ABSTRACT
Identical instruments may diverge in character depending on the performance context. Conversely, instruments that are physically distinct may merge in character when deployed with similar musical goals. In this chapter, Hans Reichel’s daxophone and Chris Chafe’s Animal illustrate this confluence of instrumental identity in a way that challenges taxonomies based solely on material constitution. Through very different means, the daxophone and the Animal give rise to nonlinearities that may be negotiated by the performer in improvisatory contexts. This source of surprise is promising when the performer seeks an instrument that appears both as a source of musical ideas and a conduit for their expression. The chapter applies such examples to also challenge the recurrent notion that music technology will culminate in systems that directly transduce the musical imagination into sound.
