Technological developments within the modern age provide near limitless possibilities when it comes to the design of new musical instruments and systems. The aim of the current study is to investigate the design, development, and testing of a unique audio-visual musical instrument. Five participants tested an initial prototype and completed semi-structured interviews providing user feedback on the product. A qualitative analysis of the interviews indicate findings related to two primary areas: enjoyability and functionality. Aspects of the prototype commonly expressed by participants as being enjoyable related to the product’s novelty, simplicity, use of distance sensors, and available interactivity with hardware components. Participant feedback commonly expressed related to improving the prototype’s functionality included adding delay and volume modules, making the product surround sound compatible, and increasing lower register control for certain sensors. These results informed design decisions in a secondary prototype building stage. The current study’s results suggest that designers and developers of new musical instruments should value novel rather than traditional instrument components, hardware rather than software-based interfaces, and simple rather than complex design controls. Ultimately, this paper provides guiding principles, broad themes, and important considerations in the development of enjoyable, new musical instruments and systems.
