Meet MUGIC®

Our story

Developed by a Guggenheim award-winning violinist/composer Mari Kimura, MUGIC® (Music/User Gesture Interface Control) is a small, versatile and affordable prototype motion sensor that enables you to use your movements to control virtually anything in software. A small electronic gadget, MUGIC® has been used by musicians, dancers, artists, actors on stages around the world. In September 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, the long-awaited MUGIC® became finally available for purchase.

smiling ma in black holding a bunch of blue balloons using the MUGIC sensor

asian woman playing the flute. She's focused and in a classroom

Founder Story

Mari Kimura is at the forefront of violinists who are extending the technical and expressive capabilities of the instrument. As a performer, composer, researcher, and entrepreneur, she has opened up new sonic worlds and new musical possibilities for the violin.

Notably, she has mastered the production of pitches that sound up to an octave below the violin’s lowest string without re-tuning. This technique, which she calls Subharmonics, has earned Mari considerable renown in the concert music world and beyond.

She is also a pioneer in the field of interactive computer music. At the same time, she has earned international acclaim as a soloist and recitalist in both standard and contemporary repertoire.

learn more about her story

January 2008

Founder Mari Kimura starts working with the Sound Music Movement Interaction team at IRCAM to create the very first "Augmented Violin".

IRCAM Sound Movement Interaction team

March 2009

Mark Salinas of "Arrows-Up" contacted Mari after a concert in NYC and proposed to design a glove for her. It housed the xbee sensor at the bottom of her index finger on the palm side.

October 2011

As IRCAM upgraded their prototype replacing the xbee sensor with a much smaller and faster sensor "Modular Musical Objects" (MO), Mark Salinas and Mari Kimura redesigned a new glove to fit together with the MO.

November 2013

Mari Kimura inaugurates the Future Music Lab at the Atlantic Music Festival, where chosen fellows had access to MO sensors.

May 2016

Mari Kimura and Liubo Borissov work together to create a new prototype of an arduino 9-axis DIY sensor. They called it MUGIC®. Future Music Lab 2016 Fellows used the new units.

August 2017

Mari Kimura starts developing a hardware proprietary prototype at Calit2 and U.C. Irvine following her appointment as a Full Professor of Music at ICIT. She begins teaching a graduate seminar titled "Composing with Sensors" using MUGIC®".

September 2020

Now a registered product, MUGIC® became available for consumer purchase.

Today

Now MUGIC® is used by many artists, universities and professional festivals around the world.

People seated in chairs in a room, attending a session by Mari Kimura, Violinist, on MUGIC at Future music lab.

Meet MUGIC®

Our story

Founder Story

How MUGIC® history was made

Unleash your creativity