http://www.nweamo.com/

My name is Noah.  I'm a music researcher/ph. d. student at MIT.  I love all kinds of things about music, especially its ineffable paradoxes, but my current work is focused on the intermingling of marching (and other) bands with electronic music.  Yes, I foresee a day when kids will be playing the Super Mario Bros. Theme in the forest on the Electric Eel instruments I've been designing.  The instruments I have been designing have acoustically-relevant bodies, like tubas and guitars, but are driven with woofers and tweeters, and improbably, powered by hand generators.  The idea is the instrument refracts the shape of the energy put into it, whether it's kinetic energy like a traditional acoustic instrument, or an electric/synthesized one like a Moog, Korg, Roland, drum machine, etc.  This is in contrast to electronic instruments which run from the grid.  Rechargeable electronics like laptops are in the middle.  So I've been designing electrical generators which translate player's movement into pulses, puffs and floods of electrical energy into audible sound.  I've made about 10-20 of these instruments myself trying various combinations of speakers, synthesizers, generators, bodies, etc. and about 10 people have have built their own in workshops I've taught over the last year.  I've now got a few stable designs, and I'll be sending some instruments out to UCSD and performing there with a "flash ensemble."  Last year, I worked on something similar with NWEAMO.  The music students were fascinating to get to know.  We played on stage with some percussion accompaniment.  This year, we're going to be pushing the instruments a little more, playing outside the doors of the venue like the Violent Femmes at the Pretenders in Milwaukee in 198x.