Cyrille Martraire

Following my ongoing work on a theory of rhythms and a corresponding physical instrument using lasers, here is a version of the same idea implemented into an Arduino: a generative sequencer. The idea is to generate rhythms, and perhaps melodies, from one rhythm seed, then use mutated copies of it to create something more interesting, [...]

Last week-end I have bought five noise-making plastic toys at a yard sale in Paris; I then ordered knobs and switches from ebay and from a local electronic store. What for? For the purpose of circuit bending of course! First failure Out of the four toys, one was already non working when trying with new [...]

In the post “Playing with laser beams to create very simple rhythms” I explained a theoretical approach that I want to materialize into an instrument. The idea is to create complex rhythms by combining several times the same rhythmic patterns, but each time with some variation compared to the original pattern. Several possible variations (or [...]

Here are two videos, pictures and explanations about my experiments to generate rhythmic music using laser beams in a clock fashion.

In this last part, we put ideas into practice to build an instrument dedicated to play solo for electronic music genres. We will use light sensors, buttons and an Arduino board to control MIDI synthesizers in a way that is attractive to both musicians and non musicians.

Just like many arts, music arousal is considered to follow the well-known Wundt curve that defines the balance between attractiveness and boredom. Too much repetition is boring, not enough repetition is confusing and considered just noise. What for? Let us assert that idea to music, to generate rhythms. A very simple application of the Wundt [...]