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Frankfurt Musikmesse 2008
Posted by: David Keech on 31st Mar 2008 in Opinion
On the 14th March I went to Frankfurt to visit the 2008 Musikmesse. For those of you unfamiliar with the event this is the world's leading trade fair for musical instruments and music equipment.
I was there primarily to visit our clients and to check up on the first public appearance of our new retail/ branding products for Yamaha. An exciting landmark for us, but more of that in an entire article soon.
The scale of the Frankfurt Messe is vast - a small city, with its own internal transport system. 578,000 sqm, 321,700 sqm of which is the exhibition halls and another 83,000 sqm in the open air, constitutes the third largest trade fair complex in the world. Yamaha's presence there is suitably large; not content with slumming it with a mere trade stand, they take over an entire building.
Here you can find forests of guitars, walls dripping with saxes, and so many pianos it's difficult to decide which one to go have a plink-plonk on. In the Yamaha hall, perhaps more than anywhere else in the fair, you are treated to a surreal aural experience; the sound of dozens of diverse musical instruments being played at the same time (you are not dissuaded from having a go on any of the exhibits). This, blended with occasional performances by professionals both impromptu and organised, is something to behold. The resulting cacophony is not as hard on the ear as you might imagine and is certainly a different experience from mooching around a furniture or interiors trade fair.
Much of the Musikmesse's footfall consists of music industry professionals, as you might expect, but design plays an increasingly significant role, particularly as digital technology takes an ever more vital role in the production of music. The diversity of products on display gives an unusually broad insight into contemporary product design. You can find varied solutions to the problem of creating a marketable electronic violin, and at the same time ponder just what it is that gives one DJ console the edge over another. There is an eternal struggle to find ever more intriguing surface treatments for drum shells and at the same time the everlasting quest to bring new design nuances to the impossible-to-better form of the grand piano.
That said, apart from Yamaha, there were few companies really pushing the boundaries in terms of product design, and it would be good to see manufacturers of music equipment engaging designers in a more committed way. This may be due to the fact that although musicians themselves are often liberal and free-thinking, the actual market for their equipment is conservative. It is difficult to break away from the iconic physical formula of an electric guitar without arousing instant suspicion, and don't even think about giving the trumpet a new identity by painting it a different colour.
New ways of making and interacting with music are however emerging. I am loath to blow Yamaha's trumpet once again (dreadful musical pun), but I can't resist drawing your attention to Yamaha's TENORI-ON, developed in collaboration with media artist Toshio Iwai. TENORI-ON really is a new music interface. I saw it demonstrated at Frankfurt in group format by three Japanese pop starlets. You can find the full story at
http://www.global.yamaha.com/design/tenori-on/index.html
You can't leave the Frankfurt fair without visiting the Marshall stand; unassailable presence, rock-solid branding and the last word in guitar amplification http://www.marshallamps.com. But comic trade fair moment for me must have been accidentally finding myself on the Marshall stand, in the queue to get Slash's autograph (guitarist best known as the former lead axe of Guns N' Roses and currently of Velvet Revolver). I had to get out of that queue, mainly because I was by far the oldest person in it, but also because I would have felt compelled to ask him for his views on guitar amp ergonomics...
Posted by: David Keech on 31st Mar 2008 in Opinion
On the 14th March I went to Frankfurt to visit the 2008 Musikmesse. For those of you unfamiliar with the event this is the world's leading trade fair for musical instruments and music equipment.
I was there primarily to visit our clients and to check up on the first public appearance of our new retail/ branding products for Yamaha. An exciting landmark for us, but more of that in an entire article soon.
The scale of the Frankfurt Messe is vast - a small city, with its own internal transport system. 578,000 sqm, 321,700 sqm of which is the exhibition halls and another 83,000 sqm in the open air, constitutes the third largest trade fair complex in the world. Yamaha's presence there is suitably large; not content with slumming it with a mere trade stand, they take over an entire building.
Here you can find forests of guitars, walls dripping with saxes, and so many pianos it's difficult to decide which one to go have a plink-plonk on. In the Yamaha hall, perhaps more than anywhere else in the fair, you are treated to a surreal aural experience; the sound of dozens of diverse musical instruments being played at the same time (you are not dissuaded from having a go on any of the exhibits). This, blended with occasional performances by professionals both impromptu and organised, is something to behold. The resulting cacophony is not as hard on the ear as you might imagine and is certainly a different experience from mooching around a furniture or interiors trade fair.
Much of the Musikmesse's footfall consists of music industry professionals, as you might expect, but design plays an increasingly significant role, particularly as digital technology takes an ever more vital role in the production of music. The diversity of products on display gives an unusually broad insight into contemporary product design. You can find varied solutions to the problem of creating a marketable electronic violin, and at the same time ponder just what it is that gives one DJ console the edge over another. There is an eternal struggle to find ever more intriguing surface treatments for drum shells and at the same time the everlasting quest to bring new design nuances to the impossible-to-better form of the grand piano.
That said, apart from Yamaha, there were few companies really pushing the boundaries in terms of product design, and it would be good to see manufacturers of music equipment engaging designers in a more committed way. This may be due to the fact that although musicians themselves are often liberal and free-thinking, the actual market for their equipment is conservative. It is difficult to break away from the iconic physical formula of an electric guitar without arousing instant suspicion, and don't even think about giving the trumpet a new identity by painting it a different colour.
New ways of making and interacting with music are however emerging. I am loath to blow Yamaha's trumpet once again (dreadful musical pun), but I can't resist drawing your attention to Yamaha's TENORI-ON, developed in collaboration with media artist Toshio Iwai. TENORI-ON really is a new music interface. I saw it demonstrated at Frankfurt in group format by three Japanese pop starlets. You can find the full story at
http://www.global.yamaha.com/design/tenori-on/index.html
You can't leave the Frankfurt fair without visiting the Marshall stand; unassailable presence, rock-solid branding and the last word in guitar amplification http://www.marshallamps.com. But comic trade fair moment for me must have been accidentally finding myself on the Marshall stand, in the queue to get Slash's autograph (guitarist best known as the former lead axe of Guns N' Roses and currently of Velvet Revolver). I had to get out of that queue, mainly because I was by far the oldest person in it, but also because I would have felt compelled to ask him for his views on guitar amp ergonomics...
