News Cellphone software allows a musical jam

From New Scientist:

After texting, photomessaging, and web surfing, the latest cellphone talent is set to be enabling people to "jam" together to improvise music, say software engineers in London, UK.

The idea is the brainchild of computer interactivity expert Nick Bryan-Kinns and his colleagues at Queen Mary College. They have developed software that let will groups of people phone into a mobile number and work together to improvise short, looping tunes.

The QMC team hope people will be able to engage with their friends in the same way jazz musicians appear to "mentally connect" when jamming.

Their Java-based software, called daisyphone, looks like a floral join-the-dots puzzle. Unlike a musical stave's horizontal sequence of notes, the daisy's circular design "reinforces the looping nature of the music," says Bryan-Kinns.

The tempo is set by the speed at which a 'radar arm' rotates around the daisy. As the arm passes over coloured shapes placed on the dotted petals, musical sound samples - such as piano, flute or snare drum - are played.

More here

Pah! who needs all those expensive sequencers, instruments and other bits of musical paraphernalia, when a cheap Nokia will do!

 

Why don't they rather try to get a cellphone to work properly on the motorways instead of spending so much time and resource on this rubbish or develope something that is actually usefull, or try to lessen the radiation effects that phones produce. etc etc

/end rant