Ok, so normally EMERGE isnt' really that interested in the gear-obsessions that drive people to sell organs for an iPhone or to discuss the relative merits of granular or analog-modeling synthesis. However, we are interested in technologies that take esoteric- dare I say nerdy- processes from outside dark rooms filled with cables and doodads and turn them into engaging performances. AND, as our devotion to Daft Punk's Alive tour last Summer indicated, we love a good electronic music performance that transcends the dude-behind-a-laptop paradigm.

Hence EMERGE's fascination with the Tenori-On-Tour, a live product demonstration tour showcasing a really interesting little gizmo from Yamaha that looks like this:



Basically, this is similar to the much more homespun Monome machine from a couple  years ago, allowing users to customize a grid of pads to control their music software, and translate some of the normally unseen aspects of electronic music production into a visual language of blinking lights and patterns. To really find out what's going on here, EMERGE is going to check out the New York stop of the tour on April 16 and we encourage any curious folks to stop by the SAT in Montreal on April 11th or 1015 Fulsom in San Francisco on the 18th. The demos will include a presentation by Tenori-On inventor Toshio Iwai as well as performances by top-shelf button-pushers including Robert Lippok, Sutekh, Pole, Safety Scissors, I Am Robot And Proud, and Nathan Michel. Best of all, attendees can enter a raffle to win their own Tenori-On and rest assured that there will be many other music geeks and gadget freaks there to attend what is basically a glorified version of the infomercial...




Posted by James Friedman

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