The University of Michigan is using iPhones to create a new form of music. Ā Check it out!
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TheĀ Michigan Mobile Phone EnsembleĀ is one of several university orchestras that has foregone traditional instruments in favour of music applications, downloaded on toĀ Appleās iPhone, to play songs.
The musicians took a course at the university, entitled āBuilding a mobile phone ensembleā and learned how to create instruments on their iPhone. The instruments are played using a combination of gestures, including tapping the touch-screen and blowing in to the microphone.
The instruments also use the phoneās built-in GPS, digital compass and accelerometer, which knows which way round the device is being held, to produce a certain note depending on whether it is being tipped or shaken.
The iPhones are attached to speakers, worn around the musiciansā wrists, and the instruments produce a combination of familiar and unusual sounds.
Georg Essl, the computer scientist and accomplished musician who taught the course, said iPhone music was still āin its infancyā.
āBut itās a hot and growing area to use iPhones for artistic expression,ā he said. āThe mobile phone is a very nice platform for exploring new forms of musical performance. Weāre not tethered to the physics of traditional instruments. We can do interesting, weird, unusual things.
āTo make technology interesting, you also have to engage with the musicality.ā
One of the techniques used by the students is to turn the iPhoneās microphone in to a wind sensor. Players can blow into the microphone, much as they would a flute, to produce āsoundsā using iPhone music apps such as Ocarina.
The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble is one of several orchestras using iPhones to make music ā there are similar groups at Stanford University in the United States, and at colleges in Germany and Finland.
The 20-strong ensemble is playing a one-off free, public concert at the University of Michigan on Wednesday evening.
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