Arduino for Musicians

Arduino can be incredibly useful for musicians, especially when you're interested in creating more natural and responsive interactions. In my case, I use it as an audio interface, a movement tracker, and even as a standalone musical instrument.

I like to think of it as handmade live electronics, because, just like all my work, it’s reactive: it listens and responds to whatever the performer is doing in real time.

I program the Arduino myself and connect it to Max/MSP using OSC (Open Sound Control), which allows me to build flexible systems that can translate movement, touch, or even physical gestures into musical events or visual changes. This way, I can shape the interaction to suit the needs of each piece or performance.

Here are two examples of how I use Arduino in my practice: in the first one, it functions as a custom-built interface that allows me to trigger and manipulate sound in real time. In the second, I’ve mapped it to my body movements, using sensors placed on my arms, to control various parameters of a granular synthesizer. This setup lets me shape sound textures through gesture, turning the performance into an embodied and dynamic interaction between movement and sound.