Featured Innovator - Carleen Hutchins

Carleen Hutchins (1911-2009) was both a dedicated scientist and innovative luthier. She studied how violins produce their distinctive sound, and in the process she became a sought-after viola maker. Over the years she encountered criticism for being a woman and bringing scientific inquiry into an esoteric discipline. But the quality of her instruments gradually earned the respect and admiration of many luthiers and players. In scientific circles she was known for her extensive work in acoustics research. All this she did after age forty! In her school days she had no idea how prolific her life would some day be.

As a child, Carleen Hutchins raised silkworms, joined the Girl Scouts, and enjoyed woodworking. When Hutchins entered college she studied entomology, but by the time of graduation she was interested in becoming a doctor. Because of little money and gender-based discouragement, she decided to become a high school science teacher. It was not until she was in her forties that Hutchins got involved with string instruments. She played trumpet in an amateur chamber music group during the late 1940s, but the group decided a viola would sound better. So she give up the trumpet and bought a cheap viola. Dissatisfied with her poor quality instrument, Hutchins set about to make her own. In 1949, after two years of work, her first viola was ready to play. It was around this time that she stopped teaching to start raising a family with her husband, Morton. That same year she began a six-year study with luthier Karl Berger. With his advice Hutchins made over twenty violas, four violins, and one cello. Also in 1949, Hutchins met Harvard physicist Frederick Saunders who had an active interest in acoustics. He wanted to experiment with the structures of string instruments, but luthiers and players do not like holes drilled in their expensive violins. Hutchins agreed to make “boxes” (unfinished but playable instruments) for the sake of science. Eventually she would turn her own basement into an acoustics laboratory filled with various instruments and electronic equipment. And so it was that she spent the 1950s learning both the art of violin making and the science of sound from two qualified mentors.

In her collaboration with Saunders, Hutchins made a collection of string instruments that underwent hundreds of experiments. Most of those instruments did not survive to the present day, but much was learned and many papers were published. Hutchins' skill in instrument making reached such a level that some of her instruments were being purchased by professional players. Over the years she devised a surprisingly visual method of analyzing the front and back “plates” of a violin. The setup involves holding the plate over a loudspeaker by placing foam blocks under its corners. Some glitter is sprinkled over the plate, and the speaker is activated with a frequency generator. The operator slowly changes the frequency while watching the glitter. At certain tones, the glitter will astonishingly move into definite patterns on the violin plate. These patterns are called Chladni patterns, and they indicate how the plate naturally vibrates. By observing these patterns and the frequencies at which they occur, a luthier can refine the shape and thickness of the plate for optimal tuning.

As Hutchins' knowledge of wood grew, so did her resourcefulness in finding quality materials. She obtained wood from such unconventional sources as wine crates and polo balls. One memorable story even tells of Hutchins and the famous doctor, Virginia Apgar, taking a shelf from a payphone booth under the cover of night. The shelf became the back plate of a viola and was replaced by a replica shelf of lesser-quality wood.

Once she had enough technical experience in acoustics, Hutchins felt the need to connect with other researchers and promote the sharing of information. To that end, the Catgut Acoustical Society was founded in the 1960s—bringing isolated minds into a group for studying musical instruments. The society's membership would grow to 800 in less than twenty years.

Perhaps Hutchins' most memorable contribution to violin making is her New Violin Family, also known as the violin octet. Composer Henry Brant came to Hutchins with a challenge in 1957. He wanted her to create seven new string instruments centered around the violin. Each instrument was to be tuned half an octave apart with the highest-pitched instrument tuned one octave above the violin. While certain members of this family are similar to the viola, cello, and double bass, they are designed as large violins, not mere copies of their conventional counterparts. The intention is a group of instruments that sing together in perfect harmony and with amazing clarity. With funding from the Guggenheim Foundation, Hutchins and her many collaborators had a complete octet ready for concert testing by the mid-1960s. The new family was impressive, but Hutchins would spend decades refining each violin for an ever-improving sound. In the end she made eight instruments—slightly modifying the traditional violin design. The members of this family are named the treble, soprano, mezzo, alto, tenor, baritone, small bass, and contrabass violins. The mezzo violin is tuned just like a traditional violin, but its body is longer. The alto violin is tuned like a viola, but it has an endpin and is played upright like a cello. Hutchins traveled the world on lecture tours to spread awareness of the violin octet. She was met with both admiration for her innovation and enmity for trying to change the classical orchestra. Because of this controversy, it took some time for the Metropolitan Museum of Art to display an octet. Nevertheless, the quality of the octet's sound is undeniable, and musicians are catching on to it. Yo-Yo Ma has made recordings using an alto violin, and the instrument has also been favored by William Berman and Randall Vemer.

Carleen Hutchins left a legacy of acoustic innovation. One of her collaborators, Gabriel Weinreich, continues his research to this day and is developing an electric violin and speaker system that recreate the experience of an antique instrument. Hutchins also taught her methods of violin making to many students, even traveling so far as China in 1982 to share her knowledge. Gregg Alf and Joseph Curtin learned from her in the 1980s. Alf specializes in high-quality traditional violins, and Curtin is working on reproducing Stradivarius sound with electric instruments and software. The violin octet continues to be promoted by such groups as the Hutchins Consort, and hopefully its popularity will only increase in the future. Most important of all, what survives Hutchins is her open-mindedness towards innovation and using technology to blur the boundaries between science and art. More luthiers are experimenting with string instrument design and materials. More players are trying out the new instruments. Violin making used to be a stagnant, arcane subject, but it is quickly becoming a dynamic and open-minded field.

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ELECTRONIC CLAY

Switching between tools can be tedious. It would be great to have just one wrench that grows or shrinks to fit any nut or bolt. A screwdriver that can change between flat and Phillips at the press of a button. One day, far in the future, programmable matter will make that possible. Programmable matter refers to microscopic robots that communicate with each other and move around to form macroscopic structures, similar to the behavior of ants joining together to form bridges. The structure can take on almost any form, such as a wrench or screwdriver. Each robot is an independent, mobile computer that is instructed and powered wirelessly. When not activated, the programmable matter might resemble sand or clay; Carnegie Mellon University researchers like to use the term “claytronics”. On command, the tiny robots rearrange themselves into a designated structure and increase the strength of their electric bonds for structural rigidity. If you have enough programmable matter, then you can make much more than small tools.

Sculpture art might be revolutionized by this technology. As an artist completes a sculpture, the structural information can be saved and shared over the internet. Anyone else with programmable matter can download the sculpture's form and have an exact claytronic replica as easily as one might print a painting today. If programmable matter could change color, texture, and firmness, then it could replace just about every household item. Imagine furniture that can morph into any shape. Whenever desired, a living room could melt and reshape into a dining room, bedroom, etc. With advanced claytronics, a one-room apartment can have the functional versatility of a mansion. Why stop at furniture? Perhaps such a room could simulate any imaginable environment, indeed an achievement very close to the holodeck as seen on the Enterprise. With color and continuous motion, conventional video games and 3D television would become obsolete. Who knows what the military might do with this technology?

The potentially extreme versatility of claytronics has interesting consequences for the economy. Most inedible products in the private market could be replaced as programmable matter can take any form. Much of the manufacturing industry could eventually go out of business or adapt to producing claytronics. Although expensive at first, claytronics might save money in the long run with their multipurpose capabilities. What would our economy be like when people just download whatever products they want?

By the time claytronics are widely used, perhaps brain scanning and analysis technologies will have been sufficiently developed to easily “read minds”. Combining these technologies would allow someone to mentally visualize an object and have it created in the physical world out of programmable matter. If thoughts could be linked to matter in such a way, the possibilities would be endless. Physical avatars could make telepresence more realistic than ever before. How cool would it be to manipulate your environment just by thinking? But what if someone else manipulated that environment? In the wrong hands, claytronics could create real life supervillains. Sinisterly programmed artificial intelligences could get out of control with shape-shifting bodies. Although this technology is in its infancy right now, “grey goo” and “terminators” might someday become real threats.

DO HUMANS DREAM OF ELECTRIC CHICKENS?

Have you ever wanted to watch your dreams after you wake up? Brain scanning technology and sophisticated software may eventually enable you to do just that. Japanese researchers have used fMRI scans and specialized software to reconstruct 100 pixel images viewed by test subjects. The software analyzes brain signals while a person is looking at a set of pictures to learn how pixels are translated into neurological activity. After this “training” the software can roughly recreate still images viewed by the person. The example picture below shows what a person would see (a) and what the software produces just by analyzing an fMRI scan (b). American researchers, including Intel, are using this technique to study word associations. Instead of images, their software figures out what words are in a person's mind.

Possibly the most ambitious goal for this technology is to record dreams. Perhaps sometime this century people will have dreaming caps to wear to bed. The hi-tech headsets scan brain activity and transmit to a computer that translates the scans into video format. When you wake up, you can watch your dreams as if they were movies. No more struggling to remember what crazy things happened. Just play the video file.

This possibility should interest psychologists and psychiatrists. Dreams have long been considered a window to the subconscious mind. Dream interpretation should be a lot easier and more effective if the doctors could see their patients' dreams firsthand. If the mind-reading software could add emotion information alongside dream imagery, then doctors would have a great wealth of information to analyze.

Another exciting possibility is a revolution in the art world. With such technology you could just imagine a painting, and a computer could save the image. You would not need to learn how to paint! Dreams might be uploaded to the internet, maybe gaining viral video status. Movies could be made simply by visualizing them. If software could recreate sound from the mind, then music could be produced without the use of musical instruments. The revolution would stem from lack of need to learn hands-on skills to make art. What would the future hold for art suppliers and classically trained artists? I think the change would be similar to that of the paper media industry today. Newspapers, magazines, and book authors no longer need to print their content on paper. Much of today's media content is published on the internet. Paper media will not go extinct, but it will diminish significantly. In a future when people can make art simply by thinking about it, computer-based media will dominate. However, I do not think traditional media will die out. It will just downsize to a smaller population of artists. This future technology might even help traditional artists via feedback. One could visualize countless variations on an intended painting before deciding on a finished design. Instead of drawing thumbnail sketches an artist could look at a computer screen displaying mental images. The artist then knows with precise detail what the finished paining should look like before a drop of paint has been used.

Such wondrous technology comes with its questions and worries. Do we dream in a particular resolution? How many minutes of a dream pass in a minute of real time? How will this technology affect popular culture and society as a whole? Is our privacy at risk when computers can know what we are thinking about? I am not very concerned about this last question. I do not think fMRI scans could be taken at a distance. The limited range of magnetic fields should prohibit remote scanning. I remember seeing an interesting scenario in Batman: the Animated Series when I was a kid. In the episode “The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne” a mad scientist invents a machine that tape records people's visual thoughts. The scientist invites public officials and wealthy individuals to his laboratory for psychiatric therapy. Once he finds out his clients' dirty secrets, he uses their recorded thoughts to blackmail them. When Bruce Wayne tries the therapy, the scientist records his thoughts about wanting revenge for the murder of his parents and becoming Batman. The scientist intends to auction the revealing tape to Batman villains, but Wayne secretly uses the invention to record an imagined video of the scientist saying he will swindle the villains with a false tape. This episode poses the possibility of such technology used for blackmail, but the issue is solved by the invention's own versatility. Since blackmail material is easily fabricated, “evidence” cannot be given any credibility.