Scribble New Media Orchestra

The Scribble New Media Orchestra has been put together by Music Links in Kendal, Cumbria. Using a whole range of musical instruments, sessions are open to 13 to 18 year olds with the aim to have fun and make music. The Orchestra includes an Apollo Ensemble kit including the Ensemble16 and a range of switches, helping make music accessible to all abilities.

The project also makes use of the Mobile Interactive Lighting and Sound system designed in collaboration with KidsOut.

The picture (courtesy of the Westmorland Gazette) shows students from Sandgate School playing with the equipment - you can read the full story in this news article from the Westmorland Gazette.

IET Music Technology - Webcast

Music Technology Now and in the Future David M Howard Any arbitrary sound can be created using technology and of course, electronically created sounds can be used to make music. "Connecting" the player, composer or user into the sound creation system involves the provision of an interface with which a musician can make music in a performance situation. This lecture will consider the needs of the musician in terms of both sound creation, sound modification and sound real-time control and it will illustrate this with interfaces from the past and present as well as some that might well be seen in the future. >> go to webcast

Update
You can see the Ensemble in action at the following points during the lecture:

• 29min - Use of the Dice 
• 31min - Ensemble connect with four switches used to play drum sounds
• 33min - Dice playing chords with a slider connected to the Ensemble Hub
• 41min - Dice used to control a Digitech Vocalist over MIDI
• 43min - Single switch playing chords in a sequence, controlling the Digitech 

Music Technology now and in the future

The Apollo Ensemble will be making a guest appearance in the IET Young Professionals Event in London tomorrow night, as part of Professor David Howard's lecture 'Music technology now and in the future'.

David will be using the new EnsembleHub, together with an Ensemble Connect and Dice sensor, to allow the audience to join in with some demonstrations.

This marks the beginning of a long term collaboration with the University of York Department of Electronics, which will the see the Ensemble being introduced into the new BSc Music Technology course from September 2010.

The event kicks off at 6pm at Imperial College, London with a live webcast taking place on the IET website.

60 Minute Makeover in Stockport

Apollo was pleased to help out 60 Minute Makeover again by supplying an interactive bubble tube for a programme in Stockport.

The show, broadcast on the 26th April 2010, focuses on transforming the home of Michelle and Ian whose son Jake has cerebral palsy.

A 1.5m Interactive Bubble Tube was fitted by the designers as one of the features.

You can find a full list of suppliers for the programme here: http://www.itv.com/lifestyle/60minutemakeover/series7suppliers200910/stockport/default.html

Artists in the Archive

I've just been involved in a project with the artists from Geodesic Arts again, this time working with the York Museums Trust and Creative York.

The project has involved looking at artefacts in the Yorkshire Museum archive, specifically pieces from the Mesolithic Period. We've then had to create an installation for the studio space at York Art Gallery. You can follow the background to the project on the AITA blog and take a look at the process on the Flickr site.

The final exhibition uses one of the monitors (with PC, Ensemble and sensor) that were previously used for the Me, Myself and MRI project. This time the monitor shows some footage of an archive area filmed using timelapse over several days, and speeded up. When someone steps in front of the monitor, this is faded into one of the interviews that we carried out for the project.

 

I interviewed Nicky Milner (our Mesolithic expert), Andrew Morrison (Keeper of Archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum), James Watson (a flint knapper) and Ben (a PhD student) for the piece. The edited interviews are shown on the screen.

The Ensemble map makes used of the fader, video and variable sensor blocks. We are using an infra red sensor for distance detection, but this is quite noisy (electrically speaking) and is not terribly reliable. You can see me setting up the system in the image below.

Futurelab outdoor spaces workshop

I've been down in Bristol today for a workshop at Futurelab on re-imagining outdoor spaces for play and learning. Together with a group of other people from a whole host of other areas, we've been looking at how you can create exciting outdoor spaces, particuarly for use in new schools. This follows on from other work by Futurelab including the Fountaineers project.

A Futurelab publication will follow later in the year and I'll update this post to provide a link when it is available.

BSF at Knottingley High School

Today we were at Knottingley High School, near Pontefract, to demonstrate what new technology might be available for the building of a new school. This was part of an Inspiration Day for parents and pupils, who also had to undertake a series of activities.

BSF is a Government funded scheme to rebuild or remodel every state secondary school in the UK. Knottingley is just beginning the development of its BSF plans and wanted to inspire everyone at the school to think differently about what a school could be.

Apollo provided three themed areas for the day. I gave short introductions to each area and explained how they might be used to inspire learning. Everyone was able to explore the areas and ask questions later in the day. A separate session was also provided for all the teachers and support staff at the school.


The Theatre
Seen in the background of the image below, this was a simple theatre stage where sensors were used by performers to control the lighting, sounds and effects. The stage was setup for performing an exert from Macbeth, complete with smoking cauldron, eerie lighting and thunder crashes.

The chill-out zone
Designed for informal learning and to help relax students, this incorporated bubble tubes and soft play elements.

Interactive corridor
This was what we call a 'proof of concept' demo using Apollo Ensemble technology. Designed to address the issue of lots of lcd screens appearing around schools with very little relevance to students, the Apollo version identifies and responds to individual students. Using ID cards the monitor can tell which student is stood infront of it and repsonds by displaying useful information - the students photo and timetable, excerpts of recently handed-in work, audio prompts for the next lessons in the day, reminders of deadlines and so on.

The demo used some of the students pre-prepared data, but in the future would pull all this information directly from the schools computers. It also helps solve the problem of how work generated digitally can be displayed to parents and visitors.

Our thanks to:

• Camel Event Production for the lighting and effects rigging
• Futurelab for additional literature and background resources for the day