determine the frequency that the mouthpiece (fipple, reed, lip-mouthpiece combination etc) oscillates at and hence the note that the instrument plays.

This project is to develop a class of programmable-impedance wind Instruments, which would use active control of the waves in the air column to control its input impedance via electroacoustic actuators and sensors in the pipe. This could be attached to a regular mouthpiece and blown expressively as normal, but the note-selection process would be digital signal processing (DSP)-controlled and the input from the player could come via a range of possible interfaces, such as musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) keyboard or touch-sensitive pad. 

This would allow a disabled musician who can’t, for instance, cover fingerholes to play such an instrument, while retaining expressiveness (unlike conventional digital wind instruments). It would also allow musicians to extend the capabilities of their instrument by allowing effects such as vibrato, by dynamically changing the impedance curve to affect the pitch or tone of the note, meaning its appeal would be wider than just those who need accessible instruments.