The T-Stick Digital Musical Instrument.

The T-Stick is a DMI conceived by Joseph Malloch and D. Andrew Stewart at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL) at McGill University. It has been in development since 2006, has a relatively long history for a DMI, has multiple versions, several expert performers, and has an associated repertoire. More than 20 copies have been built unintended for commercial use. Nevertheless, it has been adopted by expert performers and composers as part of their musical practice including D. Andrew Stewart (Soprano user) and Fernando Rocha (Tenor user). It has appeared in dozens of public appearances in countries such as Canada, USA, Brazil, Italy, Norway, and Portugal.

Documentation

For all related documentation of the T-Sticks available at the IDMIL (software, schematics, specs) go to: T-Stick Documentation (idmil.github.io)

For more information see old project webpage here.

IDMIL Participants:

External Participants:

D. Andrew Stewart – https://blogs.ulethbridge.ca/andrewstewart/tstick/.

Research Areas:

Publications:

Malloch, J., Wanderley, M. M. (2007). The T-Stick : From Musical Interface to Musical Instrument. In Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2007) (pp. 66--69). New York City, NY, USA.
Nieva, A., Wang, J., Malloch, J., Wanderley, M. M. (2018). The T-Stick: Maintaining a 12 year-old digital musical instrument. In Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2018) (pp. 198–199). Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Meneses, E. A. L., Fukuda, T., Wanderley, M. M. (2020). Expanding and Embedding a High-level Gesture Vocabulary for the Digital and Augmented Musical Instruments. In Proc. of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII). Copenhagen, Denmark.
Calegario, F., Wanderley, M., Tragtenberg, J., Wang, J., Sullivan, J., Meneses, E., Franco, I., Kirkegaard, M., Bredholt, M., Rohs, J. (2020). Probatio 1.0: collaborative development of a toolkit for functional DMI prototypes. In Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2020) (pp. 6). Birmingham, UK.
West, T. (2020). Making Mappings: Examining the Design Process with Libmapper and the T-Stick. In M.A. Thesis, McGill University (pp. 78). Montreal, Canada.
Fukuda, T., Meneses, E., West, T. J., Wanderley, M. M. (2021). The T-Stick Music Creation Project: An approach to building a creative community around a DMI. In Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2021). Shanghai, China.
Meneses, E. A. L. (2022). Iterative Design in DMIs and AMIs: Expanding and embedding a high-level gesture vocabulary for the T-Stick and GuitarAMI. In Ph.D. Thesis, McGill University. McGill University.Montreal, Qc, Canada.
Fukuda, T., Wanderley, M. M. (2023). T-Patch: a software application for T-Stick Digital Musical Instruments Mexico City, MX. In Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME2023). Mexico City, MX.
Niyonsenga, A., Wanderley, M. M. (2023). Tools and Techniques for the Maintenance and Support of Digital Musical Instruments. In Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME2023). Mexico City, MX.

Video:

Press:

Antoine Goudreau – Les multiples usages du mot “geste” for sopranino T-Stick

Title – Les multiples usages du mot “geste” for sopranino T-Stick
Composer – Antoine Goudreau
Performer – Jean-Christophe Melançon
Event – the Vivier InterUniversitaire’s/Inter-University collaboration project
Date – June 4, 2021
Venue – GÉSU, Montreal

D.Andrew Stewart – Dweller within for sopranino T-stick

Title – Dweller within for sopranino T-stick
Composer – D.Andrew Stewart
Event – live@CIRMMT: CIRMMT Composers
Date – Feb 13, 2020
Venue – Music Multimedia Room, Montreal

blablaTrains (Ana Dall’Ara-Majek and Takuto Fukuda) – Higher Order Gestalt Fromage for two T-Sticks and 24 channel loudspeaker array

Title – Higher Order Gestalt Fromage, for two soprano T-Sticks and 24 channel loudspeaker array
Composer – blablaTrains (Ana Dall’Ara-Majek and Takuto Fukuda)
Event – live@CIRMMT: CIRMMT Composers
Date – Feb 13, 2020
Venue – Music Multimedia Room, Montreal

Vincent Cusson – Balance, for T-Stick

Title – Balance
Artist – Vincent Cusson
Event – improv@CIRMMT: T-Stick Music Creation Project
Date – Feb 11, 2020
Venue – La Vitrola, Montreal

Kasey Pocius – Synthetic Icescapes, for T-Stick and CLOrk

Title – Synthetic Icescapes, for T-Stick and five laptops (Concordia laptop orchestra – CLOrk)
Composer – Kasey Pocius
Laptops – Danielle Savage, Arturo Hidalgo, Gabriel Gustafsson, Liam Mansfield and D. Andrew Stewart
Event – improv@CIRMMT: T-Stick Music Creation Project
Date – Feb 11, 2020
Venue – La Vitrola, Montreal

Group improvisation for 5 T-Sticks

Title – Group improvisation for 5 T-Sticks
Direction – D.Andrew Stewart
T-Stick – Yanik Tremblay-Simard, Kasey Pocius, Erich Barganier, Michal Seta and D.Andrew Stewart
Event – improv@CIRMMT: T-Stick Music Creation Project
Date – Feb 11, 2020
Venue – La Vitrola, Montreal

Michal Seta – Memoidalaube, for T-Stick

Title – Memoidalaube Composer – Michal Seta
T-Stick – Michal Seta and D. Andrew Stewart
Event – improv@CIRMMT: T-Stick Music Creation Project
Date – Feb 11, 2020
Venue – La Vitrola, Montreal

Erich Barganier – The taxidermy of negative space, for T-Stick and dance

Title – The taxidermy of negative space, for T-Stick and dance
Composer – Erich Barganier
Dance/T-Stick – Vânia Eger Pontes
Laptop – Erich Barganier
Event – improv@CIRMMT: T-Stick Music Creation Project
Date – Feb 11, 2020
Venue – La Vitrola, Montreal

Still Life: Eviction for soprano t-stick by D. Andrew Stewart

GuitarAMI + T-Stick Sopranino:

Trouveur (Vi?ctor Ba?ez). Steve Cowan – GuitarAMI, Edu Meneses – T-Stick