Friday 22 June 2012

Tangible Interactions

'Tangible Interactions' present two new digital musical instruments which are engaging, playful and useful for children and musicians alike. The Tangible Interactions ‘Colour Scope’ and ‘Tablet’ initially aim to engage children in music within school through exciting interactions and unusual audio outputs. The instruments then have exciting learning applications in key stage two. These lie not only within the music curriculum, but also in cross-curricular activities - linking music into broader fields such as Art, ICT and PE through the ability to create sound from a painting, or use coloured t-shirts in dance to allow children to explore the way in which their movement could create sound, for example. The instruments also provide the basis for an understanding of more traditional music as its stock software package relates the visual output from the instruments to sheet music. This creates a transferable skill set which then allows a child to develop their skills on traditional instruments, or in more complex digital production as they move on to increasingly versatile software. Producers and musicians are also able to use these instruments to great effect. Both the interaction and sound output differ from digital instruments currently on the market. This allows musicians to create new, unique and truly original sounds. This new body of sounds - and ways of creating them - aims to inspire musicians, and allows them to explore, rather than their music being defined by a series of sliders and knobs. The instruments unique audio outputs allow them to be used for very different things. While the Tablet provides a controlled interaction perfect for making melodies, the audio output from the Colour Scope suits textural and atmospheric noises. When coupled with their ability to interface with MIDI, this makes the Tangible Interactions audio tools very versatile indeed. They truly are tools approachable by all, which can grow with you, inspire and which can really work throughout the production process.

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