Haken Continuum.. Sheer Bliss...

When Rano was on town last night he called me for old times sake (luckily I picked) I just asked him as to whatz his work at this time of the year afterall he has been running around places for years and he hardly had time to think abt us I guess. All he said to me was, Just Hop-on man.. we are heading to something very interesting. Having nothing otherthan boredom all-over these years i could not help but being amused as a kid got a ticket for a circus. It was more than 6 years since I saw him for real.. 

He just took me to this record room near vadapalani in chennai and just gave to play a Haken Continuum today. I couldn't believe my eyes that im infact holding one for real....Oh boy..What an instrument it is.... Its all childs play though if u know to work around any XG a bit.... Sheer bliss I must say. 

Felt like my whole body was resonating in its natural freq.... Crying is inevitable as tears came rolling by i could hardly control myself. thatz what music can do to you... When u are surrounded by the BG's strumming around frenetically and with such a device as this that lets out a hysterically high pitched cry full of madness and music.... 

Ooh.. what a day this is... still the sound is reverberating in my ears even as my hands are itching for more... Thanks Rano for doing this for old times sake... really miss those gud old days of jamming undergrounds n ramming eachothers heads...

You could literally work around like a 3D Tab in front of you for all you need know is its a continuum fingerboard aka Haken Continuum.... Its pretty much like a 3axis Fingerboard where in you could control your music with Sensors under the playing surface that responds to our finger position and pressure in 3 dimensions and provide pitch resolution of one cent along the length of the scale (the X dimension), allowing essentially continuous pitch control for portamento effects and notes that are not in the chromatic scale, and allowing for the application of vibrato or pitch bend to a note. A software "rounding" feature enables pitch to be quantized to the notes of a traditional equal-tempered scale, just scale or other scale to facilitate in-tune performance, with the amount and duration of the "rounding" controllable in real time.

An illustration of the Continuum Fingerboard's axes.

The Continuum also provides two additional parameters for the sound: it is able to transmit the finger pressure on the board as a MIDI value, as well as the finger's vertical position on the key. These parameters are independently programmable; a standard configuration is where position on the X-Axis (lengthwise) on the instrument corresponds to pitch, position on the Y-Axis (widthwise) corresponds to a timbre shift, and position on the Z-Axis (vertically) corresponds to a change in amplitude. The Continuum is capable of polyphonic performance, with up to 16 simultaneous voices.

Luks like there are similar apps now available in variety of Ipads, tabs etc., like morphwiz, Bebot etc., (watch the video in this link which also shows ARR in a interview showcasing his handiwork in his IPad using Bebot)

Luks like very few have effectively used it with our very own ARR the legend leading the show. Watch the video as to how passionately he strokes a haken continuum Fingerboard. That truly evokes the spirit in you.

Wonder if somebody would use this for carnatic music as well. It'd be interesting to see someone adapt this even as its quite obvious that over time some one will evidently do it. I can of-course fancy my chances if  only I could afford one to my already increasing collection of music instruments :)

Experience the thrill.. you know what im sayin...