Composing for DMIs Entoa, a Dedicate Piece for Intonaspacio

Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) have difficulties establishing themselves after their creation. A huge number of DMIs is presented every year and few of them actually remain in use. Several causes could explain this reality, among them the lack of a proper instrumental technique, inadequacy of the traditional musical notation and the non-existence of a repertoire dedicated to the instrument. In this paper we present Entoa, the first written music for Intonaspacio, a DMI we designed in our research project. We propose some strategies for mapping data from sensors to sound processing, in order to accomplish an expressive performance. Entoa is divided in five different sections that corresponds to five movements. For each, a different mapping is designed, introducing subtle alterations that progressively explore the ensemble of features of the instrument. The performer is then required to adapt his repertoire of gestures along the piece. Indications are expressed through a gestural notation, where freedom is give to performer to control certain parameters at specific moments in the music.