The PLAY Project

Designing and building an interactive musical instrument?

How does play impact our lives? This was the central question that fueled the creative team from Jive Software, along with11 leaders in the fields of design, music, engineering, education, public policy and psychology convened for a 1-day workshop to explore the idea of Play. We shared what “play” has meant to us - personally and in our creative practices - and how we could imagine the idea of PLAY having a bigger impact in the world. PLAY engages people of all ages, abilities and cultural backgrounds, so we set out to conceive a way to bring PLAY to life in a unique and impactful way.

This workshop was hosted at PNCA. It was through a moment of synergistic epiphany that the group began to imagine a language of play that could transcend written and spoken language - the language of music. At the conclusion of the workshop, I accepted the challenge to take this idea and design and build an interactive and collaborative musical instrument that reflected the goals of the project. The image to the left is the final piece. Up to 15 people can play this instrument. I designed it so that each participant would be able to make eye contact with the others. 4 sculptural sound ports and an embedded sub-bass channel the sounds so you can hear and feel what is being played. I repurposed a pump organ and connected it to dual arm handles. Backlit pressure pads link to tuned keys on the organ. A hand crank activates a drum-phone and pushable air switches switch the speed and rhythm. For the high notes, I use xylophone keys with pinball plungers. Video below of project and instrument.

The above video is the creative team seeing and playing with the final result for the first time.