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Venue: Southpaw
Brooklyn, NY

For those who believe in genius, whether collective or individual, the Tenori-On will satisfy your palate. The Tenori-On is the musical culmination of an iPhone, Wii, and a little bit of love.

The new musical instrument was unveiled today in Brooklyn at a low-key event and inspired even the most jaded fixed bicycle gear hipster to stick around. Several hundred gadget geeks and musicians witnessed performances on Yamaha’s new handmade digital device. The few who left disappointed were those that did not have an opportunity to try one.

The Tenori-On is essentially a magnesium polished picture frame with a few menu buttons, an LCD screen, and a 16 by 16 LED-button interactive grid. The layout is intuitive: the menu buttons control underlying functions such as loop speed, note length, and tempo, while the LED buttons fine tune selections. For example, after pressing a ‘loop speed’ menu button, the user selects from one of the 256 LED buttons to fine-tune the function. Fine-tuning several menu buttons works towards an eventual ‘block’, which in itself can be looped back into a tune to create an enormously complex composition.

The Tenori-On is a simple musical device that was created by Japanese inventor-musician Toshio Iwai. It is difficult to find a word to describe Iwai other than ‘genius’. Present at the launch, Iwai described the evolution of the Tenori-On from a series of brilliant high-brow musical installations designed for museum exhibitions into a user-friendly device. The instrument emerged from what Iwai called a simple ‘triangle’: the tendency for analog instruments to have a particular (1) shape; (2) interface; and (3) sound. A piano, for example, would have its own (1) unique curvilinear wooden shape; (2) a set of keys to interact with the sound; and (3) the ‘piano’ sound of its hammer upon the strings. The digital world, however, does not require such a triangle, because the ‘shape’ and ‘interface’ are easily converted into bytes. Iwai realized that these typical qualities of an instrument could be adjusted, but also that an organic interface was required to preserve the feel of an instrument. Thus, the Tenori-On was born.

The Tenori-On may be used as a standalone device – it includes simple speakers – or can be utilized as one among several instruments in a performance. The Brooklyn show featured a combination of both. Many of the pieces that were performed were introspective, and no performer can be said to have sustained a danceable beat. My own tinkering suggested that this may have been artistic choice, and not integral to the Tenori-On itself. Yamaha may still need to consider adding less ‘digital’ sounding bleeps. But a central problem of the Tenori-On with respect to performance is that it is so enjoyable to play that it makes for a surprisingly short attention span. Why wait for people to dance when you can press this button, or that one?

As intuitive as the Tenori-On is, I was grateful for the manual. I’ve never been one to shun the directions in video games – what’s the point, playing longer? – so the manual simply steered me in the proper direction. I had composed a soft-sounding composition within a few minutes, albeit without a thumping beat. The notes tended to be light and spacey and conjured up images of science fiction.

Another major setback to the Tenori-On is its price tag (roughly $1200, but we’ll see how inflation messes with that) and its limited availability. According to the marketing promoters at the event, 100 Tenori-On’s will be released per month for the next year. The 300 available in the UK sold out within a matter of hours. The limited availability may be a carefully organized marketing pitch, but could also be the result of the difficulty in making the instrument. Each magnesium casing is carefully constructed by a frighteningly prescient robot in a Yamaha factory, and it is further polished to perfection by Yamaha employees. The result is an instrument that, with its variables of composition, starts to seem more and more organic – with a digital heart.

The Tenori-On is undoubtedly the product of love. Listening to Iwai’s explanations about music – from Piet Mondrian to the song ‘Happy Birthday’ – convinced me that he was as much concerned about the personal experience as the technical device. He wished to open the world of music to as many people as possible. And, if Yamaha gets its manufacturing and distribution lines in order, the instrument certainly will change the lives of a lot people. The Tonori-On becomes as intuitive as the iPhone after mastering the function keys. Grandma will throw you an uppercut on your Wii boxing game and then play a diddy on her Tenori-On.

In a room full of free Tenori-On demos, I saw nothing but smiles and anxious drinkers waiting for their turn. The promotional event climaxed with a raffle drawing in which the winner sheepishly approached the stage.
“Why aren’t you more excited?” I asked the winner.
At this the Yamaha promoter chimed in: “She’s in shock.”
I couldn’t agree more.

–Deji Olukotun