TRITONE - Apple's app for learning music intervals

Basically, the program has forty levels which expand the palette of intervals you are asked to identify. In the original version of the application, you had to pass each level to move to the next; in the latest version, you can begin at any particular level.

The app gives you a pitch, asks you to identify an interval a specific distance from the given pitch. You then indicate the name of the pitch and the quality (natural, flat, sharp, double flat, or double sharp) of the pitch that would create that given interval.When you answer, you are given feedback (briefly), before you are given the next question.That’s basically the function of the program–to be able to identify intervals, preferably without using a keyboard. I look forward to using the program with my music theory classes next fall. I like the fact that the program develops the ability to remember intervals without the keyboard…sometimes keyboards are too integrated into our theory classes.As always, I have some additional thoughts about the program. First, it is great that it is free, supported by in-app advertisements. However, I’d rather pay for a non-advertisement supported version. Second, as a music educator, I feel strongly that we need to continue to press music literacy in this age. I wish there were a way for the program to make a visual connection–to a music staff–as each of these intervals is identified: perhaps following the “Correct!” screen, the actual interval could appear on the screen in music notation. Granted, there would have to be a huge repository of graphics that the program could draw on, and I’d suggest that the user get to choose whether they would view the interval on a treble, bass, alto, or grand staff. Finally, an audio example of the interval, both as melodic (one pitch at a time) and harmonic (both played at the same time) interval would be nice for audibly reinforcing the interval, too.If you’re a musician, or a music educator, Tritone is a great program, and it is free. Download it today.

source: wordpress

NOTA - the new app for musician

Music learning is now available in your pocket with Nota, the best music learning tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

For beginners, Nota's slick interface makes it a joy to learn music. It covers the basics of music notation with a 4 octave piano that displays the notes on a staff, a full screen landscape mode piano for practicing and an interactive notes quiz.

For advanced users, the new scales browser has a wide range of choices like Eight Tone Spanish and Mixolydian. Also new, the chordsbrowser makes it easy to find a chord and play it on any key or invert it. You can also consult the Circle of Fifths in the Reference section which has the most comprehensive reference of music notation on the iPhone.

The program is beautifully designed; it is a pleasure to look at, while still maintaining Apple’s typical user interface design. In its primary view mode, you are presented with a row of options at the bottom of the screen. The first option offers you the choice of playing the piano (and seeing the note played in musical notation), seeing chords as you play the root position, or seeing scales as you play the tonic note of the scale. Every chord or scale I can think of are represented in the program.
These different functions (piano, chords, scales) are of unlimited value to the student learning advanced theory for the first time–at the high school or even collegiate level. There are two things to be aware of: first, the program doesn’t delineate the difference between enharmonic pitches, therefore, you are likely to get a scale with A and an A-sharp instead of a B-flat. The same is true with chord spellings. The application author is aware of this issue, and is working to fix this in future releases. Furthermore, you can set the notes to show solfège (fixed do) instead of note names; however, be aware that the American use of “ti” for the seventh step of the scale is actually “si” in Nota (which is used by other countries). The program plays the chords and scales as they are corrected. I did find that the melodic major played correctly (raised 6th and 7th steps on the way up, natural on the way down), but did not reflect the change in pitch on the descending part of the scale in the written notes (letter names) of the scale.In any setting (notes, chords, or scales), if you turn your iPhone/iPod Touch to landscape view, you are given a full keyboard, which rivals many of the other keyboards I’ve seen on the App Store. The keyboard’s sound is quite nice, but there is quite a bit of reverb on each note. Changing octaves is quite easy, and you can see your current octave with the iPhone/iPod Touch-like page indicators on the bottom of the screen (a nice touch of iPhone OS UI).



The second major function of the program is quizzing on note names, in both the treble and bass clef, as seen below (You will notice that I had switched to solfège note names before taking this part of the quiz).The quiz is fantastic; and as a person who has taught beginning high school theory for over ten years, there are some students who seem to struggle with things as basic as note names, and perhaps this program could help them jump that hurdle. After all, if they don’t know note names, they aren’t learning intervals, scales, chords, progressions, and the like. There is an advanced quiz which seemed to be twice as long but did not have any additional content. I would suggest that the quiz could be modified to allow for the alto clef as well, and to give the user the choice of which clefs they wished to be quizzed on. I’d also like to see quizzes for naming basic chords (major, minor, augmented, diminished) and scales (major, natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor).


The third major section of the application is a reference library for many things, including accents, accidentals, breaks, chords, clefs, dynamics, key signatures, lines, notes, note relationships, note and rest durations, repetition and codas, and time signatures. When you choose a category, you are given a list of options, and then a beautifully designed screen that shows the item and offers a definition. There is also a “cover album” view of each category, if you turn your iPhone/iPod Touch on its side.

source: wordpress

New ALESIS ProTracks: makes your i-pod look like (and works like...) a digital recorder

The new ProTrack, from Alesis, is a great new way to capture sound effects, recitals, jam sessions, speeches, interviews, rehearsals, performances, meetings, lectures, notes-to-self, and anything else you can thing of… directly to your iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone. With a chassis similar to the Zoom H4n, the ProTrack is the newest entry into the mobile recording device market, and I believe that it will be very popular - especially with educators who have iPod and iPod Touches that have been purchased through the school for use in the classroom. Here are the details on what you can do with the ProTrack:

-You can record detailed, 16-bit, 44.1kHz or 22kHz stereo digital audio without connecting any additional equipment using ProTrack’s onboard pair of cardioid condenser microphones. The on-board mics are fixed in XY configuration for optimal stereo imaging.

-The ProTrack also has a pair of combo XLR-1/4″ inputs enabling you to connect any professional sound source, including condenser and dynamic microphones and mixer outputs. Whether you are running on plug-in or battery power, ProTrack supplies 48V phantom power to its inputs for operation with external condenser microphones. This is great if you’d like to step up the quality of your microphones when recording. Simply plug the XLR cables directly into the ProTrack, get your recording levels, and you’re good to go.

-The ProTrack has LED-level metering for instant visual indication, even in a dark club. You can monitor or play back recordings on the 1/8″ stereo-headphone output. Controls for phantom power, limiter, and volume are easy to access.

-The ProTrack records directly into your iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone. If you have an iPod, when you plug it into the ProTrack it will simply open the voice memo application that is hidden inside your iPod. If you are going to use your iPod Touch, you’ll need to download an app from the iTunes App Store called iPro Recorder. If you are using your iPhone (which is not on the official list of compatible devices but it worked with my iPhone 3GS) you simply use the Voice Memo app. To get the recordings off of your iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone, simply manually sync your device to your computer and the recordings will transfer to your computer for posting/burning/etc.

-The ProTrack can be powered by four AAA batteries or AC power using the included adapter.

-A 1/4″-20 threaded mounting point enables you to mount ProTrack on a mic stand with the optional ProTrack Adapter, on a table with the optional ProTrack Tripod table stand, or on a camera tripod for hands-free tracking.

I have been playing with my new ProTrack for three days now, and I am very impressed with the results. There are a few adapters included in the box that make whatever device you own fit the ProTrack. It feels pretty solid, and I love the combination inputs. For teachers who are in the market for a professional quality handheld digital recorder who already own an iPod, iPod Touch or iPhone, this is a perfect solution. If you already own a handheld recorder (like I do) and just love gear - I strongly recommend getting it :). Not convinced? Check out thisreview of the ProTrack from the NAMM Show.

Educational pricing for the Alesis ProTrack is $149.00. Visit the SoundTree store to purchase your ProTrack today OR call us at (800) 963-8733 to speak with an Account Manager.

Augmented Reality Collaborative Groove

Augmented Groove is a musical interface that explores use of
augmented reality, 3D interfaces, and physical, tangible interaction
for conducting multimedia musical performance. Users can play
music together, with or without traditional music instruments, simply
by picking and manipulating physical cards on a table. The physical
movements of the cards are mapped to changes in musical elements
such as timbre, pitch, rhythm, distortion, and reverb. At the same time,
users wearing lightweight head-mounted displays can see 3D virtual
images attached to the cards. The shapes, color, and dynamics of the
virtual images reflect aspects of the music.
In this augmented reality environment, users can see the physical
world, virtual objects, and each other, so several users can gather
around the mixing table and jam together, passing sequences to
each other in the same manner in which we pass everyday objects
from person to person. In a sense, the music becomes a physical,
tangible object, something that can be touched and seen as part
of the physical environment.

Read the full article

Musical control in Augmented Groove is deliberately imprecise:
performers manipulate short musical sequences, or phrases, rather
than individual words. The resulting musical performance is a
computer-supported improvisation in which the user arranges, mixes ,
and modifies pre-composed musical phrases on a structural level.

Complete 6 video about Dan Lloyd's brainmusic with fMRI

Here's the links ti the 6 full video of Dan's lecture about his brainmusic experiment.

Dan Lloyd: brainmusic with fMRI

I've just come across the brilliant work of Dan Lloyd, a philosopher and neuroscientist who's turned fMRI data into music-like sounds:

More videos can be found here. Lloyd doesn't seem to have written or published anything about it yet, but I'm sure that's in the works.

Traditionally, fMRI data is shown as a pattern of colored patches overlayed on a picture on the brain. This emphasizes the spatial,where of the neural activity. But it glosses over the fact that there is also a temporal, when side to it.

Listening to Lloyd's soundscapes, the ever-changing nature of the neural signal is very obvious. Some of the variation over time is just random noise, of course. But some of it represents real, ongoing changes in brain activity. So while turning neuroimaging data into music is undeniably cool, it could also be a more useful way of presenting the data for some purposes.

Via New Scientist, Eavesdropping on the Music of the Brain

Brainmusic with fMRI

Functional brain scan data converted to a visualization with accompanying sonification -- musical sounds whose pitch corresponds to magnitude of activation in regions of the brain, as detected by functional MRI. In this video, the tempo has been slowed to that of the scanner, one image/chord per second. The visualization is a "brain cube" with three views of the same brain projected on three sides of a box. In each dimension the 3-d action of the brain has been shrunk to two dimensions. By comparing views you can get a rough idea of the location of areas of activity. At the same time, each area of the brain is assigned to a different musical instrument. Pitches are restricted to a "blues" scale, a pentatonic scale with a blue note added. Pitch for each area rises in proportion to the signal intensity.

These data come from the same source as in the video "Resonant Vision." The subject watched a flickering checkerboard pattern that occupied one side of the visual field, right and left checkerboards alternating. There are three repetitions of the Right/Left alternation in the video, which can be heard in the melodic sweep of the synthesized string sections. As in all the videos on this channel, one message is that many areas of the brain are active at all times and at various time scales. In this one, the scientific moral is at best impressionistic; the main goal is to make something beautiful.

Augmented Reality Interface for Electronic Music Performance @ University of Washington & Hiroshima City University

Starting from the days of the Musical Telegraph, the first electronic

instrument, the majority of synthesizers today are still equipped with

keyboards, often using the traditional layout of acoustic pianos.

The question that many researchers attempt to answer is that of

improvement. In this paper we present an Augmented

Groove, a novel musical instrument that attempts to depart from

traditional approaches to musical performance, i.e. use keyboards,

dials or simulated traditional musical controllers. It allows novices to play

electronic musical compositions, interactivelyremixing and modulating their

elements, by manipulating simple physical objects.

Read the full article!

Voodoo Experience Augmented Reality App

Just a month or so after augmented reality browser Layar won EUR 75,000 in Vodafone's Mobile Clicks contest, the technology was already being put to work in a custom-designed application for Louisiana's Voodoo Experience music festival.

Voodoo Experience Augmented Reality App from Zehnder Communications on Vimeo.

Layar is a free mobile browser for Android devices and the iPhone that overlays computer-generated information on top of real-time, on-screen images from the handset's built-in camera. The Voodoo app was designed by New Orleans ad firmZehnder Communications using Layar 2.0 to let festival-goers with enabled phones get information on performances, attractions and services simply by pointing their phone cameras toward key parts of the festival grounds. When viewing concert stages, for instance, one custom AR layer provided information on lineups, schedules and current artists performing, including artist profiles and Web links. Pointing a phone camera at a vendor would show menus and pricing, while other points of interest highlighted by the app included vendor locations, artist displays, restrooms, ATMs, entrances and exits, medical sites and other services. Zehnder was one the first 50 firms worldwide named as developers of the Layar platform.

Music and positive psychology

Positive Psychology News Daily article we explore the links between Positive Psychology, making music and singing in unison.

Not only are they both good for your physical health, scientists like Professor Stephen Clift of the Sidney de Haan Centre for Arts and Health are now investigating the benefits for psychological well-being, including increased happiness,self-esteem and self-efficacy, and reduced depression.

Read the rest of the article here.

New Software for BrickTable - Space

Firstly, I would like to give a big thanks to everyone who came out to the RedCat lounge for an evening of some of the finest electronic music happening right now. It was great to meet a lot of new faces, and I had a really good time.


Since the gig was a performance gig, we worked with our good friends Dimitri and Jim on a new performance application for Brick. Essentially the screen is split up into 16 blue columns. We have four instruments, each with four parameters (IE pitch/notes, filters…etc) that get assigned to the individual columns. By gliding up and down on the columns, you can change and control the instruments and music. As you move from the top to the bottom of a column, the color gradually changes from blue to pink, and provides the performers with visual feedback.

*tech note* All the visuals were done in processing again, and the audio is all synthesized using Reaktor.

Check out the video above to see Spaces in action!

Spaces Multi-Touch Music Environment from FlipMu on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality Music controller

Augmented Reality in Quartz Composer used to generate OSC messages to manipulate parameters of Buffer Override as an insert in an audio track.

This in the first attempt to use augmented relity as a controller.

The augmented reality code give you the possibility to control the parameter of the oscillator inserted in the audio track which you are listening to. Amazing technology, but not a great sounding!

5 Gum Augmented Reality Music Mixer

The first truly interactive Augmented Reality Application.
Log on to www.5gum.fr to record your mix.

Use your augmented reality code to make your music easily and fully interaclively.
Record your creation and share it with other people.

Augmented Reality Drum

You are in front of a stereo-projection screen. You can play with your hands or with some drumstick arbitrary drum-or percussion-instruments.

These instruments are depict on the stereo-screen and are animated as soon as there is a hit. A webcam is recording you and your hands, so that you can see yourself in the background of the screen. The drumsound and the panorama-settings is changing, belonging to the point of hit in space. Drumrhythms from MIDI-Files can be loaded and will be animated on the screens drumkit, so the user can train the rhythms.

Learning Music with Augmented Reality

In this project virtual objects are superimposed on top of a real MIDI keyboard. The input and output channels of the keyboard are connected to a computer via a MIDI interface.
The application serves as a piano teacher that teaches about basic chords, scales, etc. The keys pressed by the "student" user, the order and the timing of the piano key presses are all captured by the computer with the help of the MIDI interface, therefore the teacher can immediately "check" whether the student has correctly followed the instructions and may give instant visual feedback over the real keyboard (e.g. marking wrongly pressed or missed keys with different colors).
The application is based on a "fishtank" AR setup (PC+monitor+webcam), where the physical MIDI keyboard is tracked with the help of an optical marker.

SoundGate - Tablet Pc for Musicians

SoundGate provides musicians with tools for a new rich experience in individual learning, tutor instruction and live playing. The optimal user-experience has been designed taking in account the needs of musicians. The Tablet facilitates the creative process by recording playing sessions, recognizing and transcribing music, prompting sheet music and lyrics, generating electronic accompanist sound and displaying onscreen timing and metronome.

VW Guitar!!! Play real guitar in your car!

Volkswagen teamed up with Rock the Vote, and through its vehicles equipped with the ability to play First Act guitars through the speakers, were out on the streets of NYC playing patriotic music to promote getting out to vote on Election Day 2006.



Sound good! The VW Guitar has two channel, the clean one and the distorted one. In fact this particular guitar has a built it distortion circuit which allow you to put many juicy an bluesy sounds right into your car's speakers.

First music video in augmented reality. John Mayer - Heartbreak Warfare

Studio B teamed with Adobe and John Mayer to create the worlds first Augmented Reality music video. Studio B shot and keyed the green screen footage using the new Apple ProRes 444 codec.



Flash Augmented Reality (FLAR) is a way of creating a digital hologram in 3D space by holding up a marker to your computer's camera and activating a special piece of Flash software. As you can see in this video, I'm holding up a piece of paper with the designated marker (in this case a broken heart), and the video of John Mayer follows it around the screen, and even tilts in 3D space!

The FLAR technology was featured in WIRED Magazine, and you can check out their video as well.

Studio B Films is a video production company based in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in documentary, sales and marketing sizzle videos, customer stories, motion graphics, corporate communications, green screen shooting, and creative video editing.

Music Flow by Mihalyi Csíkszentmihályi @ TED

Recently, professor Mihalyi Csíkszentmihályi spoke a T.E.D. conference about his concept of flow.
During this, he had a particular in explaining the particular features od music flow, which occurs during music improvisation.

The theory or state of "flow", as it is now viewed in positive psychology, is a state of mind or life where there is no disorder to straighten out, or threat to the self to defend against, such that the release of liberated psychic energy is used or invested successfully in chosen goals. In short, flow is a state of concentration or consciousness so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity.




Seven Main Aspects of Flow:

1. Completely involved in what one is doing – focused.
2. A sense of ecstasy—of being outside everyday reality.
3. Great inner clarity—knowing what needs to be done, and how well one is doing.
4. Knowing that the activity is doable—that one’s skills are adequate to the task.
5. A sense of serenity—no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
6. Timelessness—thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to go by in minutes.
7. Intrinsic motivation—whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

New way of music interaction: the Reactable

The Reactable is a revolutionary new electronic musical instrument designed to create and perform the music of today and tomorrow. It combines state of the art technologies with a simple and intuitive design, which enables musicians to experiment with sound, change its structure, control its parameters and be creative in a direct and refreshing way, unlike anything you have ever known before.




The Reactable hard- and software delivers a robust object and finger tracking platform for the creation of tangible multi-touch interactive surfaces. The platform is based on computer vision using high quality industrial cameras which can track numerous tagged objects and finger touches on the interactive table surface. This surface is made of a specially engineered acrylic material, where the visual feedback is displayed using a short-throw projector inside the table. The full system is completely self-contained and only needs a single external 110/220V power-supply.

The core sensor component of the Reactable is the computer vision tracking software reacTIVision, which is capable of tracking a large number of tagged objects as well as multiple finger touches. We are offering this software together with our hardware or as a separate SDK for the rapid development of tangible multi-touch applications based on computer vision. This SDK includes the actual high performance sensor application as well as a series of example projects for various programming languages and environments that can serve as the starting point for custom projects.

from: reactable.com