Music with Tenori-On
In the blog in April 2008 I talked about the presentation event of the Tenori-On Sample Player from Yamaha.
The Tenori-On is an innovative player for built-in (fixed) samples and a few that you can add yourself, well, to be honest, e.g. only two if you need them in several pitches, as the device cannot change them. It is interesting to control this instrument with its 265 white lit buttons, which illuminate both from the front and back of the device and act as a pushbutton. The Tenori-On has mostly percussive sounds, which imposes a certain style from which it is difficult to break out. Comparable, albeit very different devices on the market are the Monome two fifty six for about 1400 USD, hard to get since only manufactured in small batches and the lemur (or Dexter) by Jazz Mutant for 1500 – 2000 EUR. The latter is probably the best device, but haptics are quite different since there is only a touchscreen, which on the other hand of course offers endless possibilities of design.
Well, the Tenori-On is interesting for its really high 1000 EUR purchase price as a performance instrument, but due to its extremely small sample memory also needs to be improved after updating by the long-awaited firmware V2.0.
Nevertheless, I have produced some small pieces, one of which is here: