The Aerophone Kit: A Toolkit for Pneumatic Musical Instrument Design

Francesco Di Maggio; Catharina Maria van Riet; Sergio Picella; Berry Eggen; Bart Hengeveld

Image credit: Francesco Di Maggio; Catharina Maria van Riet; Sergio Picella; Berry Eggen; Bart Hengeveld

• oral
• Paper PDF link
• Presence: in person
• Duration: 16
• Type: long
• Session: Toolkits and Code

Abstract:

We present the Aerophone Kit, a modular toolkit for designing pneumatic musical instruments that operate through air-pressure circuits without electronic or digital components. The system emerged from laboratory observations in which pneumatic circuits developed for soft robotics research produced rhythmic and tonal sounds. The Aerophone Kit consists of modular elements that can be configured to create bespoke musical instruments, including pneumatic keyboards and autonomous pneumatic oscillators. The toolkit enables tactile musical interaction through direct manipulation of air pressure. This paper presents the system architecture, the acoustic characterization of whistle-based sound generation, and two prototype configurations that illustrate melodic and autonomous sound behaviors. We further report on a structured user study with ten participants (five musicians and five non-musicians), examining learnability, control, and exploratory engagement through hands-on interaction. Findings are reported following inductive thematic analysis of interviews and interaction observations, supported by survey responses. Together, these findings suggest that pneumatic logic offers a viable and musically expressive approach to instrument design, contributing a material-centered perspective to the ongoing NIME discourse on embodied musical interaction.