Illustration by Art Director Gabrielle Paciorek

PHILADELPHIA – Music is a part of everyone’s life. It’s everywhere. On the radio, in ads, in our ears and in our hearts. We started listening to music on home stereos, and then later in cars, but now music can be taken anywhere thanks to devices such as Sony’s Walkman and Apple’s iPod. So, why can’t the same thing be done for the music makers, instead of just the music listeners? There has been a lot of research over the years in the concept of “wearable musical instruments,” and the recent development of a shirt that transforms an air guitar into a bona fide instrument will only create a lot of buzz around the topic.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, built a T-shirt this week that can read your arms’ movements and translate them into guitar sounds. It requires its wearer to attach sensors to his arms. These sensors can detect how the arms are bent, and that information is used to determine where one hand would be on your invisible guitar neck and whether the other hand is strumming the strings. This data is then sent wirelessly to a computer, which creates the sound to be played through its speakers.

Richard Helmer, Ph.D., led the project, and CSIRO has a video that shows him rocking out with his creation. His strumming is deliberate and slow; this might just be what he was trying to do, or it might be a limitation of his system. Not many details about how the system works have been released yet. Still, this is a great advancement in air-guitar technology. I doubt it’ll be at the point where you can shred like Eddie Van Halen in “Eruption” anytime soon; so, for now, you’ll have to be content with being confined to the rhythm section. That’s what’s great about CSIRO’s air guitar. It’s completely portable and the sensors can fit under any shirt.

This air guitar is not the first type of instrument meant to be a part of your wardrobe, either. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers developed a denim jacket with speakers and a fabric keyboard sewn in. This Australian research was more about “washable instruments,” though.

The Japanese have been at it for a while, too. Yamaha released the Miburi in the ’90s, but only in Japan. There has also been some research in the field of wearable musical instruments coming from Kazushi Nishimoto of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The Miburi not only attached sensors to the artist’s arms, but all over his body and had controllers that the performer had to hold with several buttons on them.

The problem with the full-body sensors is that they don’t exactly fit the larger artists. However, the full-body sensors did facilitate one thing; dancing to the beat.

The most interesting thing about the Miburi and Nishimoto’s research is the concept of translating dance into music. The Miburi was able to do this because of the restricting sensors. Promotional videos for the Miburi show dancers going to work to play their own accompaniment. Nishimoto, who calls his system the CosTune – the worst portmanteau since “Mactel” – proposes that a wearable musical instrument should be able to conform to how a person dances. A breakdancer has specific motions and touches certain parts of his body. This information can be used to make a wearable instrument for a breakdancer that perfectly complements his dance style. If any more real research is being put into wearable instruments, it should focus on its integration with dancing in some way.

However, as it stands now, does anyone care about playing music as he goes? Keep in mind, this isn’t about packing up a miniaturized drum kit for easier travel; this is about being able to perform music as you are walking down the street. One subgroup of musicians who do care about this are street performers. Nishimoto talks about this, too.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t a huge outcry from anyone complaining about a lack of innovation from street performers. Of course, no one really thought Les Paul needed to make a better electric guitar, either.

What can I say? Music drives a lot of people. When I’m not trying to demystify the goings on in technology business and research, I like to relax by listening to music and maybe writing a CD review or two. CSIRO says that its air guitar makes it easy for anyone to make music. This is a good thing. If something like this can get people more interested in playing a real instrument and learning music theory, I’m all for it. If this research goes further and creates a whole new genre of musical performance, coupling dancing and music composition, even better.

-This column does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Daily Aztec.