Compression, Concreteness, and Concurrency
Here's a different way to describe the sources of the ThumMusic System's benefits.
- Compression: By notating and controlling intervals (i.e., ratios between frequencies) instead of pitches (i.e., log representation of frequencies), musical information is compressed by a factor of approximately 12, as the music of all 12 keys shares a single representation.
- Concreteness: Anchoring abstract tonal relationships in the concrete geometry of a specific isomorphic keyboard facilitates makes these concepts tangible, facilitating interactive learning and the formation of mental models.
- Concurrency: Exposing the consistent patterns of music to the senses of sight and touch, at the same time that they are exposed to hearing, engages more of the student’s brain in the learning process.
I don't know enough about cognitive psychology to cite references as to the importance of these factors (your suggestions would be welcome!), but it seems intuitively obvious that they out to have a synergistic cognitive impact.
Labels: music education, ThumMusic System
posted by JimPlamondon | 10:30 AM
2 Comments:
Would you say that these are trade-offs or strict improvements?
For example, the unique fingering of a specific key on the piano keyboard may have contributed to the composition of a particular bit of music that might have been less likely to have been chanced upon if the composer were using a Thummer.
The flip side, of course, being that the Thummer will likely inspire music that would have been less likely to have been composed on a piano.
Each musical control interface makes some musical idioms easier, and some harder. Composers delight in exploiting the unique idioms of each instrument, and in pushing each instrument to its technical limits. Some pieces are easier on the piano than the guitar, while others are vice versa. The same will be true for the Thummer. The Thummer can't be expected to out-piano the piano, out-guitar the guitar, or out-whatever whatever.
However, the Thummer's unmatched expressive potential will enable it to reproduce some instrument-specific idioms with remarkable fidelity. One could use a thumb-operated joystick to execute a pitch bend that closely simulated a trombone's portamento, to use a simple example. But there will nonetheless be some idiomatic effects, such as partially opening a trumpet's valve to facilitate a portamento, that will be hard for anything but a trumpet to control.
Let's say that you were to study trumpet-playing enough to master 80% of its effects, and call that "one unit of effort." This investment would yeild the ability to produce ONE instrument's timbres & effects -- the trumpet's -- to an 80% level.
Investing that same unit of effort in mastering the Thummer, on the other hand, would allow you to control the timbres & effects of essentially ALL traditional instruments to the same 80% level -- a much higher return on investment.
Furthermore, the Thummer is sufficiently easier to learn (especially if using the ThumMusic System) that the same single unit of effort should result in a higher level of skill and knowledge than it would when invested in any other instrument.
Then, of course, there are musical idioms that are unique to the Thummer, such as Dynamic Tonality. Just as the Thummer can't be expected to out-guitar the guitar, no other instrument will be able to out-Thummer the Thummer.
Inevitably, it's a trade-off. There is no perfect product -- but that's OK, because diversity is an inherently good thing. The Thummer will always be one option among many -- although the Thummer will hopefully prove to be such a simple, cheap, powerful, and unique option that it will become "every beginner's first instrument, and every musician's second." ;-)
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