The Georgia Tech School of Music has announced the finalists in its 2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, an annual event that’s been described as “The Pulitzer of the new instrument world”.

The competition celebrates musical passion, entrepreneurial spirit, and innovation by showcasing new musical instruments from creative engineers who are pushing the boundaries of instrument design.

The finalists include:

 

 

The Chromaplane is an instrument that uses two electromagnetic pickup coils to interact with a cloud of electromagnetic fields laid out in an isomorphic pattern on its flat surface.

Designed in 2021 and refined in collaboration with KOMA Elektronik, it operates entirely in the analog domain, providing a responsive and polyphonic playing experience without conventional knobs or keyboards.

The Dinosaur Choir recreates the vocalizations of extinct dinosaurs using CT scans, 3D fabrication, and physically-based modeling synthesis.

Musicians produce sound by blowing into a mouthpiece, which drives a computational voice box and resonates through a 3D-printed reconstruction of a dinosaur’s skull and nasal passages.

The Living Strings is a hybrid acoustic-digital keyboard instrument that combines a repurposed stage piano with TouchKeys multitouch sensors, piezo pickups, and custom physical string models.

Vibrations from the physical keyboard and its casing are used to excite the string models, enabling a wide range of playing techniques, such as harmonics, microtonality, and muting.

The ModuMIDI is a modular, polychromatic MIDI keyboard designed for ergonomic performance of microtonal music.

Its modular design allows keys to be removed or rearranged, enabling customizable layouts. Unlike hexagonal microtonal keyboards, the instrument retains a familiar keyboard format for musicians and uses a polychromatic color system where colors correspond to pitch.

The Mulatar combines elements of slide guitar, harp, and percussion into a single instrument. Moving bridges allow musicians to adjust notes freely, while the harp section supports quick retuning, and the body functions as a drum.

Designed with both acoustic and electroacoustic systems, it enables high-quality recordings and real-time effects processing, making it versatile for solo and street performances

The Petika is a digital microtonal harmonium that augments the traditional Indian double-reed acoustic harmonium. It allows precise tuning control for each key, eliminating the need for multiple harmoniums set to specific microtonal frequencies.

Using digital signal processing techniques such as asymmetric triangle waves, phase modulation, and filters, Petika recreates the tone of acoustic reeds.

The Sophtar is a string instrument that incorporates feedback, automated beaters, and machine learning to create complex sustained sounds.

An embedded computer enables interaction with other instruments and neural audio synthesis models, while a pressure-sensitive neck allows for expressive control of timbre. The instrument can also generate its own sound using algorithms that control beaters and feedback harmonics.

You can see the full range of finalists at the Competition site.