Don't Just Play Music. Be Music.
Problem Statement
The Problem
Music is a powerful form of self-expression that allows children to communicate emotions and sensations that cannot be put into words. As stimulating as music is for the mind and soul, operating a musical instrument can be rather unintuitive for young children. Playing guitar chords, for example, involves far more than simply strumming strings. Factors like proper elbow posture and correct finger placement are important yet complex techniques that can be too difficult for children to grasp. As a result, learning how to play instruments can take several years. This can be very off-putting for young children who are eager to dabble in musicmaking but lack the attention span and motivation to patiently sit down and practice proper technique
Our Goals & Vision
In an effort to facilitate the music-making process for young children, we propose a new tangible interface that eliminates instrument use entirely. Instead, our interface reimagines various parts of a user’s body as metaphoric representations of different instruments, allowing children to produce music with their own bodies. The ribs of a user’s bones, for example, are reimagined as the wooden panels of a xylophone while the beating of a child’s heart comes to represent the beat of a Cajon drum. By capitalizing on a child’s body awareness skills, our interface breaks down barriers imposed by difficult-to-learn instruments, and instead, makes music-making more intuitive. Ultimately, our interface encourages children to dive directly into the music-making process by experimenting with a series of simple, gestural motions.