260 Assignment 6

Assignment 6 : Toy Musical Instrument and Patterns

Due Date: TUESDAY, March 15

Find a toy musical instrument at a thrift store (that still works). This instrument can be any children's toy that creates musical sounds - such as toy keyboards, alphabet games, etc. Choose an instrument that is capable of being used effectively in a performance. For example, look for the following attributes:

• Make sure that you can actually control the stop/start of the sound
• Avoid instruments that don't let you "interrupt" a sound you have already triggered
• Choose instruments that have discreet sonic characteristics: i.e. notes, samples, etc, rather than songs or long spoken phrases
• Watch out for instruments with long start-up sounds

Once you have chosen an instrument, compose 3-4 repeating patterns that you can demonstrate to the class by actually playing them on the instrument.

Using ideas you have generated, we will work these patterns, either as is or altered by necessity given other people's materials, into a pattern-based composition.