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Squeeze If You Love Music
TIME's Aparisim Ghosh produces sweet melodies with the help of a cushion
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CNN.
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In my teens, I frustrated the best efforts of two piano teachers and maybe half-a-dozen guitar coaches. As much as I love music, the only thing I really learned from them is that I'm absolutely no good at it. And yet, on a visit to Tod Machover's musical research unit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I find my hands producing sweet melodies, with little more effort than it takes to squeeze a kitchen sponge.
Which is almost exactly what I am doing. The musical "instrument" is, in fact, a small, pyramid-shaped cushion with a heavily embroidered (and garishly colored) cover. A thin cable connects it to a laptop computer, into which a few notes from a piano have been programmed. By pressing, slapping and squeezing the cushion, I can manipulate the sound emanating from the computer speakers.
The effect (on me anyway) is electrifying. It's almost as if I'm shaping the sound to my will, as though it were a malleable blob of dough. And I swear the music I'm making would put even the hirsute Yanni to shame. (I know, I know, a chain saw could do that, but still.)
Machover, a Juilliard-trained composer and self-taught scientist, believes his sound "shapers" will help children learn music more intuitively—without the tedium of formal lessons. Someday, musicians may even use these cushions to create tunes and symphonies. "Everybody can, and should, be a composer," he says.
Skeptical? Click here and listen to the electronic sounds I produced. Record company executives can call my agent.
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Squeeze If You Love Music
TIME's Aparisim Ghosh produces sweet melodies with the help of a cushion
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