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Spotlight On .... Professor Rajmil Fischman
Rajmil Fischman is Professor of Composition in the Research institute for the Humanities. He established the MA/MSc courses in Digital Music Technology and the Computer Music Laboratory in Keele. Rajmil was artistic director and principal conductor of the Keele Philharmonic Society, Director of Music, Music Technology Programme Director and Discipline Research Coordinator for Music and Music Technology. He is editorial adviser for Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press, UK). He joined the Composers’ Desktop Project (CDP), becoming a director in 1988, and is a member of the Latin American sonic arts network (RedASLA), the Peruvian Circle of Composers (Circomper) and Sound and Music, UK. Rajmil’ss main activities focus on instrumental and electroacoustic music composition, electroacoustic music theory and music software development and In recent years he has widened this activity to include the audiovisual domain and natural gestures using digital controllers.
Rajmil is currently working on an AHRC funded project that aims to enable music performance using natural hand actions (e.g. throwing objects, sowing seeds, shaking virtual objects, etc.) – furthering the possibilities afforded by game controllers. This will include the implementation of a self-contained ‘Manual Actions Expressive System’ (MAES) consisting of a digital glove controlled by specialised software for the creation of musical gestures. While these gestures result from tracking and analysing hand position, rotation and finger bend, the technology will allow performers to concentrate on natural actions from daily use of the hands (e.g. the physical movement associated with ‘throwing’, ‘sowing’ and ‘shaking’). For this reason, MAES will not require formal musical training, producing sophisticated sound that is a believable result of the performer’s natural actions and providing intimate control of the sound. Thus, it will allow individuals who would not have had the opportunity otherwise, to engage actively in music making. At the same time, it will enable performers to achieve virtuosity by providing gestures that can be adapted to individual requirements.
MAES will complete the first stage of an overarching strategy for the realisation of ‘Structured interactive immersive Musical experiences’ (SiiMe), in which users advance at their own pace in a virtual environment stimulating all the senses (hearing, sight, smell, etc.) and choose their own trajectory through a musical work, but have to act within its interactive rules and constraints towards a final goal - the realisation of the music.
