Similarities in Instrument Design

As I design another VR instrument, I’m amazed at the similarities between different types of instruments.

Brass, string, handheld, static.

Interaction along some line leads to monotonically increasing frequencies; you press down on a string instrument to play a higher note. And you extend a trombone to lower the pitch.

Changing octaves on a trombone with your mouth is equivalent to changing strings on a violin.

These similarities means that the amount of code that can be shared between implementations of these instruments is non-zero.

Beauty is recognizing similarities; the ugly is recognizing that the beauty cannot necessarily be useful on its own, merely understood.

Well-designed and beautiful code is the reward for making something valuable.

But the world is already beautiful, and I’m just simulating it. So the hacks that I have to use are not blasphemy, they’re just abstract art.