A few years ago, Imogen Heap seemed like she was going to take over the world of pop music. Her collaboration with Guy Sigsworth, Frou Frou, received a good bit of press. Then, the single "Hide and Seek" from her second solo album was used in the second season finale of popular teen drama "The OC," creating a whole new group of fans.
She wisely produced and funded that second album herself. That means the profits were hers. The business decisions were hers. She got to shop around the rights to distribute physical copies of the album to different record labels after the digital release sold well.
That amount of money for an independent artist allows for a lot of time to create and explore their art. Imogen Heap did not waste the opportunity.
Heap largely uses electronic instruments to create her otherworldly pop sound. "Hide and Seek" used a vocoder and a synthesizer to turn her voice into a tight robotic a Capella ensemble. She continues to innovate by developing her own music control interfaces.
The way MIDI and electronic instruments work is quite complicated. In broad strokes, whatever you're using to create the sound--a keyboard, a wind controller, a drum pad, an iPad, whatever--needs to turn musical cues into computer code. Then the computer code needs to be processed through some kind of computer interface--a sound module or music software of some kind--and be converted back to audible (but totally synthesized) music through amplification.
Imogen Heap is working to create a more dynamic concert experience for musicians like her. She has been actively developing what she calls Mi.Mu gloves for at least three years now. She debuted the technology in 2012 (though probably started on it much earlier) and has only worked to refine it since then.
If you know what a theremin is, you'll understand how her gesture control system works. The theremin uses your hands and antennae to manipulate radio waves and produce music. Imogen Heap's Mi.Mu gloves use circuitry and wires in gloves to interact with various computer controls on her music software to cue up, manipulate, and produce sound.
The result is a choreographed digital music concert. We're not talking Hatsune Miku or The Gorillaz (performing cartoons); we're talking a solo musician onstage able to move wherever she chooses and create music with gloves and a lot of planning. She can raise her hands to increase volumes or slide her fingers in the air like she's actually sliding a fader. She can also cue up which gestures control which instrument sounds and produce music like that.
She explains the newest updates in this video from Dezeen.
Like Laurie Anderson before her (singer/songwriter of "O Superman" and inventor of many electronic music technologies still used today), Imogen Heap is choosing to use her commercial success to expand what the possibilities of music creation. I'm excited to see where she can take this technology in the future.