josh kopeček » Blog Archive

Eigenharp

I’m going to go ahead and criticise the Eigenharp alpha, after I just read this post on createdigitalmusic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing step forward for digital instruments, away from the predominantly keyboard-based synthesisers of the 80s and 90s. The key + knob + slider combination has been going stale for a long time. There have been a huge number of experiments to date on different formats for new digital instruments, and there are more ideas out there than there is time to learn properly. It’s definitely the subject of another post to list a few major developments in that field. However, it’s been discussed frequently that there are a number of factors which a digital instrument needs in order to have staying power.

Learnability:
Beginner to Advanced – There has to be a learning curve in the instrument, tending towards virtuosity. By this I mean anyone should be able to pick it up and make a sound out of it, but it should also provide reward for someone playing it. The Eigenharp provides this, something which, arguably, the Monome doesn’t.

Intuition:
Did I just play that? – Both beginners and professionals use intuition every time they play an instrument. Violinists ‘just know’ where their hands are, they don’t need to look, but there’s no restive state for a rotary encoder, it’s in the position you left it last… which was? Eigenharp has a restive state, which makes it easy to be intuitive, but it has a shortcoming, which I’ll come to later.

Repeatability:
Where’s that note? – You have to be able to repeat that sound that you made earlier. Simple, but it’s amazing on how many new digital instruments that’s (near) impossible. Take hacked wiimotes, for example. Try playing a tune, it’s more difficult than on an Ondes Martenot. The Eigenharp solves this by having individual keys for each ‘note’.

Stage presence:
Get ready to rock! – Most digital instruments aren’t pretty. Check out the Buchla Series IIe. Looks like a working station from a 1970s nuclear power station. Is that really what you want to look like on stage? Keytars nearly solved this problem, but you’re… a keyboardist who wants so desperately to be a guitarist. Eigenharp is an instrument in its own right, looking a bit like a bassoon shafted on to an electric upright bass, with a number pad glued on the front, but a bit sexier.

Ensemble playing:
Collaboration for geeks – You have to be able to play with other people, and them know what you’re doing. It’s often the case that a so-called ‘laptop performer’ has no place being on stage, since he has zero interaction with the audience, as in this example. You might be mistaken for thinking the laptop performer on the right was booking his return flights. With the Eigenharp you can see everything the player is doing. The performer action—sound connection is immediately apparent, and makes it a viable and flexible ensemble instrument.

Criticism:
You might be wondering why I’ve just praised the Eigenharp so far, when I stated at the beginning that I was going to criticise it. That’s because it goes so much further than other attempts at performer interaction, and it’s a valiant attempt at creating a new way at expressing your musical intentions that has never existed before. Also, the possibilities of sound control and manipulation are ten-fold what you’d have in a key-knob-slider configuration, without losing the repeatability discussed above.

The major shortcoming is the grid-style keypad. If I close my eyes, how do I know where I am without looking at the lights on the keyboard? I don’t! What acoustic instrument has a regular grid-like arrangement of keys? Shape is everything on a tactile instrument, like the width of a guitar neck is subtly different the further up you get. The piano has a distinct arrangement of black and white keys so you know what note your hand’s on before you play. You should be able to play a real instrument blind-folded, and this is where the Eigenharp is not worth its $4000 price tag.

True, this isn’t a major shortcoming, and I expect to see virtuoso Eigenharp players very soon. I truly respect and admire the desire to create a genuine musical heritage for digital music performance, and this development really expands the possibilities for live music performance. However, this isn’t the holy grail of New Interfaces for Musical Expression, but it is a very large stepping stone on the way.

Eigenlabs page for the Eigenharp Alpha
New Interfaces for Music Expression

http://twitter.com/gbevin Geert Bevin

The guitar has a grid-like disposition of notes, I don’t see people having trouble to know where they are. Worse even, you have to do two entirely different things with both hands on a guitar, correctly, in the right order for sound to come out. Still people are able to place four fingers perfectly and simultaneously on the grid when playing a chord. Some even do two handed tapping on it.

Other instruments with a grid, basically all stringed instruments, another one with keys, the accordion, and so on …

I guess that you come from a piano background and hence judge things by that measure, for me as a guitarist, the linear disposition of piano keys is madness. Why would I reach all to way left of right to play a note while I could have them right under my fingertips.
Josh Kopecek

…but on the guitar the size of the frets changes, and the neck changes shape, very subtle changes that allow you to intuitively estimate the position of your hands.

I haven’t played an Eigenharp, but the keys are entirely linear – the same problem as piano, but at least on the piano I have the disposition of black and white keys to know the position in the octave, without opening my eyes. There’s nothing on the Eigenharp to tell you where you are with your eyes closed.
http://twitter.com/gbevin Geert Bevin

Heh, that’s actually funny since the fret size changes on a guitar are due to it having to do this do keep intonation. As a guitarist I find it extremely annoying. The frets at the bottom are too large and those at the top almost unusably small. Also, since the guitar’s fretboard is not isomorphic, patterns don’t repeat identically over the neck due to that pesky third between the G and the B string, meaning that you have to change the shapes of chords and scales based on where you are on the neck. The same madness applies to the piano keyboard, based on what the root not of your scale is, all chord and scale patterns change.

The accordion’s grid has 100% identically-sized keys, people have been playing it greatly for more than a century. Some even with both hands, ditching the piano-like keys on one hand.

The Eigenharp Alpha has ridges on the back edges that serve as positioning guides for your hands. Typically your thumbs rest on those while you use your four other fingers to play in rectangles of four wide. That’s also why the factory setup has each course of keys offset by a fourth interval, meaning you can just play a scale by running your fingers across the neck, keeping your thumb in place.

Here’s a picture I made last year of the ridges: http://www.eigenzone.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Alpha-Review-Focus-Ridges-on-edges.jpg

The Eigenharp Pico doesn’t need your hands to move, so you just keep them in the same position, all the time. This actually makes it extremely easy to learn.
http://twitter.com/gbevin Geert Bevin

I probably have to say that I do play the Eigenharp Alpha without looking at it. I sing through a microphone while looking at the audience and sometimes even move around while playing with both hands on the Eigenharp Alpha. The ridges helped at first, but now I don’t really think about it anymore once I learned how to play a musical piece.
Josh Kopecek

Have you ever tried to type on a qwerty keyboard that is distributed in a grid? It’s awkward, because your fingers don’t naturally move in straight lines.

I’m arguing that the key distribution should be irregular. Are the keys on a saxophone all in a straight line? Do they even align with the pads they’re pressing down or lifting? No, they align with your hands.

Adolphe Sax knew that designing an instrument was a compromise, that it had to be designed around the body as much as around the acoustics of the instrument. So why, when the Eigenharp isn’t even acoustic, ignore the natural irregularity of the human body?
http://twitter.com/gbevin Geert Bevin

Yes, I’ve tried a lot of human interfaces, I can even fluently type on an Alphagrip iGrip keyboard, but that’s besides the point. You’re changing the subject. There are tactile reference points on the Alpha that allow you to play without looking, and no the keys and the disposition don’t feel unnatural, it’s all the opposite in fact. Sadly the only thing you can do is ask people that play it, and they all say the same. You can try to rationalize about it as much as you want, but without playing it for a while, you don’t know.

Good example of the sax, again, it’s much more awkward than the Eigenharp since the valves have to be placed in locations that are not necessarily the most intuitive to play. The fact of having to deal with the physical airflow imposed a whole lot of restrictions. Every irregularity you’ve talked about is actually exactly that, an artificial deviation from what would be intuitive, solely based on the restrictions imposed by the acoustical nature of the instrument. The Eigenharp doesn’t suffer from it and actually feels extremely intuitive and predictable to play.
Josh Kopecek

That’s encouraging, but I still think the regular disposition of keys is a hindrance to virtuosity, IMHO!

I would be interested in hearing what the instrument designers’ rationale was in the key layout.
http://twitter.com/gbevin Geert Bevin

Well, once more, without playing it you don’t know, it’s just a rationalization of something you haven’t experienced. I can tell you that as a guitarist with 25 years of experience, that after I played the Eigenharp for a while, playing the guitar afterwards feel totally silly. It’s exactly those irregularities that make it much more difficult to play.
Anonymous

The Alphagrip looks great!

The keyword here is ergonomic. The saxophone is an ergonomic design, because the fingering is based around the shape of the hands, and consequently it’s one of the easiest instruments to play and learn. The violin and other string instruments are designed around the shape of the body. I’m intrigued that you find a linear grid shape easy to play. I suppose I will just have to wait and try one myself.

If the keyboard truly isn’t a shortcoming, I’d happily class it as a milestone in digital instrument development. It’s certainly ticked all the other boxes!
On Oct 27, 2011 2:36 PM, “Disqus”
Chris Lloyd

Hey thx Josh, I enjoyed that write up. A couple more comments about the keys. Personally having a monome, manta and Alpha I in fact do really enjoy the freedom of movement that a grid enables. I do get your point about being able to locate yourself reliably. In fact this was a big hurdle for me in learning the instrument. Further more, because scales and roots can change, the keys are actually fluidly changing, so absolute position doesn’t really exist. Lately we’ve come up with a solution to this and it’s really been a revelation to me and others. We have lighted indicators for roots. Yes you do have to glance at some point but in general as you get better you don’t have to look until maybe you change the scale. I’ve played guitar all my life and yes I can play it without looking but even the guitar I will be willing to bet most players steal a glance at orientation once in awhile. The benefit of these light indicators is that you can do what is more difficult to do on the guitar which is repeat the same patterns up and down the grid and move at will. This last month I have found myself crossing some invisbile hurtle where I can feel that this instrument can be played with virtuosity and reliability like a guitar or piano but also with added dimensions. It also allows the player to connect to it in the way a real instrument should. It’s the real deal. It will be important to take what early players have learned and feed it back into the community so that new players have an easier time coming up to speed. My critique of the instrument would be the cost is prohibitive for most young players at least for a Tau or Alpha. The device is still very technical, so hard to use for technical noods. Thanks for the blog post, I enjoyed it.
Anonymous

Hey Chris, thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.

I think you’re right. The price is a big barrier for most people, probably something that eclipses the issue of the grid-keyboard completely. What would be really great is if some companies like Roland or Yamaha (or perhaps Novation?) made a decent copy or alternative. That would open up the market, and strengthen the following for the Eigenharp. It’d also probably force the price down. I know Eigenlabs have cheaper alternative, but what’s really needed is a competitor. They really need that cross-board support, and an incentive for non-tech heads to take it on.

The scale position change thing baffles me. Perhaps I should play with an actual instrument, but it seems a barrier almost as insurmountable as that of the bandoneon – i.e. not suppressing virtuosity, but clearly burdening the newcomer with unnecessary difficulties.

Also, I’m not denying that on other instruments visual interaction is second to haptic/touch interaction, in fact the opposite. When you’re learning an instrument or piece the visual interaction is paramount. It’s only when you know the instrument, know the piece, that you can dispense with the visual. Perhaps it’s this step that I’m arguing is ostensibly more difficult to perform on the Eigenharp.

However, the Eigenharp is the closest I’ve seen to a digital instrument that can start a following of performers, with a corresponding performance practice. I’m fully supportive of that community, and may well join it at some point myself!

Being an owner of three of the instruments I mentioned in the writeup (and being one of a probably very select few having all of those), which is your favourite, and for what type of performance? What have been the pitfalls of each one?
Geert Bevin

Quick remark about the price, don’t assume that there’s a huge margin on the instruments for Eigenlabs, there isn’t actually. Taking the price down would actually cause the instruments to be sold at a loss. The components are all just so high quality that there’s little room left for price savings. The only real improvement here could be made due to volume. That being said, if you think about high quality instruments, I personally don’t think that the price of the Eigenharp is exaggerated. It’s more than cheap plastic made midi keyboard with nothing new, but it’s less that a luthier acoustic guitar or violin.
Anonymous

I’m not criticising the price-band, just that such a high price will put off a lot of potential new players. not that they should bring it down. It’s just that I think, as with the violin, there should be a lower quality, entry level instrument hat enables enthusiasts to become more enthusiastic before they make a commitment! Probably made in China. People who buy the smaller Eigenlabs instruments probably won’t transfer to the larger instruments, but people would probably crossgrade to a higher quality version. It really needs that market competition!