TNR-e by Yamaha

At the recent Asheville Electro-Music Festival, Anita Gayle and I had the pleasure of talking for a few minutes with Mark Mosher, an extra ordinary electronic musician and performer based in Boulder, Colorado who was in attendance to show off his considerable talents as an entertaining virtuoso. He took the time to show us one of the electronic state-of-the-art pieces of hardware that he uses in his show, the Yahama Tenori-on, a really cool device designed by Japanese artist Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori of the Music and Human Interface Group at the Yahama Center for Advanced Sound Technology.

The Yamaha Tenori-on combines a MIDI controller, a tone gererator, a sampler and a stunning visual user interface to add visual delight to the music you can compose with it.

Iwai's intention in creating the Tenori-on is to create an electronic instrument of beauty. In his own words:

"In days gone by, a musical instrument had to have a beauty, of shape as well as of sound, and had to fit the player almost organically. [...] Modern electronic instruments don't have this inevitable relationship between the shape, the sound, and the player. What I have done is to try to bring back these [...] elements and build them in to a true musical instrument for the digital age."

As they say in Cajun country, "I'll tell you what . . .", this instrument is really something out of science fiction - but rather pricey, too, even used. So, the day after Mark showed it to us, I searched Yamaha's site and was pleased to find a much more affordable version being sold as an iPhone 5 App for only $20.

So, after some time spent updating my account data on the Apple App site, I downloaded my own copy of this amazing software application. I also immediately realized my total ignorance in operating the TNR-e and downloaded the 31 page Quick Guide from the Yahama site. Then, onward I plunged into the world of TNR-e and its two powerful effects systems and 253 new tones that capture the essence of dub step, progressive house/EDM, electro and other types of electronic music, all in the palm of your hand.

The only thing this device can't do is wash my car, but I believe that Yamaha is working on that for the next update release.

Truly a maze zing!