Semi-finalist in Guthman Musical Instrument Competition!

I'm pleased to announce that Stella has been accepted as a semi-finalist in the 2018 Margaret Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition. This relatively recent competition began in 2009 to recognize new advances in the field of music technology. It's held at Georgia Tech, so I'll be flying down to Atlanta in March to join about 20 other semi-finalists to compete in front of a panel of judges.

I'm very excited! While Stella isn't in the very best of shape at the moment, I have three months to pull her together - fix up the PCB, flip around the rotational potentiometers, and smooth out the musical response. It's gonna be a busy January!

While snooping around, I found out that another trumpet-based instrument has already won first place in this competition. Hans Leeuw, with his Electrumpet, won first prize in 2013. His instrument is shown below:

(Retrieved from http://www.electrumpet.nl/)

Hans' instrument has many sensors, including a ribbon controller, a breath sensor, pressure sensors, several sets of valves, and sliders. His system also uses an iPhone to give visual feedback. All of these controllers can be made to give any output, and so a great many possibilities are available with this system. This massive sonic palette is fully used in performances with the instrument, as made abundantly clear in this video:

What an interesting sound! I'm honored to be in the same competition that he won five years ago.

I'm looking forward to taking part in the competition, and I will update here with developments as the project moves forward!