Unfortunately there isn't a technical description to go with this video. The five poles seem to each be responsible for triggering a different loop of sound. Some are melodies (taken from a sigur ros tune) and others are more ambient pad-like sounds. Each pole seems to be equipped with sensors (of what sort I'm not sure) which I would guess are able to detect the speed of the plate's rotation and probably some of things, tilt in several axes perhaps. These controls are then mapped to elements of the sounds. It is certainly possible to hear the main melody slowing down and speeding up over time. The pads also have very definite "swirling" effects probably caused by the modulation of a filter cut of frequency/center frequency. Some of the spinning plates may be themselves control values as apposed to actually triggering any audio.
Although this appears a novelty instrument there are actually a couple of quite interesting things about it.
One is how visual the instrument is. This works in two ways. The main feedback channel for the instrument is visual. The performer has to monitor each spinning plate to check for ones that may be beginning to slow down and fall off. This task becomes harder as the performer adds more plates and thus loops. He must check after adding a plate that all the others are still ok. It is often sited that visual feedback is most important for amateur players, becoming less important for virtuosi but it seems in this case the visual feedback will always be important. Another visual aspect of the instrument as from the performer's perspective. The audience in the video are clearly very engaged in the performance. They seem to be enjoying the visual spectacle of watching the performing attempting to keep all the plates spinning and the audience gets more excited as more plates are added. Many times the performer is seen leaping from one side of the stage to the other to try and save a plate which provokes a very positive response from the audience. This audience engagement is aided by the fact that the instrument has a very clear link between performer actions and sound consequences. It is clear that when a performer adds a plate, a new loop is started. When a plate slows down, its loop slows down. When the performer speeds the plate back up, the loop speeds back up. This obvious and natural link means that the audience can easily follow the performance and recognize the performers actions as being meaningful. This is interesting since in this respect the spinning plates are much like an acoustic instrument, despite looking a world apart! The lack of this link is often given as a criticism of live digital music performances involving typical arrays of sliders, knobs and buttons, since it is usually not clear at all in what ways the performer is affecting the sound. This is certainly some thing that I've experience first hand at electronic music concerts.
Another important aspect to do with engagement is on the part of the performer. To put it simply, he's loving it! This seems like a very entertaining instrument to play, probably because of the sheer physicality of the gestures involved. This physicality increases as the piece becomes more complex and it seems to be a real challenge to keep much more than 4 plates active at the same time. In this respect the instrument provides a really entertaining challenge to the performing, sort of like a game, and in that way the perform has an enjoyable experience playing. There are also the factors mentioned above such as the high levels of feedback and the obvious link to sonic results that add to this engagement level.
I think another interesting thing about this performance is that the performer is clearly not really that good at playing the instrument, no offense. He is able to get 2-3 plates spinning ok but begins to have real trouble at 4-5. Throughout the performance there are times where plates slow down to a wobble, plates fall off, he has trouble getting the plates started etc. This is very important since it implies that the instrument is quite hard to play, which implies that it is possible to improve one's skill levels and possibly eventually master the instrument. Indeed, spinning plates is some thing that I can imagine being hard. This ability to improve and master an instrument is always sited as being a category of a "good" dmi (disregarding those designed for public installations which often take a some what opposite approach). Interestingly, one could consider the skill levels of the instrument as existing on a continuum. The entry cost for an amateur should be low since for example keeping one plate spinning and possibly modifying its speed to producing dynamic sounds should not be too much of a challenge. It could take potentially a lot of practice however to improve one's skill and be able to manage many plates so there is plenty of room for mastery, especially if the instrument was expanding to allow more plates. The entry fee for playing an instrument is often sited as an important consideration since many researchers feel that DMIs should be appealing to novice users as well as to experience musicians.
One possible draw back of the instrument is the levels of expressivity it would allow. Its difficult to make comments on this without knowing the exact inputs of the instrument but one could argue that simply being able to start, stop, speed up and slow down sample loops would give access to fairly limited levels of expressivity. This is interesting since there seems here to be an abstraction between levels of expressivity and virtuosity. For example I would think one would have to practice quite a lot in order to be able to keep a larger array of plates spinning nicely, but even so with this set up this level of competence would still have a limit on expressivity. There is physical mastery of the instrument but perhaps limited musical mastery. That is not to say that the instrument could never be expressive. For example if as mentioned above some of the plates where control plates, filter plates, other effects plates etc the expressivity could be vastly improved and perhaps brought inline with the amount of physical mastery available. The synthesis system also will obviously have a large impact on expressivity.
I think the fact that I've been able to right so much about some spinning plates is perhaps a testament to this instrument's originality and coolitude.
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