For more than three years, behind the glass walls of the renowned Media
Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Tod Machover and his
merry band of students have been building music toys.
If that brings to mind images of kindergartners clapping wooden blocks and shaking dried gourds, don't flee just yet.This is MIT, after all. And Machover's merry band is none other than the Opera of the Future group, the special research unit within the Media Lab that has made its reputation inventing mind-stretching musical interfaces.
This is the team that created the ghostly "hypercello" played most famously by Yo-Yo Ma — one of several so-called hyperinstruments that use sensors and computer technology to add extra dimensions of nuance and expressiveness. Initially, these advanced instruments were intended for virtuosi; the group also created a hyperguitar for Peter Gabriel and, more recently, a hyperviolin for Joshua Bell.
Over time, however, Machover began to wonder if his team's inventions might work in reverse — so that a pure novice could experience a level of musical expressiveness that would normally take years of training and study to achieve.
As a Juilliard-trained musician and composer, Machover knows first-hand how hard it is to play an instrument. He practically curses the process. "Physically they are difficult to master because of the way they are built," said Machover. "And there's all this technical information — learning to read notes, learning about harmony, counterpoint — all the rules of music. Most people don't have time to learn this, and many are incredibly intimidated."
These technical barriers are especially daunting for children, and Machover began to wonder what would happen if they could be removed — especially since children are at a stage in life when musical curiosity is at its peak.
His solution: create a new breed of hyperinstruments — "Music Toys" — that would use technology to allow young players to experience the most gratifying moments of music making: the act of heartfelt musical expression. Perhaps, with the help of some musical training wheels, a child's imagination might get fired up enough to explore a deeper relationship with the art form, and from there, find the will to slog through the rigors of more traditional musicianship.
After three years of toiling in the lab, Machover's team rolled out its first generation of training wheels last April. The effort had come together as a Media Lab project called Toy Symphony, and the project made a spring season debut at concert halls in Berlin, Dublin and Glasgow. Children in each city joined orchestras onstage, giving audiences their first look at the Media Lab's exotic new Music Toys: the Beatbug and the Music Shaper.
It must have been a long look. Beatbugs are shaped like, well, big bugs, with
hard plastic shells and two long antennae. Plugged into a computer, the
palm-sized creatures come to life; with a few whacks to the back, the Beatbugs
pump out complex rhythms and flashes of light. Players alter timbre and pitch on
the fly by tweaking the Bug's bionic antennae.
Beatbugs are especially wild when networked. The Beatbug musicians can synchronize their rhythms, take over each other's sounds, and even "toss" their beats across the stage from one Bug to another.
The plush Music Shapers offer a softer, more ethereal experience. They can be round, triangular, or even shaped like butterflies, but Shapers are always wrapped in colorful embroidered fabric that gives them the look of luxurious pillows. Surprises are embedded in the instrument. The embroidery is made from conductive thread, so the Shaper can sense where the player's fingers are touching, and how much pressure is being applied.
"The nice thing about Shapers," Machover said, "is that we can put in any sounds we like." Thus, with a gentle squeeze, a flute can gradually become a voice and then morph into a whoosh of wind or an artificial electronic sonority — all controlled by the player.
Beatbugs and Shapers are impressive enough as novelties, but at the Toy
Symphony debut, the instruments were showcased as part of a serious artistic
endeavor. Each performance was a full-scale concert, with professional
orchestras led by Kent Nagano and Gerhard Markson, and a guest appearance by
Joshua Bell on hyperviolin.
Still, the stars in each city were the young Music Toy prodigies — the 150 local children who, in the weeks leading up to each concert, had attended intensive Toy Symphony rehearsals and workshops.
For many of the children, Toy Symphony was their first formal experience with music. Suddenly, with just a bit of training, they were onstage, alongside a professional orchestra, playing challenging compositions on their Beatbugs and Music Shapers and singing choral roles that, to a BBC Music Magazine reporter, "had rhythms and melodies as complex as Stravinsky's." A select few even had their compositions performed by the professional orchestra — compositions the children had created on a new Media Lab software program called Hyperscore.
While it's too soon to know how Toy Symphony may have impacted its first generation of youthful participants, Machover's sense of mission hasn't ebbed. During the next twelve months, the professor hopes to take the Toy Symphony project to other cities in Europe, Asia and the United States, and build upon what his team has learned. (A U.S. debut with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is slated for April of 2003.)
All of the gadgets that he and his team have produced, Machover says, are
means to a larger end: challenging the dominance of passive entertainment. "Art
isn't necessarily the most important thing in the world," he said, "but I think
creativity is. The ability to understand what's special about us as people and
to find our own solutions to problems on a day-to-day basis is what makes the
difference between people who can grow throughout their lifetimes and people who
don't."
