In typical Western music, an octave—the space between one note and its higher or lower version—is divided into 12 equal parts. If you look at a piano, you’ll see seven white keys and five black keys for each.
As a composer, however, Hugh Hodgson School of Music Associate Professor Emily Koh has typically dealt in 24-pitch increments, which can create new emotional textures or unfamiliar moods. Limited to the two pianos she had to work with, she stuck to that approach for a long time. When she decided to explore music beyond 24 pitches, however, she knew she needed a new solution.
Working with partners in the College of Engineering, Koh created ModμMIDI, a modular MIDI device with removable keys and polychromatic design to indicate the many microtones available for use. The device is expandable, offering the ability to combine four banks of 30 keys to a head unit, giving users the option to use between 30-120 keys.
The creative design helped the project receive a judges’ commendation from the 2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.
Learn more about Koh and her work in the video above and hear the instrument itself at the Guthman competition in the video below.
