iPad Geek Out: Merging tech and art

While the iPhone has already spawned several concerts composed of people using iPhones (such as the Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble), I've been waiting to play around with apps for the iPad that would allow myself as a dancer and musician to explore sound and music while getting geeky with it.

After passing my iPad over to Chris Pirillo with the plea, "Pimp my apps," he loaded Beatwave, and later texted me with the message, "Grab Granimator now, it's free!" [unfortunately, it's not free any more]. You can see Chris demo the Granimator on his Youtube video.

Beatwave app for iPad got me thinking. Why not set up a repeating pattern based on a the principles of western music (we like resolution or resolved dissonance), and then express those patterns through movement and dance?

Here's a quick video demo of how that works (wait for the Picture-in-picture video at 1:17).


Filmed at home using a Vado. Bose speaker.

With Beatwave, you can adjust the reverb, speed, tone, and you have four "pages" to work with, creating solos or muting a page of notations. Better yet, non-musicians have a perfect picture of a matrix-style representation of your musical creation. Though there are other apps that allow you to create musical patterns using keyboards or hitting objects with your fingers, I like Beatwave's sense of almost random generation by trial and error, and then the ability to share what you created with friends. You don't have to be a musician to create some cool stuff.

I did not create the music before turning on the camera, nor should you have to tell a person how to move when s/he hears a note. None of this was choreographed. Imagine what I could do with six to 10 people, line up across a stage, while I, the maestro, keys in notes on Beatwave, and I assign a note to each dancer. I could layer two or more people to take on the chords layered by my choices. One could create an entirely spontaneous stage piece, with dancers following simple principles related to sounds assigned to them. It's like an Etch-a-Sketch, only for space and time, and geeky people like you and I.

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