Alex Ruthmann will give his first talk at Ircam
on Wednesday, January the 15th, à 12AM.
Designing Creative Web Environments for Musical Play and Learning
The NYU Music Experience Design Lab (MusEDLab - https://musedlab.org/) has focused its work since its founding in 2013 on collaboratively designing new web-based creative tools and experiences for musical play and learning. Recent developments in web-based audio and MIDI technologies provide the backbone for the design of new creative music making experiences accessible to audiences, schools, and youth to experience on their phones, tablets and computers at home, at school, and anywhere there is internet access. Focusing on the design space between the preschool xylophone and Apple’s GarageBand, the MusEDLab has partnered with musicians, cultural organizations, schools, young people, and industry partners in collaboratively designing new interfaces and experiences for musical play and learning. Creative music tools such as the MusEDLab aQWERTYon and GroovePizza have been used by over 1 million users around the world, supported by collaborative education projects such as PlayWithYourMusic.org, an open web-based music production MOOC created in partnership with Peter Gabriel and the MIT Media Lab; MathScienceMusic.org in partnership with Herbie Hancock and the US Department of Education; and the Variation Playgrounds project commissioned for the New York Philharmonic’s Young Peoples Concerts. This presentation will introduce and briefly demonstrate selected MusEDLab creative web tools, present the processes of their design and development with special focus on how they provide opportunities for creative play and expression and embed freedoms and frictions for learning and engagement.