[Squeakland] Music and Squeak

[Alan Kay]

"Real Guitar" is ultimately more fun to learn and play than "Air 
Guitar" (and much better for all learners, especially children).

At 12:12 PM -0700 8/15/03, Doug Wolfgram wrote:
>I just got back from Tech Fest and was fortunate enough to spend 
>some time with Tod Machover of MIT Media Lab. I was completely 
>impressed with Toy Symphony's HyperScore program 
>(www.toysymphony.net) and have been composing music with it ever 
>since downloading it.
>
>Basically, it is an application that allows children to 'paint' 
>music. One does not need to understand music notation or theory. It 
>is all done visually and aurally.

And, to make an analogy, the invention of the tape recorder and other 
audio technology would allow children to just "paint their voice. One 
does not need to understand writing notation or the theory of how to 
use written language. Etc."

So, the other way to look at this is to try to understand why it 
might be beneficial for children to learn certain difficult arts: to 
read and write and do mathematics and play and compose music. What 
good is there in surmounting the difficulties of these arts? What are 
the real trade-offs here between ease of initial use and actual level 
of understanding after a while? Do we want a person+tool to be just 
the simple combination of the two, or do we want to qualitatively 
change the person for the better and the deeper?

Cheers,

Alan

>
>Then I though, this would be the PERFECT Squeak app.  My daughter 
>spent a bit of time with Tod's daughter (10 and 9 respectively) and 
>it would be incredible if they could collaborate in composition 
>efforts a la Squeak.
>
>Would anyone out there in Squeak-land be interested in talking to 
>the students who wrote HyperScore and look at porting it to Squeak? 
>Are there other music authoring applications that I am not aware of?
>
>D
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------
>'Marketing that Listens"
>------------------------------------
>Doug Wolfgram
>CEO - GRAFX Group, Inc.
>www.gfx.com
>www.aimprojects.com
>949.433.3641
>
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