SoundBlocks

SoundBlocks

SoundBlocks is a tangible environment where young users connect blocks to describe network dataflow. The environment explores digital sound manipulation as a personal, meaningful and fun artistic endeavor, rather than as a venture into mathematical, electronic or networking relationships.

Lead by their own curiosity, children can design their own sounds by exploring SoundBlocks. In doing so, they will indirectly learn about networks, mathematics and hardware synthesizers and sequencers. The environment will shift the child’s focus from the product of creation to the process of creation.

SoundBlocks was part of my Master’s Thesis at MIT’s Media Laboratory. I built SoundBlocks collaborating with colleague Andrew McPherson.

Similar Posts

  • Contrapuntal Composer

    Contrapuntal Composer is Prolog code which writes music for three simultaneous voices. Depending on initial parameters, it can write a fugue, a rondo, or any other contrapuntal form. Contrapuntal Composer obeys the rules of good voice leading within each voice and between the voices.

  • DoubleTalk

    Doubletalk, a two player audio-manipulation game was my first serious endeaver with the Gameboy. The game used the Pocketvoice, a Gameboy cartridge with a built-in amplified speaker and microphone. In Doubletalk, players record themselves, reverse their recordings, then try to guess what each other is saying.

  • Have a Seat!

    Have a Seat! is a playful interactive installation in which a video of a traveler of both time and space urges viewers to sit on a couch. When three people sit close together on the couch a special broadcast or snippet of The Muppet Show plays. Strangers coming to view the work find themselves uncomfortably…

  • Auralis

    Auralis is a musical instrument constructed from a multitouch table and custom software ported from my earlier touch wall Touch #2. Merging sound, interactivity, and sequencing, Auralis is simultaneously engaging, meditative and soothing. I created the work for youth ages 8-14. A virtual world of suns, stars and planets interact with each other. Participants run…

  • Ballet Wichita: Innovations

    As part of the Ballet Wichita’s Innovations performance April 2024 I teamed up with Wichita State University’s Shocker Studios to track a dancer live, reinterpreting their motions on a stage-sized display behind them. Wichita State University’s Fairmount String Trio accompanied the dance, performing Dohnányi’s Serenade. To track the dancer we used 3 Vive 3.0 trackers…

  • Strings, Kansas!

    In fall 2006 I launched an initiative at WSU called Strings, Kansas! A distance-learning-enhanced program, Strings, Kansas! connected WSU School of Music string students with 4th and 5th graders in communities without string programs. WSU string students created, designed, and implemented the curriculum for the 4th and 5th graders.