ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Musicians and music fans gathered by the tens of thousands this past weekend in Anaheim, California. They were attending the Annual NAMM Show, that's the National Association of Music Merchants. The show is the music industry's biggest exhibition of new products.
Contributor Steve Proffitt has more.
STEVE PROFFITT: Acres and acres of booths, lots of long hair and soul patches. It seems like anyone whoever thought about being a musician was here. With over 1,500 exhibitors, there was something for virtually every musical taste and budget - at the lower end, apps for the iPhone.
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PROFFITT: This is GrooveMaker, a little app that provides audio loops and beats to let you make your own grooves.
Ms. STAR ACCROMON(ph): GrooveMaker have been on the market for only four and half months now. But it has had over half a million downloads, making it one of the most popular applications on the market.
PROFFITT: GrooveMaker Star Accromon says there's a version you can download for free.
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PROFFITT: At the other end of the scale, the Eigenharp Alpha. It's a $6,000 digital wonder made in Britain.
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PROFFITT: Four inches wide, maybe three feet long, the Eigenharp has 128 programmable, touch-sensitive keys.
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PROFFITT: Of course, it can do techno pop, but it also has a breath controller: a pipe the player blows in. This can help create some highly nuanced musical sounds.
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PROFFITT: Eigenharpist David Kemp says having this instrument means he can perform live. Before it, he'd have to layer together sounds one by one using racks of equipment and computers.
Mr. DAVID KEMP (Musician): You'd have a bank of faders and you would be sitting behind a laptop, but now you can improvise a bit and it's - kind of makes it a little bit more fun and spontaneous.
PROFFITT: The Eigenharp could easily take a lifetime to master. Fortunately, there are simpler and cheaper alternatives like the Beams.
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PROFFITT: This thing looks like a big W. You put it on a table, you move your hands around in each U and laser beams trigger different sounds. At 200 bucks, the price was right for show attendee Joe Parker(ph) of La Jolla, California. He picked one up to take home.
Mr. JOE PARKER: I think it's a great educational tool. And I'm looking forward to trying it out, having my daughter try it out. She is three and a half. I think this is a lot of fun.
PROFFITT: So, wait a minute. Did you buy it for yourself or for your three and a half year old?
Mr. PARKER: Yeah, the official story is it's for my daughter, but everyone knows it's for me.
PROFFITT: While it's digital technology that seems to drive both sales and imagination, at least one item demonstrates there is still room for innovation in a product that has no LEDs or microchips.
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Mr. MIKE STUART(ph): This is like a show that's mostly about technology, but here you have an instrument which is completely analog. It's the size of a child's recorder. It's a remarkable instrument. It has a reed upon it. And so, when you play upon it, you sound like you're playing upon a reed, which is a rather remarkable sound indeed.
PROFFITT: That's Mike Stuart playing the pocket-sized Pocket Sax: Fifty-nine bucks, batteries not included, batteries not required.
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Unidentified Man: Pretty good, pretty good.
PROFFITT: For NPR News, I'm Steve Proffitt.
SIEGEL: This is NPR.