Posts Tagged ‘ACID’

jam2jam xo breaks the 10,000 download barrier in 2 months. http://tinyurl.com/3a4j9cf Congratulations to Thorin Kerr for putting smiles on the faces of children all over the world.

Reviews: Jam2Jam does many of things that make the XO such a powerful learning device - rather than being built around students doing their own thing, its centred on group sharing. I’ve found that quite apart from the music side of things, its great just for teaching students co-operation and listening skills. The included sounds/samples are a bit limited and electronic, but good enough to allow the virtual ‘bands’ to get going.Rated 4 out of 5 stars by jnxyz on May 24, 2010

Thorin Kerr demonstrates a reggae groove using jam2jam on OLPC. With this program we are wanting to emphasise the cultural fluidity of the content so that when new communities play with jam2jam the content they can play with will be one that they value and can be expressive with. Thorin’s work with OLPC is showing that we can put very different content on jam2jam for OLPC so that when it goes to communities around the world we can use content from that place that resonates and engages. Jam2jam research began like this when we asked Afro American kids in Ohio what kind of music they liked and then made generative styles based on those preferences. Whilst most of our styles are what we might call ‘Pop or rock’  we can do anything from abstract electronica to Bach or Xenakis or any tuning and rhythmic system. The ethics of musical content is an important consideration and we hope to place these choices in the hands of the users in their own communities to select and make.

The Jam2jam OLPC Crew: Steve Dillon, Thorin Kerr & Andrew Brown

See jam2jam for OLPC on the World News

Thorin Kerr Demonstrates jam2jam for OLPC using a Country and western style with web cam images. This shows the extended functionality of network jamming with both music and images DJ/VJ. This will enable users to jam collaboratively with OLPC instruments in real time and also capture images.

Whilst the sound on these little machines is only heard through the tiny inbuilt speakers through headphones or a stereo the sounds are lovely samples.

Download report click here

Thorin Kerr development programmer for ACID’s Network Jamming project has developed a unique approach for using the One Laptop Per Child OLPC XO ccomputer as a musical instrument. Jam2jam presents a band or ensemble metaphor for collaborative  music making with computers. Thorin and the  Network Jamming team have developed a suite of software applications that allow  novice users to plays the computer or a controller as an instrument in a live real time ensemble. For the XO Thorin has made good use of the Sugar environment to create a network jamming experience. Players can use bass, guitar, drums and keyboards by simply moving the arrow keys  horizontally and vertically. These gestures affect a pitch and density algorithm and  a musical style and sound samples for each instrument.

Jammers can then play together by joining the jam host and their instruments syncronise over the Mesh network.

What is exciting about this is that each  computer acts as a single instrument and the Jammers can play collaboratively as aband or ensemble in real time. The idea of  the computers as a distributed intelligence rises up in the design whilst it provides an experience design that activates the collaborative energy of music ensemble collaboration and creative improvisation.

We are looking forward to developing some visual features suing the inbuilt camera and engaging  interested musicians in developing some Jam scenes as musical styles with new midi files and instrument samples alongside some recipes for jamming.