Cellphones have traditionally been the bane of concert halls and other performance venues. But the researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics are challenging that taboo, at least for the performers on the stage.
Ge Wang, an assistant professor of music who previously founded a laptop orchestra at the center, has now organized a Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO) that takes advantage of the iPhone’s multiple built-in technologies to create a powerful performance device.
“Mobile phones are becoming so powerful that we cannot ignore them anymore as platforms for creativity,” Mr. Wang said in a university press release.
The idea of the cellphone as a performance device isn’t entirely new: Gil Weinberg and computer programmers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed software that allows cellphone users to create music using a preset group of instruments and determine rhythms and pitches by shaking or tilting the phone. — Eric Kelderman
