Insight Faster (Episode 3)—Gestural Interfaces for Musical Composition with Chris Rhodes
Insight Faster (Episode 3)—Gestural Interfaces for Musical Composition with Chris Rhodes.
Chris Rhodes and working on gestural interfaces
We’ve all at some point, and with varying levels of embarrassment, played the air guitar. It’s the perfect instrument for those of us wishing to live the rock n’ roll lifestyle minus the dedication and talent needed to perfect a real instrument. But what if you could play the air guitar for real, with your movement creating sound a music based on how you chose to play. On the latest episode of Insight Faster I’ll be chatting to a researcher working with technology able to do just that, and far more.
Chris Rhodes works with Gestural Interfaces for Musical Composition at the University of Manchester. These gestural interfaces have the potential to realise our dreams of playing the air guitar, the air violin, or even the air bongos. More importantly, the technology has the power to unlock a fascinating new chapter in human–computer interaction and is the next step in the relationship between music and movement.
We’ll hear about how cutting-edge movement tracking technology can be combined with machine learning to create incredible sonic experiences, including the creation of new and augmented instruments that will change the way we consider understand music and composition. We’ll hear some of the music created with the technology and explore Chris’ own experience of a research project interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listen here
I’ve come away from our discussion convinced that gestural interfaces will play a fundamental role in not just the future or our relationship with computers, but in the future of music, composition, accessibility and even gaming. These futures will be innovative, accessible, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Here’s a link to some of Chris’ work at the Royal Northern College of Music (35:52 onwards).
Here’s a couple more:
- Chris Rhodes – “Semiconductor” | Unsupervised, FutureMusic #3
- Chris Rhodes – Duet for Violin and Biofeedback
- And a link to his larger portfolio.
- This is his Twitter feed.
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