This is a collection of musical experiments which take the form of instruments which resist your attempts to control them, in some fashion. Take them out for a spin.
- XTRIMENT0: the keys are tuned to a scale, but each time you play a note, the scale will change.
- XTRIMENT1: each tab of this can only play one note, open multiple tabs to make your own keyboard.
- XTRIMENT10: a drum machine with… inconvenient rhythmic spacing.
I have an ever growing list of ideas for XTRIMENTs, and intend to expand this list as time passes.
These XTRIMENTs raise a few questions, which I think are interesting. All of them, overall, are meant to force us to change our relationship with the way we make or participate in music. Each of them is capable of producing interesting and useful musical effects; they all can be played, and they can create pleasant sounds. But none of them help you in this.
XTRIMENT0 forces you, the player, to accept randomness. You can't learn a piece, you can't decide what the next note will definitely be. Each note forces you to change keys, to change your plan. It forces improvisation.
XTRIMENT1 offers an alternative view of "virtuosity". There is a real skill to playing XTRIMENT1, but it's a wildly different method of interaction than we're used to, both from web applications and from musical instruments.
XTRIMENT10 forces us to interact with rhythms in a difficult way- our natural sense of what makes a pleasing rhythm doesn't really apply, but you can build interesting and exciting patterns. Everyone becomes a jazz drummer with XTRIMENT10 in hand.