Perry Cook - Principles for designing computer music controllers

This article is a good source for someone looking for ideas on innovative and interesting computer music controllers. It is a chronological account of a number of attempts at designing controllers in ways not already done. It describes challenges and forms some simple rules to adhere to when trying to design easy to use controllers. Perry Cook seems to have learned some important lessons during the research period, one most important lesson, in my opinion, is to try not to make the same mistake twice! It seems to me that through the design and implementation of the designs that one will learn from their mistakes.

One major "principle" gathered from these designs that strikes me the most is the one termed "Smart instruments are often not smart". This stresses the point that sometimes (mostly in my view), an instrument that can be just picked up and played with both simple and expert knowledge at hand is a good instrument. Controllers or instruments that have a sharp learning curve often prove to be frustrating to the novice. This in many cases leads to the instrument being binned. I'm not forgetting the fact that it is very rewarding to learn a difficult thing and eventually be an expert at it, but nowhere does it say that one cannot enjoy the best of both worlds: an instrument that rewards the amateur and the expert alike.

Cooks views on making a piece, not an instrument are quite interesting also. He refers to the HIRN wind controller and its huge bandwidth not necessarily being a good thing. What I gather from this is the view that too many parameters being available to control does not lead to good music if there is no prior composition at hand. I have seen good use of a wind controller however, which I will be referring to in a later post.