To Listen and To See: Making and Using Electronic Instruments

This article addresses problems in the relationship between performer and musical instrument. The author presents “synchronicity,” a concept introduced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, and proposes that sound and gesture should be events in synchronicity relative to the performer. This is an alternative to the traditional Western view that the world is ruled by causality. Electronic instruments have a noncausal character, and synchronicity defines an attitude that takes this factor into account. Two simple and inexpensive gesture instruments are presented as practical applications: the Dada Glove and the Sonar System.