Go Go Gadget Practice

Do you think somebody who merely pushes a button to make music a musician? See the hilarious video below for a negative example, and the following one for a wonderfully positive example.

Bach once said of his prodigious keyboard skills something like, “There’s nothing to it; you just push the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”

Chapter 33 in The Practice of Practice shares the title of this post. That chapter goes into more detail about using gadgets in your practice. I’ve listed some helpful software below the videos.

The important thing with gadgetry is the willful interaction with sound, not the motor ability. Yes, there are varied levels of physical engagement with the sound-producing device, but again, that’s not the point.

Here’s a pretty funny example of when using gadgetry is NOT practice, or even particularly engaging, musically. A few seconds of watching will be enough to get the gist, and probably a chuckle or three, maybe even a facepalm:

In the following video are some thoughts and superb examples of how “button-pushing” can be both musical and engaging. The TED talk is from Ge Wang, an assistant professor at Stanford University. Wang is the founding director of both the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) and the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPho). Some of the over 200 instruments Wang and his students have created are super cool, like the Twilight, demonstrated around 6:15.