In the laid-back beach town of Hamamatsu, close to Nagoya, there is a little breeding ground for musical instruments of another kind. Yamaha’s Product Design Laboratory (PDL) develops ultra-stylish and technically uber-advanced musical instruments. For PingMag, British product designer Marianne Bailey shows us her latest swell creations, a super-slim piano, the new Vocaloid 2 software interface and the recent, bizarrely fun mobile phones turned into instruments for Yamaha x au design project by KDDI. You don’t need to be artistic to be amazed by these tools…
Written by Verena
First, how did you end up with Yamaha — are you a musical person or do you have a connection to instruments through your family?
I’d been designing for five years for London design consultancy Factory Design. By day I’d been designing anything from hairdryers to aircraft interiors, in the evenings and weekends I had been managing a band. I saw the advert for an instrument designer for Yamaha in a design magazine and just thought Wow! That’s my job… and so it was! It’s been great to be able to combine my two passions, design and music.
My family are annoyingly musically talented: my elder brother is a professional guitarist/singer/songwriter, my younger sister a fantastic singer, younger brother a professional drummer and Dad was a band manager/promoter. I guess I’m more interested in creating new music through my designs indirectly rather than being the person on stage.
Now, what makes it exciting to design something as refined as musical instruments compared to everyday products?
For me, I love the ripple effect. So I design an instrument that aims to inspire someone to play and create; in time, through performance, they will go on to inspire someone else. And so it goes on — the jolly dance of inspiration passed from one person to the next through the medium of music…
The shape and size of an instrument must be very much confined to the requirements of the technology inside?
At the Product Design Laboratory (PDL) we try wherever possible to make our starting point human behaviour, ergonomics and sound quality rather than just internals. We then try to inspire the engineering team to come up with new solutions and technology to fit our designs. I personally believe that form follows function of people rather than technology. If you have a great idea based on human need or behaviour it is only a matter of time ‘till technology catches up. Of course, in acoustic instruments, size and shape are constrained by the sound you wish to create and it’s more about balancing playability against sound output. I’m always impressed how shapes for the best sound are always so aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes our job is almost done for us by physics.
And the shapes are so elegant! How much freedom do you have?
It depends on the project, but at PDL, I would say we have a lot compared to other in-house teams. Each individual designer usually has sole responsibility for their product from concept to production, including the packaging. This is to encourage attention to detail and strong interest in the end result. I would say this system is very good in ensuring quality and pride in your work.
So you’re responsible from the very first sketch to the packaging. Exciting! How, for example, did you succeed in dealing with the very restricted space when making the ultra-slim Clavinova piano?
Our intention was to make the depth of the piano as slim as possible without compromising sound quality, stability or the standard ergonomic relationship between keyboard, pedals and music rest. There were actually many challenging regulations on this project; this is where design is valuable; how to make something with completely new value with almost all the restrictions that existed before? We overcame many problems by using an innovative one-action lid mechanism where half the lid retracts into the main body. There is also a wee bit of design magic going on to make it look even thinner than it actually is — so the slim concept remains visually clear — without compromising total speaker capacity.
Looks so sleek!
An electronic piano has its own unique value; it works in quite a different way to an acoustic piano which we wanted to express as a positive value through its form. CLP-S308’s main concept is that it’s surprisingly slim. It has a front-to-back depth of only 430 millimetres. This and its easy-to-assemble and disassemble new construction and rotating one-action lid mechanism respond to the demands of our modern living environment. My concept for this project was to create a “modern classic.” Modern in its response to the modern living environment and classic in that I tried to understand the pure, simple, long-lasting elegant essence of pianoness. So although times and fashions change, the design will retain its value and relevance to modern living and the affections of its owner.
Timelessness, indeed. Let’s get to the funky mobiles! Yamaha just did a collaboration with au design project by KDDI and an exhibition at KDDI’s lab in Harajuku. Tell us all!
Not many people know that Yamaha’s semiconductor division make a superior quality sound chip which is in all au by KDDI handsets; this gives them an advantage over other providers as the “Music Mobile Phone Company.” AU by KDDI wanted more people to know about this. From this our project was born and, two months ago, Yamaha presented six concept designs for the au design project fusing advanced mobile telecommunication devices with tactile instrument interfaces for playing music. [More over here.]
And the mobile-cum-instrument concept would be…?
I designed four concepts of a total of six that are being displayed in a series of exhibitions around Japan right now. A design theme I had in mind was how to inspire people who are usually passive music listeners to become active music players.
Tactility, depth of expression, instinctive action and addictive feedback were all values of instruments I wanted to transfer to mobile devices. The network capacity, portable size and virtual space advantages of mobile phones offer an exciting dimension when combined with tactile instruments, allowing people to play, perform and communicate through music any time, anywhere, with anyone.
A phone with mini “pop-up” piano inside: “Key to Touch.” From the Yamaha x au design project.
We so love the little drum sticks, the piano or the awesome black cube speaker! How did you approach the design of each?
About Sticks in the Air: The two elongated control stick handsets contain sound sources and motion sensors. The two stick mobiles combine to make one standard function mobile phone, or used independently, they become sticks to play air drums. With two hands, users can enjoy the pleasure of creating more complex beats and expressions. The warm natural wood textures feel like drumsticks and the instinctive action and feedback aim to satisfy and excite rhythms in both beginner and pro.
The Box to Play concept model consists of four operating panels linked by four hinges, and invites users to playfully and addictively fold and unfold them their hand. The unit can be folded in four ways to become a mobile phone, a music sampler, an mp3 player, a camera and a Speaker Box when open. Allowing music creation and loud speaker playback function. The fun and charm of this model comes from the physically intuitive interfaces and the ease of folding it in different ways, transforming it and revealing new possibilities.
With Key to Touch, the mobile phone with touch screen interface on the outside transforms into a keyboard that, when opened, pops up from the unit. The small keyboard has a range of two octaves and despite its size, when a key is depressed it gives the player a sense of the stroke and amplitude of a keyboard instrument. The depth of touch gives depth of expression.
About the Band in My Pocket concept: Players of this concept mobile device have a choice of five attachments that replicate the music-making interfaces of a harmonica, trumpet pistons, a trombone slide, a bass string, and a synthesiser controller. By singing into the top of the phone, your voice is changed into the sound of an instrument and the expression of your voice can be effected by the musical instrument hardware attachment you have chosen. The five miniaturised instrument attachments and the limitless connections of the mobile phone offer a physical and virtual band in my pocket.
So cute! How does the technology work inside…?
Band in your pocket uses the technology from Yamaha’s existing instrument EZ-Trumpet. Key to touch uses Yamaha’s existing Keyboard technology and Sticks in the air uses motion sensors; all use our existing sound technology.
Most importantly, do the phones actually work? And is there a possibility to produce them for the Japanese market?
Four of the total six designs are working prototypes — regarding the musical instrument part. Of course we would love au by KDDI to produce them but I can’t say more at this moment…
At the exhibition in August, there was also the Yamaha mobile phone orchestra: So the engineers do that in their spare time at Yamaha? Sounds fun!
The Yamaha mobile phone orchestra is a team of Yamaha’s software engineers who are the developers of the music software they are playing on their standard interface personal mobile phones. At the moment they’re in hot demand and enjoying cult status… maybe they’ll do a tour!
And they are the ones who developed the instruments with you?
They developed the software for our concept mobile phone working prototypes. And also, they are the chaps demonstrating them in the clips across the internet. Because all these projects are top secret before they are made public, we need software engineers that are good at all the geeky electronic programming but can also knock out a good tune!
Speaking of sounds: You also redesigned the interface for Vocaloid 2, a voice emulator…
Vocaloid is a computer software program that synthesises different characters’ voices from samples of voice actors creating virtual vocalists. The series is intended for professional musicians as well as light computer-music users, so it had to be very user friendly. To create a song, a piano-roll type interface is used to input the melody and the lyrics can be entered onto each note. The software can be used to change the stress of the pronunciations, add effects such as vibrato, or change the dynamics and tone of the voice.
I redesigned the software graphic interface, the opening graphics and packaging for Vocaloid 2 and suggested improvements to the software engineers of how the interface should work. The new design includes an interface where parameters of the voice expression can be seen in transparent layers on top of each other, so you can edit each parameter in relation to each other in a small area on screen.
Guess that must have been a lot of fun since it’s so otaku…
Yay, it was great fun! When it was finished the software team called me and let me play with the software. There was a huge amount of Hatsune Miku Vocaloid 2 sold just from Akihabara alone in the first week of launching. You can find a whole community of these non-commercial virtual vocalist and animation enthusiasts on YouTube wanting to breathe life into the characters. It really looks like people are having fun and creating a new social music phenomenon. Some of my favourite clips would be here and here, or here.
And last but not least, you exhibited for Yamaha at Salone in 2006…
Yamaha for the last four years has been exhibiting work at Milan Salone. The first two years there were in-house design competitions to win a place to show an interior product that conveys Yamaha’s design philosophy. I won a place to show my work with two other Yamaha designers, Manabu Kawada and Yoshihiro Katsumata, at Salone Satellite 2006. Our project was called Shall we meet under the blue sky?. The designs were all about relations between people and relations between people and objects.
Interesting how many different things are developed at Yamaha’s Product Design Laboratory. Thank you Marianne for showing us your marvellous design works a bit closer.
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amazing
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Great article! Thanks!
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totally cool
Posted by: julia on October 17th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Fantastic article - can I trade in my iPhone!?
Posted by: Dom on October 17th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Now all we need is something that teaches you how to be instantly good at playing all of these….
also gives a whole new meaning to a ‘mobile band’.
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Awesome! Need to get this together with the tenori-on.
Posted by: Badger on October 18th, 2008 at 1:05 am
ICHIBAN JAPAN!
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the mobile phone orchestra is just fantastic!
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now i regret buying this stupid iphone.. that cube phone looks so sexy!
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She´s English, whiteboywannabeasian …
Goood stuff, isn´t?
Posted by: Flavio on October 18th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
JAPAN RULES!
Posted by: whitepussywannabeasian on October 19th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I think all this nationality discussion became useless and ridiculous…
I just want to inform all japanese readers that I am not against Japanese Art. I love it.
Actually, I am half japanese, as my Parents are japanese and my Grandfather was a Shodo artist.
But I still think that there are good art everywhere. in all countries and places.
Sorry for any incovenience.
Posted by: Flavio on October 19th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
software engineers play music, so cool
Posted by: Yonan on October 20th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Marianne, please don`t do the karoshi at Yamaha! I hope you get promoted to ueber-genius status soon (+ free weekends)…
I won`t forget the demonstration of the prototypes at KDDI in Tokyo! Finally this article is up, and I was wondering were the traffic comes from ;) Mariannes site produced by http://www.bentographics.com, some more details on here site here: http://bentographics.com/portfolio/web/marianne-bailey/
Also, Mariannes work was indirectly mentioned in one of the most influential German weekly magazines SPIEGEL. An article about mobile music creation (sorry German only): http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/mobil/0,1518,584811,00.html
Posted by: Benjamin Thomas on October 20th, 2008 at 3:59 am
[...] Marianne Bailey: Designing Instruments For Yamaha [...]
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Posted by: David Jimenez on October 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
[...] Yamaha Japan has teamed up with the design team KDDI to come up with some mobile phone/music instrument prototypes. This project is one that will give the modern musician and technology geek a whole new way to approach the creative process. The prototypes are currently being shown in exhibits throughout Japan and there is talk of mass production for Japanese consumers in the near future. Watch the demonstration videos here [...]
Posted by: Frank151 » Blog Archive » The Band In Your Pocket on October 30th, 2008 at 6:11 am
[...] Marianne Bailey: Designing Instruments For Yamaha at PingMag, where the British product designer and creator of Yamaha’s “Band in My Pocket” [...]
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