ABSTRACT
Through history and across cultures, musical instrument making has generally been a conservative practice. Most instrument makers are in the business of reproducing of existing types, rather than innovating or creating new types. though the design of unconventional instruments may at first seem an obscure or esoteric activity, enough people have engaged with the creation of new instruments to give us a sense of how such a practice can take shape: what the possible aesthetics of the field are, what the important questions and issues are, and what the ideas are that motivate different builders. This chapter aims to elucidate the most important of those themes. All musical instruments, old or new, can be seen as products of innovation, in that they must have been newly invented at one time. Quite a lot of creative work has gone into the development of new ways of thinking about interface and gesture.
