Introduction
The MotionKit project was born from the encounter between BrainModular and La Muse en Circuit and this ascertainment: there are now few digital tools to facilitate the discovery of music creation and they are often technically outdated. Their uses are limited by restrictive interfaces or complexity and do not make them accessible to many people (children, teachers and educators, autonomous teenagers). La Muse en Circuit - National Music Creation Center - has extensive expertise in digital sound creation and in the contemporary music transmission practices. Its educational work has always relied on consumer technology and on tools intended for daily use, with the absolute necessity of efficiency and reliability.
The BrainModular Company has been developing the Usine Hollyhock software for twenty years, based on the same goal: offering professional users a reliable tool for musical practice on stage and interactive installations. If Usine software, qualities are numerous, two characteristics are particularly attractive.
For amateur practices, its handling is very fast and it can be driven or interact with most industry interfaces (networks, MIDI interfaces, Leap Motion, joysticks, Wiimote, tablet, video signal, etc.). MotionKit is the result of our shared skills. MotionKit is a modern tool, in line with our digital practices (and those of users). All public may understand the software, from young people to adults, from the simple discovery of handling sounds to musical production.
Who is MotionKit designed for ?
MotionKit is designed to expand access to digital music creation for everyone, including the official Education programs, music and dance schools, media libraries, museums, art galleries, etc. It allows adapting the educational and artistic content to different age groups and grade levels and to consider autonomous musical practices, but also as a team tool to promote collective practices through improvisation.
The software allows access to digital music creation and adapts to physical, intellectual and musical possibilities of the user: younger children to adults, from beginner to amateur musician. It offers innovative teaching content allowing the discovery of music and digital audio including the possibility of using its own banks.
MotionKit can enhance music creation and contemporary heritage adding reference works to databases. It can thus offer targeted plays in certain works, some musical materials. He can be used in music lessons to develop musical culture or analysis, as in media libraries to enhance the musical funds of institutions.
The current solutions are often limited (such as playlists) or impose the help of a professional programmer making them inaccessible to general public and often too expensive for communities.
MotionKit also allows you to generate musical gestures from technology we use in our daily lives, and fits an extremely reactive way to new man/machine interfaces. This piece of software is definitely oriented towards fun collective musical practices.
What does MotionKit contain?
MotionKit gives immediate access to twenty instruments grouped in different categories (see below). Every instrument proposes to play with sounds, modulate parameters, and create musical sequences to drive the whole ensemble through input interfaces.
MotionKit uses simple graphical representations so that the user can directly play music, without prior knowledge. MotionKit is an evolution of the professional Usine Hollyhock software by BrainModular. Technically, the strength of this software is its capacity to quickly adapt to new interfaces (HID) and to the constantly new interfaces proposed by the industrial world. It can therefore generate musical gestures using everyday technologies and adapt to their regular renewal.
MotionKit can be driven by a simple computer keyboard or a mouse, by MIDI interfaces but also by joysticks, OSC networks (especially for tablets and smartphones), or by more specific interfaces like Leap motion, i-Rig, Wiimote, pen tablets, video signal, etc. Future technologies will be integrated in a really reactive manner to the software as to facilitate their integration and develop musical and artistic uses.
Instruments classification
The instruments proposed in MotionKit (you may find more of those in future versions) are classified in four main categories: creative, playful, group playing, class projects. Of course, this classification in not restrictive and some instruments can belong to several categories at the same time. For example one instrument can be creative and playful or creative and group playing at the same time.
Creative instruments
Those instruments aim to stimulate creativity and a formal approach to music.
They generally have simple settings so the user will have to modify them to construct a musical discourse.
Playful Instruments
The primary object of those instruments is to allow the user to approach sound parameters (such as length, tone, etc.) in an amusing manner.
Group playing
They are tools for playing in small electronic formations. These instruments help raise awareness of the sound space, tone relations and interplay in collective contexts.
Projects
Those are groups of instruments that can help to create more complete projects. For example, you can create a sound cartography of a town based on recordings of particular places, or the creation of personalized telephone ring tones.