Fun fact: trombonists can learn to play the Theremin faster than other instrumentalists because the relation between distance and pitch is comparable on the two instruments.
I'd like to see which partial I'm in. Perhaps a highlighted region behind the the instrument?
Also I'd rotate the scrolling to be more like moving the slide: make the slide move toward me when I scroll toward me and away when I scroll away. Partials can go left for higher or right for lower. Or some way for people to map their own scroll bindings, in case they've flipped scrolling.
I had the same thought and am planning on making an update whenever I feel inspired. Right now we just subdivide the y-axis equally amongst the partials.
> I had grand plans for an informative heads-up display showing real-time data on pitch, slide position, partial, etc. Observant readers will note that the last commit of substance was made over 5 years ago; clearly I ran out of steam.
I’d say the closest thing I’ve experienced to a spiritual experience is playing in a trombone choir in college. Ordinarily, in an orchestra you tune in accordance with the piano (well-tempered clavier dictates tuning sharper as you get higher in pitch and flatter as you get lower in pitch). By contrast, in a trombone choir where all the instruments are capable of perfect tuning, you tune to the “just” tuning system.
Multiple trombonists playing in perfect harmony will produce phantom tones that are the product of interference between the sound waves produced by each individual instrument. It’s hair-raising and beautiful.
Hmm... makes me want to whip myself back into shape.
Pull requests are welcome! I tried to make the oscillators match the waveform described in the works cited. As a former professional trombonist, I doubt we’ll be able to use the Web Audio API to create the beautiful expressivity demonstrated by Davidson in that video. But there is certainly room for improvement! Thanks for the “reference” and feedback.
I really don't know how I could bear this for hours as a kid, but somehow it seems to never have occurred to us children that we could turn off the sound;-)
It does work on touch devices but YMMV. Unfortunately iOS Safari in particular is very, very stingy with allocating resources to the Web Audio API - the performance is generally dismal. So even if the UI is responsive, the oscillator performance generally makes the end user perceive slowness and unresponsiveness.
