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Crawford, Sinnott and Fastenow can all play traditional instruments. But Crawford wanted more flexibility, more sounds and less space. A violin sounds like a violin and there are only so many ways of making it sound different -- not so with the AirGuitars.
The AirGuitars make no sounds on their own, but in conjunction with computer software, they can summon, sample and alter any sound that the Air Band loads into the computer ahead of time, Crawford said. The Air Band uses MIDI, a 1980s-era computer music interface, to link the AirGuitars to a computer running a program called Max/MSP.
There are three sets of sounds that the band uses with the mechanically identical controllers: lead guitar, rhythm guitar and drums.
"We press buttons with our hands, and when we do something, that changes the sounds continuously," Crawford said in his apartment, pressing a button. (VIDEO: See Crawford demonstrate the rhythm guitar instrument.)
When he tilted the tops of the controllers in toward one another, almost as if he were turning off twin faucets, the sound changed. Fastenow later explained that turning the controllers that way "closes" the sound, making sort of an "ooh" sound. When he turned them in the opposite direction, rotating his wrists so his palms face upward, it produced a more open "aah."
Crawford says that this function comes from accelerometers. These are sensors inside the AirGuitars that measure acceleration -- and they're the same devices found inside the popular video game controllers of the Nintendo Wii.
The "drums" work the same way, but with different results. "It's like live DJing," Sinnott said at the rehearsal. She has a series of drum samples that she can call up with buttons in her right hand, then by pressing a button on her left hand at the right time, she can "live sample" -- essentially capture and loop a short burst of rhythm. (VIDEO: See Sinnott demonstrate the drum instrument.)
So if she's playing a percussion loop that sounds like "boom boom bap, boom boom bap," she could pretty easily change the mood and sound of the song by capturing and looping just one part, "bapbapbap," and tilt the controllers to further distort it: "bwapbwapbwap."
During performances, the controls look smooth, like they're extensions of the players' arms. They're not an air band so much as a bionic band; space is the medium, whereas bodies and circuitry are the instruments.
A couple dozen young people sat around small café tables in the downstairs performance space of The Tank in Tribeca to see the Air Band and others on a recent weeknight. (VIDEO: See parts of an Air Band rehearsal and live concert at The Tank.)
“I thought it was fun, definitely new and exciting,” said one audience member, Frankie, a 23-year-old from Iowa City. “Part of me wants to associate it with Guitar Hero.”
“I think it’s kind of cool to watch because it’s so different from traditional instruments,” said Abby, another 23-year-old concert-goer. “You look for different patterns but then aren’t sure if they just repeated the same movements or not.”
Cindy Hsieh, 27, had heard all about the band from Sinnott but wasn’t sure whether the show would be fun for “a layman” who isn’t well-versed in music technology.
The gestures translated from rehearsal space to performance space with little change as the band played its set, waving arms around, manipulating circuits and signals. In fact, aside from the crowd, the only real difference was that Fastenow wore a leather jacket and sunglasses. Because it was a rock and roll show.
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