http://www.freep.com/article/20091209/N ... 1001/rss01
U-M students merge music with iPhone technology
I know the iPhone music app thing is not new, but whole accredited college classes from a major university based around itThe class: Nearly a dozen music and computer engineering students.
The semester's assignment: Create an instrument. Dream up a new sound. Write a tune. Weave it into an ensemble piece. Perform.
Materials: an iPhone.
Result? Think the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher (remember: Mwahh, mwahh) at a cocktail party.
"Everyone makes a totally different sound. They're not even related," said Devin Kerr, 23, a Brighton High School graduate who is now doing master's work at the University of Michigan.
His instrument, he said, sounds a bit like the teacher from Peanuts.
"Yeah, it's probably not the most pleasant music at first. You have to be willing to accept noise is a form of music," Kerr said, chuckling.
Then again, another piece is a subtle, mellow sound - performed on a darkened stage with lit-up iPhone screens. Each instrument is a different color, the sound fading and growing as the holder tilts them, he said.
Tonight, the first University of Michigan "Building an iPhone Ensemble" class — believed to be the first such class anywhere — will put on its premiere electronic concert.
The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble concert is scheduled at 8 p.m. at the Britton Recital Hall at U-M's School of Music, Theatre & Dance, 1100 Baits, Ann Arbor.
It's the culmination of a semester's worth of work in a new class under instructor Georg Essl, a computer scientist and musician.
Students were to build an instrument on an iPhone, programming the device to play back as sound the information it collects from sensors, like the touch-screen, microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer. Running fingers across the display or blowing air into the microphone, for example, can trigger the sound.
Kerr manipulates his iPhone, for example, by tilting it or shaking it.
By integrating computer science, engineering and art in an iPhone, musicians can stretch their imaginations and to experiment — even in impromptu jam sessions, Essl said. The platform makes music inexpensive compared to many instruments, and accessible to just about anyone, he said.
But don't expect tonight's concert on CD any time soon.
Essl laughs: "I'm a professor, not Motown."
. I don't have an iPod/iPhone yet, I've tried using them many times, and just can't get used to touchscreen and it properly functioning with my fingers. Anyone in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area can catch the performance tonight.
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