The goal is to create a means to ‘play’ or trigger midi notes using just the hands, against any surface. The playing should be velocity sensitive, and sufficiently fast and responsive. It should also be robust and durable. Mainly, it should be cheap. It will act like any other cv device, such as drum triggers, etc, and will be able to be plugged into a cv-midi trigger box like the Trigger I/O.

• use cheap piezo transducers or force sensors

• allow for using the finger tips or side of the thumb to play. This would require 10 sensors for most people.

• cross talk will be an important factor. sufficient dampening between fingers must be achieved to reduce this

• all wiring will run from each finger tip to a central nexus on the top of the hand, and enter a conduit which will travel down the top of the wrist, along the arm, up to the shoulder, and down the back to a belt mount. The conduit will be guided through a tube at the bend points (side of elbow joint, shoulder, and belt). The tubes will be held to the body using velcro straps, which are attached to the tubes somehow. When the elbow bends, or the body bends over, the wiring will slide through the tubes, allowing motion. At the belt mount tube, the wiring will exit to the trigger box. From the belt mount onwards, thick wiring and proper shielding should be used. This will be very thick, as it will consist of approx. 10 guitar cords (1/4 inch). Up to the belt mount, thinner shielding and casing will be used, basically the wiring for 10 1/8 inch cables.

• The actual sensors will be sandwiched between two strips of material. One strip shall contain an amount of velcro to allow tightening and holding. The other stip will merely be enough to sew onto the first strip and sandwich the sensor onto the first strip, placing the sensor on the desired position against the finger. When the strips are wrapped aroung the tip of the finger tightly, and closed with the velcro, they shall hold the sensor in place snugly, not allowing it to slide or move. These same strips shall be perpendicularly sewn or attached to another material strip, which travels down the hand and is attached to a wrist strap. All of these strips, and the wrist strip, will be adjustable by velcro. Possibly 5 small d-rings, sewn into the wrist strap, are the mount point for the straps which combine the finger straps with the wrist strap. The d-rings will allow the straps to be tightened with velcro, holding the finger tip straps from sliding off the tip of the finger. This will mean the hand will be held from bending closed unless a strong elastic material is used for the straps traveling along the hand.

• fit. most of the design is to allow for a snug fit without movement of the sensors once placed.

• cross talk. the sensors must respond to being tapped on a surface, but not by normal hand movements. each sensor should not trigger due to the use of one of the other sensors. this may require some extra padding somewhere.

• piezos are large. maybe too large to be used on the finger tip in any way. force sensors are variable resistors. variable resistors do not produce their own charge.