The Outdoor Musician's Starter Pack

I designed two tools that can be used in the Outdoor Musician's Starter Pack. Since it's summer, we musicians are going to be doing a lot more playing outside while we all enjoy the summer sun! But a musician playing in the park will have different needs than a musician playing at the concert hall. So, I created designs that will make our lives easier, and the listener's lives better in turn.

I used Fusion 360 to design, model, and render my creation.

I wanted to create a "Starter Pack" aimed at a single-reed instrument player (clarinet, saxophone) as I relate best to the needs of a person like that. However, the primary item in this pack, the music stand, is a tool necessary for all musicians, whether they sing, play a woodwind, brass, string, keyboard, or percussion instrument.

First, I researched existing loud/bright saxophone mouthpieces made specifically for outdoor concerts. The mouthpiece of a saxophone can greatly change the way it sounds, from volume to warmth to depth. A mouthpiece made for the outdoors, such as a marching band mouthpiece, will allow the player to play with a loud volume while sacrificing warmth and depth for a "cold" (edgier) sound, and a thinner sound. A smaller tip opening will allow the player to have more control over their sound.

Then, I researched existing music stands. I am a frugal buyer, as I am both a musician and a student. All music stands that had the traits most important to me (portability, lightweightedness, paper real estate) were also extremely expensive, and cheaper music stands were flimsy and missing one or all of these traits. As such, there are currently no ideal options on the market for outdoor-playing musicians.

Being unsatisfied with existing technology, I created a mouthpiece and music stand completely optimized for playing in the outdoors, while also being versatile enough to be standalone tools, without any need to have an "indoor version" of these things.

I was inspired by the SYOS ("Shape Your Own Sound") line of mouthpieces available for the clarinet and saxophone, as they allow you to customize the chamber size, baffle step, facing length, and tip opening of the mouthpiece -- all delicate alterations in a mouthpiece that affect the ability of your instrument to project effectively.

I was also inspired by a survey I sent out on social media. My musician peers were able to contribute many different ideas of needs that they had. Before, I hadn't considered that music stands currently do not efficiently serve their purpose in an outside environment. The wind and uneven ground seemed to be the two greatest inconveniences for musicians in need of a music stand (every musician who reads music.) Some respondents even gave me ideas for solutions.

I first considered a basic music stand without many features. Then, I drew a few different ideas of extensions to the music stand to optimize it for the outside.

I also sketched the basic anatomy of a wind instrument mouthpiece.

To model and design the music stand, I considered that the typical outdoor musician will need their music to stay on their music stand, and also for the music stand to remain stable in the ground in the event of wind or uneven ground. For musicians who are taking their music stand outside, they also likely need their stand to be extremely portable, because they will likely need to carry it by hand outside.

To keep the sheets of music paper on the music stand, I added an extension of a removable rotating Plexiglass sheet to keep the music on the stand and prevent the wind from blowing it away. I have chosen to make it matte to prevent glare and allow maximum readability. The extension on the back has been optimized to reduce extra bulk.

To keep the music stand in the ground, I have added extra collapsable supports on the legs to “drive” into a dirt ground, as musicians commonly play in parks. This will keep the stand from toppling over in the wind. If the stand is used inside, it can be rotated back to be flush with the larger legs so as not to scratch a floor.

With portability in mind, I designed the stand to be easily collapsible and contained within the area of 18’’ by 14’’ by 4’’. It will be approximately 8 lb - easy to carry with a wieldy rectangular prism shape.

I also added an extension to the sides of the stand not often found in normal music stands, allowing the musician to keep twice as much music on the stand at one time, while also remaining just as portable as an ordinary music stand. These extensions have small clips on the bottom to keep unconnected pages on the stand.

With all of these constraints met, I predict that this is an ideal music stand for those who want to play both outside and inside, as there are no design aspects that make playing inside difficult -- the extensions are useful both inside and outside.

To model and design the mouthpiece, I considered that the typical outdoor musician will need to play loudly above all else, with ease of making a pretty tone being secondary to the importance of volume. It will also need to have a familiar shape and playing experience to optimize accessibility for the typical end-user.

To make the mouthpiece as loud as possible, it is required that the sound “cuts” through a musical group, even though the acoustics outside are not optimal for this. To make a sound that cuts through a group, the sound must be brighter and thinner sounding, different from a “warm” sound of a saxophone or clarinet in popular music - more like a mouthpiece for a musician in a marching band outside.

In keeping the mouthpiece a normal and familiar shape, I referred to the most popular beginner’s mouthpiece, the Yamaha 4C. I modeled the mouthpiece in a similar shape to the 4C, but made some modifications. These modifications - the altered dimensions on the inside, referred to as the chamber size, baffle step, and tip opening - create this brighter, cutting sound that can be heard even far away outside, even without the effective acoustics of an indoor room. The chamber size (size of the inside) is smaller, the baffle step (a small "step" on the inside) is higher, and the tip opening is smaller than on a usual 4C to create this sound.

(I created this part of the Starter Pack using the Form modeling workspace.)

To manufacture the music stand, I predict that it can be made by CNCing aluminum for the tubing, the legs, and the head of the stand. I predict that the Plexiglass extension can be made from a mold.

To manufacture the mouthpiece, high accuracy is necessary. I predict that the mouthpieces can be 3-D printed from ABS plastic to allow for customizable colors and resonance within the chamber of the mouthpiece.

I expect that the cost of manufacturing the music stand will be $25 due to the cost of CNC and aluminum. The end-user will pay $40 on the market for $15 of profit made per stand. The average price for a music stand with at least one extra feature is $50.

I expect that the cost of creating the mouthpiece is at most $5 for the materials and the 3-D printing. However, a person will need to manually sand it in order to customize it for the client/end-user. This lengthy time spent doing precise customization will likely be another $60 in costs. The end-user will pay $90 on the market for the mouthpiece for $25 in profit made per mouthpiece. The average price for a 3-D printed mouthpiece is $135 on the market, making this mouthpiece much more accessible to the average person.

To put these products on the market, I may sell them separately, but market them as a bundle, hence “The Outdoor Musician’s Starter Pack”.

From creating this design, I gained more experience using joints, motion links, the Form modeling workspace, the rendering workspace, and motion studies. As a clarinetist and saxophonist myself, learning the many parameters that can change the way the instrument sounds taught me how to choose and create my own mouthpieces so that I can customize my sound for different situations.

These products will impact the lives of musicians by allowing all kinds of musicians to read music outside in more adverse conditions, such as wind, rain, or in a strange landscape. For example, as opposed to other musicians, jazz musicians do not use music because they simply improvise and have tunes committed to memory. This music stand will bridge that gap and allow all types of musicians to play music outside. Even with the added features, all reading musicians can use this stand without sacrificing the portability, cost, and sleek look that is so important to them.

In future iterations of these designs, I may continue experimenting with slight adjustments in the parameters of the mouthpiece, like the chamber size. I may also try to decomplicate the mechanical aspects of the music stand - while it’s not overly complicated, a child musician under the age of 8 may have some trouble understanding how to utilize all of the features.

Overall, I am very happy to have created this design, and I am excited to see where it takes me.