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Student Orchestra Performs Music With iPhones
A course at the University of Michigan ends with a live concert featuring students using iPhones as instruments. “Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble“ teaches students to code musical instruments for the iPhone, using the Apple-provided software-development kit. Georg Essl, assistant professor of computer science and music, says, "What’s interesting is we blend the whole process. We start from nothing. We teach the programming of iPhones for multimedia stuff, and then we teach students to build their own instruments.”
... it does seem like a cool project for learning to program a multimedia app for the iPhone.
That said, why is it that people say things like this?
You could get skilled with the piano after years of practice, but imagine how good you’d be at playing an instrument you invented.
Yippee, you "invented" an instrument (what?). That means nothing, actually, in terms of skill, since a lot of skill at playing ... traditional, instruments, at any rate, has to do more with finger dexterity and the like, not knowing how the instrument works. Many skilled instrumental repair shops cannot play the instrument amazingly, even if they know more about it than the players that come in.
I kinda get the feeling that "electronic" instruments are seen as replacing traditional/acoustic instruments, at least in the minds of geeks/young people. I disagree. :)
"We start from nothing"...
By using the Apple-provided SDK...
I'm hoping it was heavy on the percussion.
Were they texting at the same time? Sexting?
Hearing 5 minutes of tonal variations of sine waves (assumed since I could only take 3 minutes of it) is just plain annoying.
Now if it had been the temporal overlapping of many different frequencies of tuning forks, that would be at least more interesting as it would take some skill during the performance.
... That you if you put few weeks into it and a whole class of students, you can achieve the same result as a cat stepping on a keyboard at home.
and you're done.
i feel kind of stupid now because I expected them to actually play some music...
I pressed "play", wondering if this performance would be on par with the recent revelation of crappy music created using nothing but ubuntu and wii-components, but it said that the video is currently unavailable. Being persistent and borderline OCD, I repeatedly clicked the button until moving pictures soothed the primal instinct that drives me. It started up and I thought, wow that's pretty damn professional, the visuals look great! ...
Turns out that was an ad, followed by "this video is currently unavailable".
...it so happens that I play the douchebag quite well, and even had some spare time on my hands...darn.
[user] performs [generic computing task] ON AN IPHONE!!!!!
At first I was excited and expected different iPhones set to play sounds of different instruments along with a piece that had some sort of melody or at least interesting harmonics. 5 minutes of variations on a sine wave was underwhelming.
Conceptually this is cool, but ultimately was a let down.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I REALLY do not see how this video is impressive at all. They play the same note and gyrate around. WOW!! Somebody call John Tesh. And why does it take like 20 people to demonstrate the 'One Note Instrument' on the iphone? Think maybe 5 people would have been enough? I expected these people to be playing different instruments (like in a real orchestra). So that they work together to play a song. Maybe a couple of group of woodwind iPhones, percussion iPhones, and some brass iPhones. When everyone is playing the same thing, then you might have an orchestra that would draw a 10 people crowd at the mall.
I'd rather see a guy play a song with just hands
Been done.
The hands are a wind instrument... I can do it, although I’m by no means as good as some.
Plenty of videos exist on YouTube but I can’t remember what exactly you must search for to find them.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
this was like the stupidest thing they could have possibilbly ever done. iphone bands are easy with drumkit, and the entire smule series of applications.
Reminds me of this ad for AT&T.
Trace Bundy does the live iPhone musical performance better, IMO. It also helps that he's obviously not taking himself too seriously, as the performers in the above video seem to be doing. iPhone music is an amusing gimmick, but not a serious musical art.
Do not read this sig.
this is not music and it sounds like absolute shit. pick up a real instrument.
So idont could??
Computers now do what they are programmed to do when the user uses the specified input device in a specified way!
of what music will sound like in hell. I just sat there waiting for them to get to the part of the song that was pleasing to the ear, but it never came.
my opportunity to freely express myself with the potential persecution and hangings and such
that this is an illustration of the deterioration of education is western societies.
"The laws of science be a harsh mistress." --Bender
...that was really awful.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Saw this on Wired this morning. I thought it sounded kind of neat. I noticed they're at Michigan, where I work. I noticed they have a concert next week, and thought that might be interesting to attend.
Then I watched the video. My goodness. I don't know that I've experienced music quite so awful since I accidentally made an errant mouse click and bought a Miley Cyrus album. I'm not sure what I was expecting... maybe emulation of real orchestral instruments... but what I can only describe as post-modern atonal ambient droning is definitely not something I'm going to be adding to my iTunes library anytime soon.
I had my subwoofer on, and didn't have to take my prescription laxative today...
I think I could generate better music by stepping on a cat or other small animal. Just awful.
http://www.vodafone.co.nz/symphonia/
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
I guess chant doesn't count as music to you, since that usually consists of people singing the same notes.