Marble track music sequencers for children

Authors:
Thomas Fischer;Wing Lau
Affiliations:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China (SAR);The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China (SAR)
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2006 conference on Interaction design and children
Year:
2006

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Abstract

We discuss the development of electronically enhanced construction kits for marble tracks that act as music sequencers for music education of young children. Marbles rolling along the tracks trigger sound events to produce the playback of musical notes and songs. Re-arrangeable tangible elements correspond to timing, durations and pitches of notes and thus allow electronic music sequencing by means of haptic programming. This approach to early music education separates the different tasks of melody making and instrument manipulation, aiming at faster success and fewer frustrating learning experiences. We present two marble track designs: an earlier one, which is based on a central synthesizer and a system-wide communication bus and a second one based on multiple decentralized synthesizer units. We discuss previous work in the field of machine-readable models and haptic programming and report on experiences with both sequencer designs including user tests of the second design.