What to retain? What to change?

Digital Flute
2007, 2025

Overview

Defining digital instrument design

Technically speaking, digital instruments can take any form. Unlike acoustic instruments, where the shape and structure produce the sound, digital instruments are free from the requirements of sound production. Nonetheless, this design deliberately retains the flute’s conventional key layout. Completed in 2007, this prototype spent nearly 20 years in obscurity without coming to market. Its design embodies the most fundamental questions in the relationship between the flute and the player: What to retain? What to change? Here, we will use sketches, different prototypes, and records of design updates over the past 20 years to explore this line of thinking.

Works

Considering requirements

The flute is an acoustic instrument; to be a flute, it cannot be just any shape. The length of the pipe, the positions of the holes, the angle of the lip plate—all of these are derived from the physical requirement for the air to vibrate properly to produce the desired sound. The shape of an acoustic flute embodies the physics of sound production.
In contrast, digital instruments are free from such requirements. They produce sounds through sensors and switches, severing—temporarily, at least—the strong relationship between shape and sound. This raises a question: When an acoustic instrument is the model, what should a digital instrument retain and what should change?

The deliberate choice to leave things unchanged

Ergonomically speaking, the flute is a rather illogical instrument. The posture required to hold a straight tube horizontally is physically strenuous, and the outermost keys are operated by the shortest of the fingers. However elegant in appearance, that posture requires considerable physical strength and endurance.
Even the designer, assuming the flute-playing posture for the first time, recognized how demanding it was.
With a digital flute, it would be possible to redesign both the layout and shapes of the keys to make the instrument physically easier to play. Although there were few technical barriers, I chose to forego this optimization. What was the reason behind this decision?
Because I believed the aesthetics—the dignified beauty of a flautist holding the instrument horizontally, the ability to play beautifully without showing the slightest hint of the difficulty involved—were what made the flute such a captivating instrument.
When reimagining an instrument, deciding what to change and what to retain is a task that puts the designer’s aesthetic sensibilities and judgment to the test. This prototype is one answer to the question of how a digital instrument should be designed when an acoustic instrument is the model.

Process

Finding order in function

To retain the exact key layout of an acoustic flute, I had to vary the spacing between the keys ever so slightly. With no further adjustments, the width and pitch of the arms supporting the keys would appear uneven. To get around this, I used arms of three different widths, transforming the complex relationship rooted in the laws of sound and human physiology into something that would appear visually correct. I reflected on this process as “like solving a puzzle: intricate and challenging, yet enjoyable.”
The structure of the embouchure hole was also designed based on the same approach. Initially, the entire upper section (corresponding to the headjoint) was designed to rotate. However, to preserve the elegant straight lines that characterize the flute, I made revisions so that only the embouchure hole rotates. Every single detail is unified by an aesthetic sensibility that gives priority to the instrument’s overall appearance.

A design process that addressed structure as well as appearance

In the early stages of the project, I did not have a team of specialists in exteriors or mechanics. Because I had to do things myself, I disassembled a WX7 and other existing wind MIDI controllers to study how they worked, applying what I learned to the design of the key mechanism and every other aspect of the instrument.
The resulting design was not just a mockup of the exterior. It had realistic proportions, with dimensions and a shape capable of accommodating the circuit boards and sensors needed to make the instrument work. This lack of distinction between style and engineering underpinned the persuasiveness of the design.
When translating an acoustic instrument—where the shape is synonymous with the sound as well as the instrument’s playability—into a digital instrument, the designer must understand its structure in order to design it. This approach exemplifies the ideal mindset for a designer of musical instruments.

Reuniting with the prototype 20 years later

Unfortunately, development of the digital flute was halted, but some 20 years later, it was brought back into the spotlight to be shown at the Industrial Romanticism exhibition on the condition that it remained a previously unreleased prototype.
Upon reuniting with the prototype after so long, I adjusted some aspects that had been on my mind all that time. Transforming the upper surface from flat into a gentle curve and finishing the end pieces with metal resulted in a more unconstrained appearance that evokes the essence of the flute. Similarly, by changing from a black resin embouchure hole to one with a metallic mirrored finish, I recreated a sensation closer to that of an actual flute, unifying all touchpoints with the same metallic texture as a flute. I also restyled the brand logo, which Yamaha uses on many digital instruments, to look more like a wind instrument. Updating the design so long after it was completed was an unprecedented undertaking, even for Yamaha Design.
Designers do not always walk away from their designs forever once completed. This prototype represents the rare case in which the designer revisited and updated a design after such a long time away.

Design is the endeavor to answer the question of what to retain and what to change.
Efficiency is not always positive; what may seem inefficient at first glance is sometimes a part of aesthetic sensibilities. In musical instrument design, where sensibilities are paramount, that is an especially difficult line to draw.
How would you try to answer this question?

Designer: Toshihide Suzuki/Yamaha Design Laboratory