_
Continued CREATIVITY
4.4 Innovations [DT]
4.4.1 Hyperinstruments
Tod Machover -Professor of Music and Media - MIT Media Lab
http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/archive/winter-2008/features/guitar-hero
[Slightly compressed & rearranged version, my bold and italics, Anita Pincas]
This field has undergone a revolution in the past several years through the huge public success of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band videogames that demonstrate the public’s willingness to dive in and immerse themselves in music-making, given the right environment. How could we embed such a new type of activity in a more integrated musical ecology, where the current exaggerated distinctions between celebrities and amateurs would be diminished and the level of musical sophistication, excellence and, hence, enjoyment would be raised for all?
We started by developing Hyperinstruments for some of the world’s greatest performers, including Yo-Yo Ma and Prince, as well as orchestras, chamber music ensembles and rock bands. All kinds of sensors are built into the Hyperinstrument so it knows how it is being played. By changing the interpretation and feeling during performance, a cello – for instance – can be morphed into a voice or a whole orchestra or something that nobody has heard before. We have designed a series of such instruments and interfaces. One of the largest collections was the Brain Opera that launched at the first Lincoln Center Festival in New York in 1996, toured the world and is now permanently installed at the Haus der Musik in Vienna.
All the projects suggest a new model for the interrelationship between experts and amateurs in musical listening, performance and creation. Some of the boundaries to active engagement in music have eroded, but there is still much to be done to create a truly vibrant musical culture. Technology can take advantage of our skills and compensate for our limitations. Even more importantly, we need to establish a fundamentally new partnership between all of the potential participants in our musical culture, including individual artists, all parts of the music business, technology, lifestyle, health and social organisations, music presenting and broadcasting entities, research institutions, artists-as-mentors and – last but not least – the music-loving public.
Drum-Boyand Joystick Music allow non-musicians to shape and create complex and interesting musical pieces by using gestures or word descriptions to influence the real-time interactive environment. Current hyperinstrument research is designing high-level professional systems that measure the most subtle and sophisticated human performance (such as interactive music games, music learning systems, and Internet-oriented group performance and creation). The research focus of all this work is on designing computer systems (sensors, signal processing, and software) that measure and interpret human expression and feeling.. We have also expanded the hyperinstrument environment to include gestural and intuitive control of visual media (Laser Rangefinder, Meteorite Museum, Stretchables, etc.)..
We designed the Brain Opera for adult concert-goers, but found that everywhere we went it was most easily understood and most creatively manipulated by the youngest (under 8) and oldest (over 70) visitors. This was perhaps due to lack of inhibition and desire for social play and creativity among those ages. We created a large orchestra of specially designed fantasy instruments (including Rhythm Trees, Harmonic Driving, Gesture Walls and Melody Easels) so that anybody could play them using natural skill. You can play a video game, drive through a piece of music, use gestures to control huge masses of sound, touch a special surface to make melodies and use your voice to make a whole aura.
The Toy Symphony project (2002–2005) designed a set of new Music Toys, including the soft, squeezable Music Shapers that manipulate intensity and tone colour; Beatbugs, which capture rhythms that can be manipulated and shared with friends; and a software-composing environment called Hyperscore that lets anyone compose original music by shaping lines and colours. Another goal of Toy Symphony was to develop a project model – learning musical skills, creating new music and then rehearsing and performing a concert – that would bring children and orchestras together.
This new area has led to research in using music for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, for social and emotional adaptation for autistics, for aiding physical and mental rehabilitation and for a growing number of other areas such as Hyperscore that resulted in a series of public concerts featuring music by patients..
There is a new category of interfaces that takes account of individual styles and limitations - Personal Instruments.
Death and the Powers is [an opera] about what we can share, what we can pass on to others and what we can’t. It features a large Musical Chandelier – a robotic music instrument with gigantic piano-like strings. These are remotely controlled mechanical and electroacoustic elements that tickle, vibrate, stroke and punch out unusual music. The interchange between human expressive behaviour and ‘system’ response is invisible to the public. This means that, rather than being an explicit control-and-result relationship, we must measure subtler and more fundamental aspects of the performance, such as breathing, muscle tension and heartbeat, in addition to more musical measurements. We are also developing a version that will allow anyone to pour their own memories, images and sounds into a similar System to create a Personal Opera of/for oneself, friends or family – a kind of next generation Hyperscore.
The opera Skellig premiered in November 2008 at the Sage Gateshead in Newcastle, is an extension of the Toy Symphony model. For both music and choreography, we had to invent systems that would allow young people to both learn and memorise almost two hours of performance details, and to absorb all of this so they could enact the opera with ease, freedom and expressive power.
4.4.2
Björk Biophilia - music, technology and nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rk#2011.E2.80.93present:_Biophilia.2C_music.2C_technology_and_nature
Biophilia is the musical project and overall eighth full-length studio album by Icelandic recording artist Björk.[3][4] The album was released on 10 October 2011,[5] over four years after her previous studio album, Volta (2007).[6] The album is "partly recorded" on an iPad and, as well as a standard CD release,[7] will be released in the form of a series of apps.[8]Biophilia is the world's "first app album" in collaboration with Apple.[9] Björk has described the project as a multimedia collection "encompassing music, apps, internet, installations, and live shows".[10] Material from the album debuted during a concert series which was held in the summer of 2011 at the Manchester International Festival.[3]
Björk, along with long-time collaborative partner, Michel Gondry, were originally announced to collaborate on a 3-D "scientific musical". Gondry states that it will be a 40-minute IMAX museum project.[40] On 3 December 2010, in an interview with Pitchfork, Björk was asked if she was "working on anything at the moment", and replied "Yes, it will be ready in [a] few months."[41] On 17 February 2011, Pitchfork reported that Björk would release a collaboration with Syrian musician Omar Souleyman. The project will be available "on limited 12-inch, CD, and digital download sometime this year".[42]
Biophilia. The new project will combine music with technological innovation and themes of science and nature, including an "app album", educational collaborations with children and specialized live performance, kicking off in Manchester, United Kingdom at the Manchester International Festival on 30 June. She will perform at the event for six nights. It is expected that the special project Biophilia will see her tour a select number of cities with extended residencies.[43] Björk performed at Bestival on 11 September. The press release stated that this would be her only outdoor concert of the year.[44] She is also scheduled to perform six shows, among which two during the Iceland Airwaves Festival, at Harpa in Iceland from 12 October to 7 November.[45]
Biophilia's first single is "Crystalline", composed using complex breakbeats along with only one of several specialized instruments custom built for the project, the "gameleste", a celesta modified with elements of gamelan. Other instruments used on the album and in Bjork's live performances harness lightning to create sound.
Biophilia is a series of interactive iPad apps made by leading programmers and designers, one app for each of the 10 songs on the new album. Bjork discussed how the apps would represent the scientific and natural ideas within the songs and enable people to play and understand the songs and ideas in different ways, such as "Virus", a love song between a virus and a cell, in which the "Virus" app will stop playing the song if you are successful in stopping the destructive relationship. Two of the apps, "Crystalline" and "Cosmogony", were released on 19 July 2011, along with a music video for "Crystalline", directed by Michel Gondry. However, the album was released in usual form as a series of 10 music tracks as well, including a CD release, on 10 October 2011, and Bjork said it is designed to work as music just as any of her other albums are.
Björk has signed with both National Geographic and Nonesuch for Biophilia.[47][48]
4.4.3
Linsey Pollakexemplar musician of the global digital age.
Linsey Pollak shows us some of the unique instruments he makes and talks about what makes a good world music instrument.
http://thepuredrop.com.au/ep_goat/
Continued CREATIVITY
4.4 Innovations [DT]
4.4.1 Hyperinstruments
Tod Machover -Professor of Music and Media - MIT Media Lab
http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/archive/winter-2008/features/guitar-hero
[Slightly compressed & rearranged version, my bold and italics, Anita Pincas]
This field has undergone a revolution in the past several years through the huge public success of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band videogames that demonstrate the public’s willingness to dive in and immerse themselves in music-making, given the right environment. How could we embed such a new type of activity in a more integrated musical ecology, where the current exaggerated distinctions between celebrities and amateurs would be diminished and the level of musical sophistication, excellence and, hence, enjoyment would be raised for all?
We started by developing Hyperinstruments for some of the world’s greatest performers, including Yo-Yo Ma and Prince, as well as orchestras, chamber music ensembles and rock bands. All kinds of sensors are built into the Hyperinstrument so it knows how it is being played. By changing the interpretation and feeling during performance, a cello – for instance – can be morphed into a voice or a whole orchestra or something that nobody has heard before. We have designed a series of such instruments and interfaces. One of the largest collections was the Brain Opera that launched at the first Lincoln Center Festival in New York in 1996, toured the world and is now permanently installed at the Haus der Musik in Vienna.
All the projects suggest a new model for the interrelationship between experts and amateurs in musical listening, performance and creation. Some of the boundaries to active engagement in music have eroded, but there is still much to be done to create a truly vibrant musical culture. Technology can take advantage of our skills and compensate for our limitations. Even more importantly, we need to establish a fundamentally new partnership between all of the potential participants in our musical culture, including individual artists, all parts of the music business, technology, lifestyle, health and social organisations, music presenting and broadcasting entities, research institutions, artists-as-mentors and – last but not least – the music-loving public.
Drum-Boyand Joystick Music allow non-musicians to shape and create complex and interesting musical pieces by using gestures or word descriptions to influence the real-time interactive environment. Current hyperinstrument research is designing high-level professional systems that measure the most subtle and sophisticated human performance (such as interactive music games, music learning systems, and Internet-oriented group performance and creation). The research focus of all this work is on designing computer systems (sensors, signal processing, and software) that measure and interpret human expression and feeling.. We have also expanded the hyperinstrument environment to include gestural and intuitive control of visual media (Laser Rangefinder, Meteorite Museum, Stretchables, etc.)..
We designed the Brain Opera for adult concert-goers, but found that everywhere we went it was most easily understood and most creatively manipulated by the youngest (under 8) and oldest (over 70) visitors. This was perhaps due to lack of inhibition and desire for social play and creativity among those ages. We created a large orchestra of specially designed fantasy instruments (including Rhythm Trees, Harmonic Driving, Gesture Walls and Melody Easels) so that anybody could play them using natural skill. You can play a video game, drive through a piece of music, use gestures to control huge masses of sound, touch a special surface to make melodies and use your voice to make a whole aura.
The Toy Symphony project (2002–2005) designed a set of new Music Toys, including the soft, squeezable Music Shapers that manipulate intensity and tone colour; Beatbugs, which capture rhythms that can be manipulated and shared with friends; and a software-composing environment called Hyperscore that lets anyone compose original music by shaping lines and colours. Another goal of Toy Symphony was to develop a project model – learning musical skills, creating new music and then rehearsing and performing a concert – that would bring children and orchestras together.
This new area has led to research in using music for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, for social and emotional adaptation for autistics, for aiding physical and mental rehabilitation and for a growing number of other areas such as Hyperscore that resulted in a series of public concerts featuring music by patients..
There is a new category of interfaces that takes account of individual styles and limitations - Personal Instruments.
Death and the Powers is [an opera] about what we can share, what we can pass on to others and what we can’t. It features a large Musical Chandelier – a robotic music instrument with gigantic piano-like strings. These are remotely controlled mechanical and electroacoustic elements that tickle, vibrate, stroke and punch out unusual music. The interchange between human expressive behaviour and ‘system’ response is invisible to the public. This means that, rather than being an explicit control-and-result relationship, we must measure subtler and more fundamental aspects of the performance, such as breathing, muscle tension and heartbeat, in addition to more musical measurements. We are also developing a version that will allow anyone to pour their own memories, images and sounds into a similar System to create a Personal Opera of/for oneself, friends or family – a kind of next generation Hyperscore.
The opera Skellig premiered in November 2008 at the Sage Gateshead in Newcastle, is an extension of the Toy Symphony model. For both music and choreography, we had to invent systems that would allow young people to both learn and memorise almost two hours of performance details, and to absorb all of this so they could enact the opera with ease, freedom and expressive power.
4.4.2
Björk Biophilia - music, technology and nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rk#2011.E2.80.93present:_Biophilia.2C_music.2C_technology_and_nature
Biophilia is the musical project and overall eighth full-length studio album by Icelandic recording artist Björk.[3][4] The album was released on 10 October 2011,[5] over four years after her previous studio album, Volta (2007).[6] The album is "partly recorded" on an iPad and, as well as a standard CD release,[7] will be released in the form of a series of apps.[8]Biophilia is the world's "first app album" in collaboration with Apple.[9] Björk has described the project as a multimedia collection "encompassing music, apps, internet, installations, and live shows".[10] Material from the album debuted during a concert series which was held in the summer of 2011 at the Manchester International Festival.[3]
Björk, along with long-time collaborative partner, Michel Gondry, were originally announced to collaborate on a 3-D "scientific musical". Gondry states that it will be a 40-minute IMAX museum project.[40] On 3 December 2010, in an interview with Pitchfork, Björk was asked if she was "working on anything at the moment", and replied "Yes, it will be ready in [a] few months."[41] On 17 February 2011, Pitchfork reported that Björk would release a collaboration with Syrian musician Omar Souleyman. The project will be available "on limited 12-inch, CD, and digital download sometime this year".[42]
Biophilia. The new project will combine music with technological innovation and themes of science and nature, including an "app album", educational collaborations with children and specialized live performance, kicking off in Manchester, United Kingdom at the Manchester International Festival on 30 June. She will perform at the event for six nights. It is expected that the special project Biophilia will see her tour a select number of cities with extended residencies.[43] Björk performed at Bestival on 11 September. The press release stated that this would be her only outdoor concert of the year.[44] She is also scheduled to perform six shows, among which two during the Iceland Airwaves Festival, at Harpa in Iceland from 12 October to 7 November.[45]
Biophilia's first single is "Crystalline", composed using complex breakbeats along with only one of several specialized instruments custom built for the project, the "gameleste", a celesta modified with elements of gamelan. Other instruments used on the album and in Bjork's live performances harness lightning to create sound.
Biophilia is a series of interactive iPad apps made by leading programmers and designers, one app for each of the 10 songs on the new album. Bjork discussed how the apps would represent the scientific and natural ideas within the songs and enable people to play and understand the songs and ideas in different ways, such as "Virus", a love song between a virus and a cell, in which the "Virus" app will stop playing the song if you are successful in stopping the destructive relationship. Two of the apps, "Crystalline" and "Cosmogony", were released on 19 July 2011, along with a music video for "Crystalline", directed by Michel Gondry. However, the album was released in usual form as a series of 10 music tracks as well, including a CD release, on 10 October 2011, and Bjork said it is designed to work as music just as any of her other albums are.
Björk has signed with both National Geographic and Nonesuch for Biophilia.[47][48]
4.4.3
Linsey Pollakexemplar musician of the global digital age.
Linsey Pollak shows us some of the unique instruments he makes and talks about what makes a good world music instrument.
http://thepuredrop.com.au/ep_goat/