choir xylophone

Choir Xylophone

Interactive musical toy where playing xylophone leads into making people sing together
Medium&Tech: Video Projection, Sound, Max/msp/Jitter, Pic/Custom-built circuit, Wood/Metal

Elevator pitch
Choir Xylophone is an interactive musical toy that uses singer's visual image and sound to represent each note of the instrument. Each note comes with its own visual icon.

Playfulness of the Xylophone
Xylophone is a very common instrument that everyone seems to learn how to play at the kindergarten but would not end up being really good at it after all.
I admire the playfulness of the xylophone.
Tap on a metal and hear the sound. The harder you hit, the louder the sound gets.
I love it being so simple and direct. It is also very fun to play because it requires a physical action of hitting down the metals using the muscles.

Interactivity to the video and sound
Speaking from cliche, editing is often the most interesting and thrilling part when I make videos, because the whole story/mood could be totally different depending on how I put the small pieces together.
In this project, I wanted to give an interactive spin to the process of creating videos. By tapping on this instrument, users view the videos of singing people that they spontaneously put together.

User scenario

The harder users hit the metal, the louder the music plays and the bigger the image appears. Users also have freedom of bringing up different videos for each note by alternating between the three buttons given.

More photos from exhibition

View video from installation (.mov format / You need to turn on the speakers)
Xylophone in action #1 (708k / 00'17")

Read the past documentation of project development Choir Xylophone documentation

Technology
Choir Xylophone (made with metal and wood) is running on a custom-built electronic circuit (basic-programmed Pic Microcontroller and sensors). The instrument talks to a computer (software written with Max/MSP/Jitter) through Midi connection. It makes use of image projection and sound processing.

Exhibition history
ITP show: Winter 2003

This project is strictly copyrighted by Inhye lee.