ThumMusings

Bringing the user interface of music-making into the 21st Century, and changing the world... one note at a time.

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Name: ThumMeister
Location: Austin, Texas, United States

In the late 1980’s, I tried to write insanely great code for the Mac and help others do so, too. When Windows swept through the Valley in 1991-2, I realized my great code would become worthless if the Mac platform sank. I became very interested in knowing how to spot winning platforms. Since Microsoft clearly knew how to make its platforms succeed, I joined its Systems Strategy Group. While designing and executing practical "technology evangelism" campaigns, I studied the theory behind the practice, eventually teaching mandatory "how-to" seminars to Microsoft's new evangelists. I left Microsoft in 2000, looking for a new industry to disrupt. When my wife quit her piano lessons after six months of diligent practice, saying that “music is just too hard,” I knew I’d found it. Hammering the Web relentlessly, I found a novel combination of old ideas which could make music dramatically easier to teach, learn, & play, more emotionally expressive, and expand the frontiers of tonality. This blog tells the story of my bringing those innovations to market.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Online Thummer

A team of students at Curtin University recently completed a project in which they implemented an "Online Thummer"(tm). You go to their web page, use your computer keyboard as if it were a Thummer keyboard, and voila! You can test-drive the Thummer's note-layout online.

That's not just cool -- that's bitchin'.

Any Online Thummer's polyphony is inevitably limited by your computer keyboard's implementation. Some keyboards support only allow certain combinations of button-presses at a time, some keyboards allow other combinations. My laptop's computer keyboard allows all of the major & minor triads in root position, but any 7's or extended chords.

I've asked the student team (a) to add an "about box" describing themselves and their project, and (b) to add the resulting Online Thummer to Thumtronics' web page. I'll make another post when and if this gets done.

Well done, y'all!

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