* * *
I believe MACHINE SHOULD ADAPT TO HUMAN,
I believe MACHINE SHOULD ADAPT TO HUMAN,
INSTEAD HUMAN ADAPTING TO MACHINE.
* * *
Based on this perspective,
I’m designing a MIDI glove, that activates a range of sounds
I’m designing a MIDI glove, that activates a range of sounds
by tapping on different color surfaces.
WHY WEARABLE INSTRUMENTS?
Music is my hobby.
Wearable products can be more user centered.
They can learn the users, instead the users learning them.
Besides, I don’t think there is enough emotion in the GUI design.
In conventional product design,
designers can give more personal feelings even to their commercial works,
which makes their works creative and touching.
It’s not common for commercial interaction design.
So this time,
I want to design something following this philosophy,
“functional, aesthetic but also with designer’s personal emotion (the soul).”
SCENARIO & PROBLEM
Normally, people have to learn the instruments for a while, before they play them. Such as piano, the players have to remember the locations of the keys. For guitar, it will be more complicated. There’re 6 strings and more than 19 frets on a guitar. For generating pitches, the players have to use the fingers in their left hands to press the strings in different fret, and use the fingers in their right hands to stike the strings.
CRITICAL THINKING
Is the learning necessary? How to make the instruments adapt to the players, instead the players adapting to them? What’s the most natural and direct way for playing music?
INSPIRATION
My inspiration comes from tap dance. The dancers can tap their feet on any surfaces to play the beats, without learning their shoes (instruments).
It’s my goal, playing music without learning the instruments.
PROPOSAL
I put sensors in the glove. Wearing it, the player can naturally tap his/her fingers on anywhere to create the sounds. It’s much easier than playing piano or guitar. There’s only one glove for the left hand. But when tapping fingers on a different color surface, the glove can give another 5 pitches.
I use the Piezo sensors, Photocell sensor, Bluetooth module and Arduino
to make a wireless working prototype for the glove. The hardware is working with GarageBand, a software on computer, so it can generate sounds from many different instruments.
FINAL DELIVERY
POSSIBLE ITERATION
But when I finished and played, I found although it was easier to generate sounds than keyboard, it was hard to create music, as creating needed inspiration and coincidence (I believed). I could hardly break the music patten I had done, as I had gotten used to the sequence of tapping fingers. I just wondered whether I could design some instruments which were not only easy to use, but also could provide inspirations. So I designed another instrument.
As the natural way for playing music was not that helpful by the MIDI glove, I wanted to use an ironic way to design the new instrument. What is the life resource of a garden or plant? That’s light. So I want to use this “natural” way for playing. You can check this piece here, it is for my Pcomp final, http://dkaib.com/2014/12/14/music-garden-natural-play-pcomp-final/
Check the whole presentation at,
Check the documentation at,
