Shortly after graduating from Colgate, Clark\nBattle \u201989 built an electric bass. Not one\nassembled from a kit, but one entirely of his\nown design and construction. Eager to share\nthe result, he brought it to a local luthier in\nhis native Buffalo. \u201cI said, sort of ruefully,\n\u2018This will be the only instrument I\u2019ll ever\nbuild,\u2019\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut the guy just laughed.\nHe knew I would be hooked.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three decades later, Battle is still at it. His latest creation, an instrument he calls the Evolano, blends the chordal assets of the piano with the glissando strengths of a cello. It was selected as faculty favorite in the Georgia Tech School of Music\u2019s 2021 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. While Battle finishes up a second version, he is seeking patent protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A software engineer by day, the amateur inventor took advantage of the enforced downtime brought on by the pandemic to build the instrument. Like most offspring, the prototype had the features of its parents \u2014 black and white keys, a curvy wood form, and strings \u2014 but it resembled neither of them. Designing it took 10 years. His experimentation was \u201cmostly about learning how instruments go together and understanding design processes,\u201d he says, adding that his comfort and expertise with mathematics and computer modeling helped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The instrument-inventing bug bit Battle early. Music was all around him: various family members were proficient in guitar, piano, and violin, and two cousins are members of the all-women a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. \u201cSome of my earliest memories are of stringing rubber bands across shoe boxes and making other kid instruments,\u201d Battle says. \u201cThen I started playing the flute, then the viola, and at [age] 10, the cello became the thing I stuck with.\u201d While at Colgate, he attended a presentation by Chris Chafe, a Stanford researcher, cellist, and composer. \u201cHe had his cello hooked up to a bunch of computers. I was, like, wow, that\u2019s what I want to do,<\/em>\u201d Battle says. \u201cSo I basically copied it for my shop class project.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n His love of the cello combined with his frustrations at its limitations eventually led to his latest creation. \u201cThe cello has great lyric expressiveness but very few chords,\u201d Battle explains. \u201cOn the other hand, the piano can do almost anything, but it can\u2019t slide notes.\u201d Because design is all about finding solutions, he started fiddling with ways to combine the best qualities of both instruments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Drawing on his training in kung fu, Battle strove to \u201chonor the body\u201d with the Evolano, ensuring it was \u201creasonably portable\u201d and ergonomically designed. Weighing in (by his estimate) at around 45 pounds, it features two 10-key keyboards (one for each hand) arranged on either side of a ruler that marks the position of the instrument\u2019s musical notes. To play the Evolano, a performer positions it between the knees and slides the keyboards up and down the ruler to produce the notes the player wants. Pressing the keys produces a resonant sound reminiscent of a Spanish guitar or stand-up bass. There\u2019s no more stretching of the pinkies to hit a specific note. \u201cEvery key can play every note,\u201d says Battle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As he fine-tunes his brainchild \u2014\nincluding fiddling around with some design\nmodifications \u2014 he admits that he has many\nother ideas percolating. Still, he says, \u201cmusic\nhas always been my first love. And I like the\nnotion that if you invent an instrument, you\u2019re\ninfluencing all the music that comes after it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clark Battle \u201989 has invented an instrument he calls the Evolano, which blends the piano and cello. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":9421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[354,893,84],"coauthors":[842],"class_list":["post-9173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-alumni","tag-instrument","tag-music"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2nX","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/05\/ClarkPortraitFeature.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9173"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9348,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173\/revisions\/9348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9173"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}