Abstract
The sonic baton is a novel intelligent instrument that expands the practice of conducting by sonifying conductor gestures, with or without an ensemble. The paper reviews related sonic baton technologies developed over the past two decades before it introduces the sonic baton, an intelligent instrument using neural audio synthesis with Real-time Audio Variational autoEncoder (RAVE) models, applying practice-research in a series of performance experiments. These experiments highlight the baton’s potential for diverse sonic expressions. Reflections on performances reveal unique opportunities for conductors, ensembles, and composers. The paper concludes that Artificial Intelligence can significantly expand conducting practices and augment musical ensembles' sonic expressions, reinforcing the emergence of a new music-science paradigm.
