The Personal Orchestra is an installation which allows everyone to slip into the role of the conductor of the famous Vienna Philharmonic.
The orchestra is projected onto a screen and you take place in front of it. Using an electronic baton you can then control speed and volume of the orchestra. The faster you swing the baton, the faster will the Vienna Philharmonic play. The wider your gestures are, the louder the orchestra will play. You can even emphasize single groups of the orchestra by conducting in their direction.
The technological highlights of this installation are the automatic gesture recognicion and the automatic speed-change of the music (or any audio signal, as far as the technology is concerned) without changing the pitch of it.
» project page of the Personal Orchestra
There are also a few videos with tv coverage of the installation and technology on the website, but these are mostly in German.
(via kreativrauschen.de)
2 replies on “Personal Orchestra – Conducting for Dummies”
I am a piano teacher here in Collegeville, PA and have an interesting 13-14 year old student that seems to understand concepts of music very quickly. Thus, he gets bored of simply learning piano lessons only. I’ve been looking for something like this to take his interest and wondered how much it is – or if you offer demos to get feedback? I’d like to be able to set him up with score and orchestra – and this looks like a good way to teach him to conduct and also learn to read the score. Do you even offer anything regarding breaking down the scores? Just wondering. Susan Kossey
Hello Susan,
I am afraid you are asking in the wrong place. I merely wrote about Personal Orchestra, I did not create it.
If you follow the link above you should find the right contact.
Greetings and good luck,
Florian
P.S.: If you really manage to get your personal Personal Orchestra, feel free to drop a comment again. I’m sure people would be interested. 🙂