“Taking extra or discarded materials and turning them into musical instruments; I’m seeing more and more of that coming into the mainstream,” Albert says. “They’re beautiful pieces of art, and they also sound really cool.”
The most literal example of that upcycling is the people’s choice winner, the Lethelium. Creator Lateef Martin, a Montreal-based builder, musician, and author of a Cyclepunk comic book series, says the idea came to him after plucking the spokes of a bicycle in a bike shop. Combining that with guitar strings in place of the spokes led to a circular playing surface that can be played by plucking or with a bow.
“I’d say it’s a lovechild between a dulcimer and a harp and a steel pan,” Martin says. “They had a threesome, and that’s the Lethelium.”
Unpredictability is inevitable when you put on a show with unconventional instruments. There was a sense of chaos from the performances that felt fundamentally human. For the participants, that was the goal.
“This world specifically needs more experimental instruments,” says Berlin-based musician Michael Doron, who created the third-place winning entry Verto, an analog electric machine that uses electromagnetic gloves and rotating tonewheels. “It is important, in the world that’s going very much in the direction of midi controllers and electronic computer-based instruments, to have something real to play with.”
Fifth-time contestant Krzysztof Cybulski, a music teacher in Poland and creator of the Post Digital Sax instrument, says AI will have the hardest time replacing humans for performances. “This is the area where we can still survive.”
Winning the competition isn’t always everything for the creators of the instruments in the running. Previous Guthman contenders include the expressive Roli Seaboard, the Artiphon Orba, and Teenage Engineering’s very popular OP-1. None of those won, but they still went on to become successful, full-fledged products.
“Everybody wants to win because there’s money involved,” Albert says. “Really, the beauty of it is you get all these creative people in town for a weekend, and they hang out. You see people starting to make connections, and they start checking each other’s instruments out. That exchange of both information and excitement is a lot of fun.”
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