Instrument 1 is an instrument anyone can play
Instrument 1 is a crowd funded startup for a musical instrument that anybody can play.
The creators of Instrument 1 have been successful on Kickstarter and the first product releases are about to be sent to customers. They made $1.3 million for the development of their product and their campaign was the most successful for a musical instrument ever.
According to Mike Butera, for most regular non-music making people, one of the biggest barriers to begin making music is the ‘physical layout of traditional instruments’.
Butera is of the belief that technology can help change this just as technology has and continues to make other aspects of life easier. The aim of Instrument 1 is to make music production more accessible to the general public.
Mike Butera has a PhD in sound studies and is using his smarts and skills to be a tech entrepreneur.
“Where we’re headed is toward instruments that change their gestalt, depending on how you want to use it. Whether it’s actually shape shifting or adapting to your expectations in other ways.” says Butera.
Instrument 1 has been developed to adapt to the player’s needs. Its interface resembles a shortened, rubberized guitar neck. You can play it like a guitar, or you can bow it like a violin on your neck, and you can even play it in your lap like a piano.
What you end up with is an ‘all in one’ universal instrument that doesn’t conform to the conventions of a regular musical instrument.
“Mastery has never really existed. It’s been this cultural construct that’s been based on the technologies at hand. Instead, we should look at what people actually want to do and how quickly we can tie technologies to the techniques that they want to use. Just bridging that kind of collapses that notion of mastery being out there in the distance. It’s right here.” says Butera
Instrument 1 was named one of the best inventions of 2015 by Time magazine.
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