Thummed

For those of you who carefully monitor my media appearances (hi, mom!), I've been featured in a couple news videos this week demonstrating a new musical instrument that I've had the pleasure of trying out. The instrument is called the Thummer.



It's a performance controller that uses an isomorphic 2 dimensional button layout (not unlike a concertina) and expression controllers located under the thumbs. "Isomorphic" means that no matter where you start, the spatial relationships of buttons on the keyboard represents the same musical relationships. So, it's kind of like the guitar, where you can (mostly) play the same chord or lick anywhere on the neck and get the same sound; you can learn one set of patterns on the thummer and then travel all around to different keys. It's different from the guitar, though, in that the mathenical relationships between notes are much more directly expressed, and the spatial patterns are much more apparent.

And it's strange and futuristic looking, which is points in my book.

Anyway, on Friday, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal (link) which doesn't quote me directly, but does include me in the video:



Then, last night, a short segment aired on the Austin NBC affiliate, KXAN. Here's a transcript, and there's apparetnly video too (but since it's served in a way that doesn't support Firefox and wanted me to install some godawful drm-crippled windows malware, I didn't bother watching it). Anyway, here's a still:



The Thummer is cool and worth checking out; though, unless you're an investor, you'll probably have to wait a bit before getting your hands on one. Unless, you know, you want to come play with mine. I accept bribes in the form of burritos and / or beer.