I’ve always been interested in the playing the piano, guitar, or even the drums but it’s always been hard for me to learn. But now learning those same instruments just might be easier. Universities’ orchestras are going digital. Orchestra members don’t need to hold a violin or sit at a piano to make music or for live performances. They need an iPhone to be exact.
The University of Michigan has a course dedicated to creating music with the iPhone called “Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble.” The class is taught by assistant professor of computer science and music, George Essl. Students learn how to code their own musical instruments for the iPhone using an Apple-provided software-development kit
“The advantage of digital music can be seen in instruments as far back as the electric guitar: the flexibility to manipulate bits of code to create different sounds, superseding the limitations of a traditional analog instrument. Naturally, technological advancement keeps raising electronic sound to new heights. In recent years, musicians have been experimenting with gadgets ranging from laptops to high-tech cellos, and from cellphones to bent circuits.”
The iPhone SDK, used at the University of Michigan by professor Essl, is equipped with various sensors such as full touchscreen, a microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer. Essl told Wired “students in the course learn to program the device to play different sounds, based on the information it receives from one of its multitude of sensors. Tapping the display, shaking the phone or blowing air into the mic, for example, can all translate into different sounds.”
But Michigan is not the only University using this digital method. Stanford University is also using the iPhone to conduct their mobile phone orchestra--watch how they do it.
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