Octonic: An accessible musical instrument

The rationale behind the design and development of an accessible stand-alone musical instrument is described. Intended for use in improvised music within a community music setting, the Octonic is a non-contact diatonic electronic musical instrument. Building upon established touch-free approaches to musical interaction, the instrument offers polyphony and expressivity and is designed to be free-standing, intuitive, simple in operation and affordable. The functionality of a current working prototype is presented along with observations based on testing across different user groups.