Siftables Music Sequencer from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.
I’m really excited at how music and technology continue to merge in interesting ways. It really pleases my inner-nerd to discover a new musical gadget or gizmo. This time in the form of a series of chips or dominoes called “Siftables”, created by David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi at the MIT Media Lab. They react and feed off one another in real time as the user (or users) re-arrange their configuration and add to their complexity. Very much like the popular Cube World series toys. Cube World cubes feature small digital characters that live in small boxes and react to each other when closely arranged or shaken and moved. Siftables are a similar idea, only taken from a much more technically advanced musical approach. My imagination runs wild as I begin to fathom the future possibilities and uses of these little squares. From casual music creation, gaming or use as a social stimulant, these little computers have endless possibilities. I’ll be looking forward to their release to the public.
Here is the definition of Siftables from the Siftables website:
“Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them – piling, grouping, sorting – to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provides a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications.”
More info on -> Siftables.com
To purchase follow -> Taco Lab Blog for updates.
This is a really interesting concept, and I’m sure someone with true musical talent could take this technology and create something totally unique. Those people are few and far between though. Frank Zappa, were he still alive and given these “instruments” and sat in a room for 6 hours could probably create something extraordinary. He could pretty much do that with anything that produced sound though. It is still an instrument guided by human thought and creativity, same as any other instrument, just easier to play and harder to sound terrible at.
But it made me think of something I’ve always wondered about but don’t have a brain hard-wired to figure out. The first time I heard a song described as “formulaic” was a VH1 Behind The Music on Billy Joel when I was in college. I was with fellow SpinningMedium writer Scott Shapiro at the time. Neither of us had really given too much thought to Billy Joel’s music, it was catchy, the melodies had hooks, but lacked passion. It was surface-scratching music, nothing more. During that show they said critics called his songs “formulaic.” We both knew that was a very apt description. So obvious, but the music never demanded enough thought to actually label it as such
Then a couple weeks ago, a co-worker told me that Weezer front man and song writer, Rivers Cuomo, had taken Nirvana, Oasis and other popular bands and broken their songs down into a mathematical formula that would spit out an endless number melodies that people would like. It seems so plausible. After all, music theory is basically math.
Whether or not it’s true, only Coumo knows, there are plenty of articles to read if you google Rivers Coumo formula. But this video and technology reminded me of that. It’s just math being converted into music. Definitely a cool idea with possibilities for those with brains hard-wired for music, but probably just a cool toy for most people.