Keyboard Instrument (KIns) Project Proposal

// everyone please feel free to add/remove/change things in here! This should be a continually developed document that states our goal, steps, features, etc. As we complete features we should come back to this document and strike through what we've done already so we can see how much we've accomplished :)

//Last update: 6/12/12

Goal: To create a digital instrument that is somewhat analogous to a real, physical instrument that is open source, free, very easy to learn and use, and can be a gateway to a deeper understand of both musical theory and digital audio.

Features:

Initial goals:

-sounds controlled by the computer keyboard completed

-able to play multiple sounds at once completed

-simple gui

-be able to switch between a few different instruments completed

-website that explains the goal and provides instructions on downloading and using

-a few tutorials on the website explaining the basics of how the instrument works

Stretch goals:

-ability to loop audio (press a button, play a melody, press the button again, and the melody will loop over and over)

-ability to record to both a common filetype (like a .wav file) and to a series of keystrokes

-ability to paste in a series of keystrokes into the gui and have the program play them back to you as a melody

-ability to distribute the program as an installable package, to eliminate the need for the user to compile it themselves
- ability to create own laptop orchestra by having some musical scores that allow multiple users to select different instruments and play an arrangement together (to improve timing, some networking functions might be useful)

Proposed steps to complete the project:

1. Do research on existing digital audio programs and refine our proposed list of features. We want to create something that is relatively unique, or at least is unique in its appeal to the beginner user base.
2. Make the KIns.

3. ???

4. Profit! (not really)

Changing the Face of Music: making your keyboard a musical instrument

Changing the Face of Music: Making your keyboard a musical instrument

             I view research as a process of examining society’s problems, and then look for ways to provide solutions for those problems. Research to me is never purposeless, but it always has an intrinsic goal to serve. After working on ChucK for the past few days and discovering how one can turn a computer keyboard into a musical instrument, I realized how this technique could be used to meet societal needs. Being an international student from a developing nation living in a developed nation now, I have a deep understanding of problems that could be in both developing and developed nations, and I continually realize that financial problems are not just a curse for developing nations—they exist in developed nations as well. Because many families and institutions barely make ends meet, musical instruments become luxuries to many. Many kids may even grow up without much knowledge of music, yet they are gifted and could do great in the field. As a way to curb problems of access to musical instruments, I thought it would be great if we could turn our keyboards into musical instruments. Instead of complaining about lack of money, we can enjoy the best of both worlds—our computers and the music. Even if the keyboard instruments may be so different from the real instruments, sparking an interest in any person about something may make it easier for that person to learn the real thing when exposed to it. Besides, this is a generation where people are doing things they have never done before, and breaking new ground, so this could be a dawn of a new era in music.

            There are also a bunch of other people who might not have garage band and other applications that play musical instruments on their computers, yet they love music, but they just cannot get off their computers to play an instrument, or the do not own an instrument. Such people could also benefit from the musical instrument models in ChucK.

What you need to turn your keyboard into a musical instrument

Beat Experimentation

I was reading about beats and interference, so I thought I'd try it out.

I created this infinite time loop program, and it plays around with beats. Try it out, it's pretty cool, and doesn't completely give you a headache.

Disclaimer: I owe most of the coolness of the output to the JCRev...

Reactions by Jan

After three days of reviewing tutorials and creating burps and hiccups and strangely cooing noises from the computers, today we concluded with a full do-re-mi of frequencies.  The experience has caused me to be more in tune with the ambient sounds around me throughout the day.  Computer music programming comes from

Thoughts/Brainstorming on Real-World Musical Creation with ChucK

//this post is just my own thoughts after having spent a couple days working with ChucK. I may update it in the future, or if I have new ideas after talking about these points with the other members of the group. Also it turned out very long. Sorry!

     I don't entirely understand the point of computer music.