Looking For A Program To Allow Disabled User To Play Rhythm Track
Hello, my name is William Caine, and I'm currently working with the Special Orchestra of New Mexico, a nonprofit organization dedicated to setting up and promoting music performance methods that allow Special Needs individuals to play organized music. Speaking less formally, it's the Special Olympics for music.
Currently, one of the people I am working with has severe cerebral palsy (as well as some notable but less relevant intellectual disabilities). He has an eyetracker and a tablet, and can effectively “type” using his eyes. The tablet uses Windows 7, and therefor can access a majority of software.
I've seen many cheap electronic keyboards that play a simple accompaniment piece, with the chords determined in real time by pressing the root of the chord on the keyboard. I'm looking for an software equivalent here, that would allow simple rhythm accompaniment in real time by clicking on the root of the chords. Because eye trackers are less precise and the child in question cannot realistically hold still, the clickable keys would need to be fairly large. I've found the looping software used professionally tends to be very complicated. Here, simplicity is very important.
However, try as I might, I've been unable to find such a program, and honestly have been unable to figure out how to word the question to make searching on my own feasible. I was hoping someone in this group had seen a program in their experience that matches what I am looking for.
Note: if you happen to have any interest in the Special Orchestra as a whole, here's a link to the method book. http://www.specialor...es/method03.pdf
Hi William, A simple mockup of that could be this,
Use the key object to input "key presses" from the tablet,
Send that to a vst~ object that hosts a midi accompaniment software like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9etfKQP8pA
I'm not sure how you would make a new interface for the eyetracker, I guess you would have to get that data to and from Max?
Actually, I'm not sure about that link...just searched "vst auto accompaniment".
It is possible to create your own midi accompaniment with max. Say build a custom sequencer that plays bass and chords using predefined patterns, that would respond to a single note press.
Hi
here is really very simple patch demonstrating the use of [hover], to detect when the cursor is over a script-named object, [makenote] to generate midi events, and [delay] to generate arpeggios.
I have a much more sophisticated and complicated patch for generating user-defined arpeggio contours, but it is perhaps beyond your needs.
Interesting work!
Brendan
hi William,
Not a max solution...but have you seen AUMI (for ipad)? As a portable eye/movement tracking app it's quite useful.
I'm guessing from your question that you're not a max programmer? If I'm wrong on that, you should probably check out Cyclops.
You might also be interested in what we're doing... http://eyemusic.org.uk/Education/mobilesensoryspa.html
David
You should also check out Barry Farrimond of the MUSE project who is working on a special orchestra project in the UK. He is working partly at the special needs school where I am based, Three Ways in Bath, and where David will soon be doing some workshops with Colourscape. Looking forward to it!
Hi William,
I'd like to recommend you project by Jean Haury, Jean Schmutz, György Kurtág Junior und Puce à l’oreille. It's called Bao Pao and consists out of a hardware controller called the magic wand and a software (to my knowledge is a Max Bases Software). The interface is very simple in usage - one movement is necessary. But it allows the musician to maintain control over the expression of a score that can be played with it.
Here is some more information about that:
http://www.gyorgykurtagjunior.com/research/bao-pao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC1xi-OTNSc
http://www.unapei.org/BAO-PAO-Kezako.html
It's partially in french...
Jan