mouse on your ring finger!

[shorthair]

Holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---! I must've been psychically picking up on the magic mouse thing, cos just yesterday or the day before I was thinking of this very kind of thing. Zoinks! (Not that I think I'm the first to think of it - I mean, Minority Report, hello...as well as much earlier SF stuff - but I just happened to be thinking of it easily being possible so why hadn't anyone done it? Could be great for spinner and trackball games!)

One Ring to Rule Them All: a 3D Mouse Ring
By Bruce Sterling May 27, 2007 | 4:22:36 PM
Link: CADwire.net - News > 3D Mouse Through Hand Waving.
"The MagicMouse is a true 3D mouse. Users can move the cursor about the screen simply by pointing and moving their index finger. Zooming is achieved by moving the hand nearer to or farther from the screen. Since both actions can be done simultaneously, the mouse makes it possible to work easily in three dimensions to pan and zoom through 3D maps, for example, or manipulate objects in computer-aided design (CAD) drawing packages. The mouse could also make game play more realistic and interactive, much as the novel 3D remote on the new Nintendo Wii game console has done. For more routine applications, like word processing and web surfing, the WPI students note that controlling a computer with hand gestures should make computer use more intuitive..."

http://www.wpi.edu/News/Releases/20067/popsciaward.html

[polaris]

if you get any lottery numbers coming through id appreciate a PM

[shorthair]

polaris: sure thing.

Here's something:

For example, the report states that the mouse could be used to train students to conduct an orchestra, or even play music, with hand motions controlling pitch, tempo, and volume.

Another example of geeks who know ---fudgesicle--- all about music. First off, these kinds of gadgets have been around for years - again, see VIRTUAL REALITY - second, waving a baton around has almost nothing to do with music, even if it you are counting tempo and stuff. Sheesh.

[polaris]

too right shorty.
if it could teach me to read full scores at playing speed , then i'd be interested, i can already wave my hands about convincingly enough

[shorthair]

Soon they'll have ways to impregnate information straight into your brain. You won't need to be able to read score, cos as with a musical tune you have in mind, where you can go to any point and play it however you want, whatever speed, etc...at least I can in cases...you'll know exactly how it reads and then be able to conduct that score in your mind at whatever tempo, etc, desired.

[polaris]

Soon they'll have ways to impregnate information straight into your brain. You won't need to be able to read score, cos as with a musical tune you have in mind, where you can go to any point and play it however you want, whatever speed, etc...at least I can in cases...you'll know exactly how it reads and then be able to conduct that score in your mind at whatever tempo, etc, desired.

not soon enough for me, what do you play then mate

[shorthair]

No doubt. Only reason I passed my theory classes - and I had the advantage of the instructor liking me - was I internalised his system in application to hearing music...cos I still can't read.

Started off singing and playing electric guitar - metal. Studied music a few years later also taking chorale classes. Very little keyboard facility as, in both instruments, I've never played anyone else's stuff. (Well, an occasional ---smurfing--- off with a lick here or there of Priest, Maiden, Metallica, or Zepplin - but never learned the whole song. Mainly just created and played my own stuff.) Now, when warming up, I often play non-tonal improvisations. Most of my guitar (still a metal type of tone) is tertian but non-tonal.

[polaris]

I often play non-tonal improvisations. Most of my guitar (still a metal type of tone) is tertian but non-tonal.

help me dude, me no understand this , ive only been learning a few years my theory is poor.

i can play by ear but would rather read and learn a piece as its quicker for me that way even though im slow at reading im slower at working it out, but in fairness ive only had about 30 lessons in three years so time will tell i hope. piano BTW. i love it. im auditioning for a ska band as a singer soon which i hope goes well. quite fancy getting a drum kit too.

[shorthair]

Tertian refers to harmony - ie, chords arranged in thirds...of which the bulk of the western world is still most familiar with. Of course, there's not a lot of structural sophistication to popcul music, but a fair bit of it - mostly older - is enjoyable. This is where you get into the concept of key. (And whatever you've heard, whatever anyone here who might be reading this has heard, it is NOT all derived from C major - or, C...lower case is minor.)

I suggest you get a keyboard chart, the folks at any music store that sells sheet music will know, and a book of decent melodies, and learn them for each hand. Next, go here and see if you can't scare up his Intro to Theory book and workbook. That'll get you started.

You get proficient enough, and you'll know what a piece at least generally sounds like just by looking at the score. Arnold Schoenberg, like Bach, wrote at a table. He diverged from Bach in that he had little if any keyboard facility, and only some on violin.

[polaris]

tertian, yes that makes sense, i should have worked that out.
sorry shorty im selling myself a bit short to be honest, im about grade 4/5 level at the moment, but i do eventually want to get my grade 8 so i can teach and do virtuoso study, but its a while off. i just wish i could pick up the reading speed, it takes me a while to plough through reading it til i can enjoy playing it .once i start being able to play it i never read it again which is a bit lazy of me.
cheers for that link , not seen it before.

[shorthair]

This sounds a little like my theory instructor in that he wasn't really taught the fundamentals of music till he hit college. Before then it was, each time, learning from scratch. I think he was a genius and wonder why he didn't figure it out on his own, but I think that his experience was so conservative and he was very 'law-abiding' that he mostly kept with what he was told to do. Till college, where he experienced so much - this was the 60s, afterall - that he broke a bit out of that.

Really, five basic things about western music and anyone should know what they're hearing.

[polaris]

youve hit the nail on the head there , its a confidence thing with me, i need to really understand it to be happy, though im sure i could play without the study, i just want the complete picture. strangely ,in my lessons i would notice mathematical patterns in the music which completely baffled my teacher, but i dont kmow ultimately if its any use

[polaris]

Something worthless out of WPI?  What a surprise.

sorry jim, what you on about, whats WPI?

[shorthair]

No idea, either. polaris, it's hard to say about what you saw. There is a set theory for music, though it's more helpful in non-conventional harmony as the structural conditions are generally based in the pitch sets, vs earlier music using sonata form and ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. But similar stringence underlines conventional harmony. In a sense, Bach is more like 12-tone music, even though (or perhaps because) much of it is fugal.

Once you see, you'll ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- your pants. Really try to get a copy of Solomon's beginning books. They're the most comprehensive and effective, yet concise, texts out there I'd bet.

[polaris]

ill give you an example, learning arpeggios ,four octave on a piano you emphasize every fourth note from the first , 1st 5th etc , it just struck me that in doing so you were emphasizing a broken chord with that pattern. nothing major ,my teacher just commented i saw things a different way to him.

[shorthair]

Well, he's right. It's not necessarily trivial, but it isn't relevant to beginning tertian harmony, which is mostly diatonic. Chromatic harmony I totally dig - I mean, I dig 12-tone and know it for what it is - and there are ways to learn from there....but you need to either be a Scriabin, or have one (or Karlheinz Stockhausen, perhaps) for a teacher.

[shorthair]

I was under the impression polaris is in, from, and schooled in England. Americans borrowed names from the brits - Cambridge, etc.

[polaris]

I was under the impression polaris is in, from, and schooled in England. Americans borrowed names from the brits - Cambridge, etc.

i was schooled in and am from Wales, just to the left of england.
i think jim is referring to the place that did this research your on about, sounds like the equivalent of oxford brookes uni , its in oxford but its not the same as oxford university.

[shorthair]

aoohhh. Okay.

[RayB]

Bill Gates said "4/4 ought to be enough for anyone"

[shorthair]

OH, there's plenty of people, including Schoenberg and his pupils Berg and Webern (that's Vebern), who've written highly chromatic works in 4/4. The rhythms, however, most people can't feel...let alone count. It's actually very common for composers to use it as it's easy to write over the bar line...though Stockhausen's Kontra-punkte is a VERY strictly notated (all parametres), sorta quick, 3/8. Try to count it, though. (Oh, and it's second-generation 12-tone.) And, yet, the pulse is very apparent. It's a personal favorite.

Strange that I was thinking of this response, probably for this thread, a few days ago, and now I've gotten to use it. See, very possibly psychic.