Building A Mobile Phone Ensemble

In the University of Michigan course, Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble, students are learning to design, build, and play instruments on their iPhones. The course is taught by computer scientist and musician Georg Essl, who has organized a public performance planned for December 9th in Ann Arbor. Essel comments on the evolving use of mobile devices as musical instruments:

The mobile phone is a very nice platform for exploring new forms of musical performance. We’re not tethered to the physics of traditional instruments. The touch-screen, microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer can all be transformed so that when you run your finger across the display, blow air into the mic, tilt or shake the phone, for example, different sounds emanate. We can do interesting, weird, unusual things.

The University of Michigan isn’t the only academic institution embracing the iPhone for artistic expression, Stanford has its own Mobile Phone Orchestra. Perhaps in the near future we’ll begin to see more of these mobile ensembles putting the iPhone’s flexibility to use.

[via University of Michigan]