U of Michigan plans an iPhone concert
The iPhone will once again prove that it is the ultimate versatile device at an upcoming concert at the University of Michigan, at which all the musicians will be playing, you guessed it, the iPhone.
Although perhaps not all of the instruments will be iPhones, a lot of them will be, and they will all at least be smartphones. The student ensemble is the end product of a special class at the University of Michigan which combines engineering practices, mobile phone programming, and sound synthesis with music performance, composition, and interactive media arts, all culminating in a night of music made with smartphones. The phones are combined with speakers worn around the musicians’ wrists to add amplification, with what a CNET article says are excellent results.
Georg Essl, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is teaching the somewhat unusual course. Essl says, “The mobile phone is a very nice platform for exploring new forms of musical performance. We’re not tethered to the physics of traditional instruments. We can do interesting, weird, unusual things.”
When the students take to the stage this week, they will be doing an odd sort of final examination, on stage in front of a large number of their fellow students and not a few faculty members. They have worked all semester to build their own custom iPhone apps, and by using touch screens, microphones, GPS, compasses, wireless sensors, and accelerometers, they create unique sounds when they run their finger across the display, blow air into the mic, or tilt or shake their phones.
Professor Essl says, “In order to come up with a creative piece, you have to engage with the technology, but in order to make technology interesting, you also have to engage with the musicality. These are really hard to separate. We’re trying to teach both.”
It promises to be quite a concert, and if it all works out as planned we can expect other professors to take up this same university tune.
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December 6th, 2009
My iPHone is great WHEN I am connected. But during sporting events (Ann Arbor, MI) and rush hours connecting is problematic. No service or slow service, dropped calls, no calls, no texting, etc.