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Record player of great help for rehabilitation

Published Mar 12, 2010

The record player has been used in a creative manner for the creation of music for at least 40 years. Despite that, no research on the gramophone as a musical instrument has been carried out before. Now KTH researcher Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen has defended his thesis in the subject and gone to the bottom as to what the record player can be used for. At least two new areas have appeared.

Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen
KTH researcher Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen

Beck. Latin Kings. The jazz musicians John Zorn and Uri Caine. Now the metal bands Limp Bizkit, Korn and Linkin Park. Tom Waits, Rob Zombie, Sonic Youth and Portishead.

All of the above have in one way or another used the record player as a musical instrument.

KTH researcher Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen at the department of speech, music and hearing at the School of Computer Science and Communication also wanted to be just as good as the above bands and he has recently defended his thesis in the subject. He has examined the acoustic and musical possibilities a record player and mixer have in combination with scratching, i.e. dragging the vinyl disc backwards and forwards in order to create a special sound.

“It is difficult to play on a record player, but it can be made simpler with an improved interface. In this way, it is possible to create a virtual record player which is fun to manipulate and which is suitable both for musical therapy and rehabilitation. We have tested this, and it works extremely well. Where other solutions become quite boring very quickly, our solution can quite simply create complex sounds which the user does not get tired of,” says Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen.

He adds that a virtual record player is excellent for people with a major reduction in their mobility. This could for example be a congenital disability or the result of an accident where the senses that detect body movements can be connected to the virtual record player.

The thesis is called “The acoustics and performance of DJ scratching; an analysis and modelling” and takes up various aspects such as the construction of completely new musical instruments and what makes a certain instrument good or bad. “The financial interest in the research is considerable,” says Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen.

“There are many companies that develop musical instruments of this type. In addition there are DJs all over the place, and they form a significant part of the music industry. There is a major economic interest in this area of research,” says Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen.

There is also a great deal of work still remaining.

“I hope to be able to continue with more basic research and applications.” The Panasonic record players Technics 1200 were released during the 1970s, and they form a standard which is still used today. How come? “This is just one of many questions that remain where research is needed,” says Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen.

For more information, contact Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen at 08 - 790 78 57 or kjetil@kth.se.

Peter Larsson

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Last changed: Mar 12, 2010