New handheld hardware from Electroplankton man

Installation artist Toshio Iwai wowed the gaming world with Electroplankton, his wacky sea creature-based synthesiser for Nintendo DS. Now he's going one stage further and launching his own handheld music-making device.

Called Tenori-On, it's a collaboration between Iwai and Japanese electronics firm Yamaha. Currently in the prototype phase, it consists of a 16 by 16 grid of LED buttons within a square aluminium frame about the same size as a lightpen tablet, and also contains two in-built speakers.

Holding this frame in one hand, Iwai demonstrated how the Tenori-On worked during the opening evening of last weekend's Futuresonic electronic musical festival in Manchester.

Each of Tenori-On's LED buttons can either be lightly strummed, sort of like a harp, or alternatively pressed down, whereby each button lights up. Musical notes are triggered by a regular line of light that moves from left to right, much like the sweeping line in PSP game Lumines.

Four buttons on the Tenori-On's frame enable you to select different musical instruments, just like any standard synthesiser, and this means you can build up layers upon layer of sounds by activating the buttons and letting the audio loop. There's also a roller button on the bottom (similar to Nokia's navi roller on its 7110 phone) to control the volume.

Perhaps most interesting are the more game-like modes, where you can set off Breakout or Pong-style music balls that 'bounce' around the grid, triggering new sets of dynamics sound. These can be layered on top of the more traditional music making modes, creating what Iwai called, "a real musical instrument for our digital age, just like the Theremin was for the 20th Century."

So far there's been no word of when Tenori-On will be released – it's already been in development for over a year – or how much it will cost, but you can check out the official website for more details.