I may not have made the cheerleading squad...but I'll be darned if I don't make it into the Marching Band
Interactive Designer, Matthew Irvine Brown, has come up with a whimsical and practical application called Rehearsal Joypad for beginning musicians to hone their musical talents through the magic of Marching Bands.
Brown is of the "practice makes perfect" school of thought and he created a series of wonderfully abstracted marching band insruments, including the cornet, french horn, trombone and everyone's favorites, the Sousaphone and Euphonium. These practice instruments are to be used with an accompanying video game of a marching band marching their way down Main Street, USA.
The game uses familar music game interfaces where the players precision in following the music is reflected in the precision of the marching bands performance. By playing the game repeatedly, the player can effectively learn the basic scales and fingering before moving onto the real instrument.
And the music for the game is based on the works of 19th century composer William Rimmer whose compositions are strikingly similar to Nintendo classics such as Super Mario Brothers and Zelda. To hear a sample song from the game, click here.
The Rehearsal Joypad won Brown First Prize in the 2006 Student Awards at the Royal College of Arts, London.
Links to this post:
Pop!Tech
is a one-of-a-kind conference, a community of remarkable
people, and an ongoing conversation about science, technology and
the future of ideas. Visit poptech.org
for more.
Free Content:
With the help of ITConversations, you can now download virtually all of Pop!Tech's extraordinary ideas and presentations for free! Listen to virtually all of the 2005 and 2004 conferences on your computer, or on the go.
Blog
Roll:
Chris Anderson's The Long Tail Links
: RSS Feed:
Kevin Kelly
Jonathan Coulton
Bruce Sterling
Transtudio
Baba Baba
Ze's Page
Thomas Barnett
Ask A Ninja
My Heart's in Accra - Ethan Zuckerman
Core77
Kottke
Cool Hunting
Treehugger
Douglas Rushkoff
Z+ Blog
Solar Electric Light Fund
World Changing
Christian Science Monitor
Cassini Imagng Lab
Pop!Tech Giving
You can get our RSS feed here.
Music We're Listening To:
Jason Moran - Artist in Residence
Yungchen Lhamo - Ama
Jonathan Coulton - Smoking Monkey
Reggie Watts- Simplified
Rodrigo y Gabriela- Rodrigo y Gabriela
Books We're Reading:
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
by Alex Steffen
Edited Speaker Alex Steffen, co-founder of Worldchanging.com, this team of top-notch writers includes Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity, Geekcorps founder Ethan Zuckerman, Pop!Tech curator Andrew Zolli, and many others.
Transmaterial
by Blaine Brownell
Featuring nearly 200 of the most cutting-edge new products not included on this website, complete with manufacturer info, environmental data, applications, types/sizes, limitations, etc.
Around the
Web:
Photos
from Flickr
Posts from Technorati
Who's
Blogging:
Andrew
Zolli
June
Sung
Contact Us!
Where
We Are:
Add yourself to the Pop!Tech map:
