Accessible Instrument Development Fund blog #2: Nicola Woodham: Buffer Live

 

Nicola playing Buffer Live

We asked our 2023 Accessible Instrument Development Fund grantees to document their journey towards creating a brand new accessible instrument. This week, we’re proud to present the work of Nicola Woodham. Nicola wrote the below blog to provide a detailed insight into how their instrument, Buffer Live, was made!

Nicola’s journey

Thanks to the DMLab Accessible Instrument seed funding, I developed Buffer Live: a wearable, fabric, audio/vocal sampler with soft and fluffy sensors that lets me record and playback samples. The instrument also has pom-pom pressure sensors that add audio effects when squashed. 

I’m indebted to embelashed, a toolkit for prototyping embodied audio interfaces with Bela. A project led by Becky Stewart in collaboration with Augmented Instruments Ltd. https://embelashed.org/ I worked with the Live Sampler example and an adjustment of the Pure Data code. The paper sensors helped me visualise e-textile sensors I handcrafted. 

So, a bit about my music – I have a multidisciplinary music practice that includes making electronic music and digital musical instruments. The varied sounds I make always start with my voice. I often use a sampler to loop, layer and add audio effects. I interject sound poetry, or vocal free-improvisation, within the layers of sounds. Added to this are randomising and spatialising processes. 

I think of the voices I make with audio effects as ‘vocal others’. They populate the sonic spaces; they’re my allies. On one side is this estrangement of my voice from my body, with audio effects. On another, it’s important for me to use my physical, often guttural, sounds and breath to insist on my physical presence. These are all ways for me to fill and hold audible space. 

When I started to perform live, I made lo-fi wearables by taping contact mics to my body or attaching voice-changing toys to my head. In 2019, I made a step change and started to create interactive, wearable, wireless instruments with e-textiles – conductive fabric, threads, wool and yarn, hooked up to the Bela Mini board. 

What I enjoy about making wearable instruments is that they allow me to choreograph movement, choose my sensor type, and devise my vocals, all in synthesis. I hope this intentionality makes the performance more engaging and poetic.  

 For example, in Buffer, the instrument that led to Buffer Live, I can trigger a bassy sample of my vocals with a soft switch sewn into my jacket. I have a big pom-pom on the front of a cap on my head. I use a leaning movement to rest against a wall, and this action squashes the pom. This pressure changes the data signal to the Bela which adds a high-pass filter – to my sample. This effect deflates out the bass, and the vocal sounds that remain are the more gentle, hissing sounds.  

I saw this as neutralising, a release, a way to create a buffer space. This way of working means I can tie in my access requirements for performing in a way that works with the performance. Here, I was able to take a break and rest against a wall while activating the pom-pom!  

I want to keep up this entwining. With ‘Buffer Live’, I’m making bigger movements to record samples and play them back. There is a lot of flexibility for positioning the sensors, and I’m getting into the big, repetitive movements. It’s all more heightened and noisy.  

Alongside Buffer Live’s accessibility to me, I hope that the instrument will appeal to people who: 

• Require a soft interface to playback vocals/audio, a move away from fine motor movement of the hands to play an instrument. 
• The sensors can be tied to any surface or part of the body the wearer/player requires. I focused on light, comfortable fabrics. Part of the reason for choosing to work with e-textiles is the way they can create comfortable interfaces and embodiment for playing music. 
• Like the feel of squishing felt to activate audio effects. 
• Enjoy a fabric switch to playback sounds, responsive to light/hard pressure. Thanks to Bela Mini, incredible response times and my soft switches work well too. 
• Enjoy the stimulus of expressive movement to ‘make’ sounds. 

–  Nicola Woodham, November 2024 

Watch Nicola demo Buffer Live at DMLab London earlier this year!

 

Contact Nicola

If you wish to get in touch with Nicola, or to further explore the documentation of this instrument, you can head to Instagram  and Nicola’s website.