CofC Research Team Creates Computer-Based Instruments
June 13, 2012
CHARLESTON, SC – June 13, 2012 – This summer, computer science professor Bill Manaris, music professorYiorgos Vassilandonakis and students are building on the LaptopOrchestra that performed in 2010. Watch a video of the Laptop Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txS7awpCCh8&feature=plcp
Manarisand computer science students Dana Hughes and Kenneth Hanson aredeveloping software for creating many different types of computer musicinstruments. These instruments will have modern graphical userinterfaces, which will increase usability. Vassilandonakis will use theinstruments to compose andperform musical pieces.
“Ittakes years to master playing a guitar or violin, but thesecomputer-based musical instruments will be much easier for beginners toplay,” Manaris says. “We do not want to replace traditional instruments,our goal is to engage more people in musical performance. Plus, theyoffer versatility. They can be used by asingle performer or by multipleperformers in ensembles, like in a Laptop or iPad orchestra. There isalso the opportunity for a mixture of traditional instruments andcomputer instruments.”
Thesemusicalinstruments will be customizable to particular compositions or musicalstyles and may be used to perform music at impromptu musical happenings(such as at a party or a coffee shop), or be part of aformally-composed, avant-garde orchestral piece.
Thisproject, partially funded by the National Science Foundation andGoogle, is conducted in the context of the computing in the arts (CITA)major, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department ofComputer Science and the School of the Arts. CITA combines creativity,problem solving, and computational thinking through an interdisciplinarycurriculum of courses offered by computer science, music, art history,studio art, and theatre and four synthesis courses.
Manarisand Vassilandonakis have worked on other projects together, includingMonterey Mirror, a new interactive music performance system withartificial intelligence capabilities. The Monterey Mirror is anelectronic music generator, powered by computer programming, whichmirrors a human performer and can participate as an equal in a liveperformance. Watch a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCGzIg-73Tw
In 2009, Manaris and several of his students developed a hybrid internet radio / music discoveryplatform called Armonique (http://www.armonique.org<http://www.armonique.org>).Unlike other music discovery systems such as Pandora, Armoniqueidentifies aesthetic similarities from over 250 statistical patterns inthe music. These patterns are based on Pythagorean principles ofharmonic proportion. Watch a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbvm2MY5RI
For more information, contact Bill Manaris at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> or Yiogros Vassilandonakis at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.
