Santana is a boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He helped me with this great experiment.
Floor pressure mats or pads are designed to detect a person treading on them, there primary use is in the security industry.
Many other applications have been found for these floor pressure mats / pads such as, sensors for interactive toys, sensors for interactive multimedia systems. So we where thinking is this something for our students? I used the switch input of our instrument , the Magic Flute, and yes we could trigger sound.
So Santana explores his abilities by getting aural feedback
Tim Anderson from InclusiveMusic gave me this great tip!
Thank you Tim!
Of course you can use computers too. But that is some what more complicated.
You can do even more things using E-Scape software, controlled via MIDI from the Magic Flute / pad"
About the Magic Flute:
The Head Sets the Tone
Lung training can be fun with an instrument that sometimes sounds like a saxophone, other times like a piano or even like drums. Is it some kind of magic? Not really even though the instrument is called Magic Flute, one does not have to work magic on it. All you need is your head.
Puffing once creates a tone. Swaying the head up and down causes a musical scale. In August 2006, little Glenn was absolutely amazed when he blew into the flute and the first tones came out. For the first time he was able to play a musical instrument since he was born without arms and his hands being attached directly to his shoulders.
The fact that Glenn is able to play music is due to an idea three men from three different countries have had. One of them is Ruud van der Wel. He is concerned with breath therapy at the rehabilitation centre Rijndam in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he works with physically handicapped kids and those with a learning disability four to 20 years old. Many of the children exercise their breathing because they have muscular diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy or muscular atrophy. Usually the therapy comprises patients to blow into small tubes containing balls, for example, to train their lungs however, this is certainly not really fun.
Therefore, about five years ago van de Wel looked for alternatives. He met David Whalen from New York via the internet, a man who is a quadriplegic after a ski accident and who tries new ways to play music despite his disability. The two of them were thinking about a wind instrument that can be played without hands. However, they needed the Irishman Brian Dillon in order to put their ideas into practice - a specialist and designer for electric products, who had already built other devices for handicapped people. Together they developed the Magic Flute.
It works by fixing the flute to a tripod and it is blown through an embouchure the stronger you blow the louder it sounds. Head movements up and down determine the pitch. A controlling device is connected to the flute and can also be operated via the embouchure. Its display shows which note the musician is playing. The wind instrument can also be connected to other electric sound sources like a keyboard, a synthesizer or a computer enabling the user to generate a broad variety of different sounds ranging from the flute and guitar to percussions and rhythms.
The wind instrument hits two birds with one stone. The lung is trained and moving arms is not necessary anymore to be able to play an instrument since one only needs the head to play songs. And who knows maybe the next rock star will be a „magic flutist.
Together with Ruud van der Wel visitors of this year's REHACARE in Dusseldorf can try the Magic Flute in hall 6 at stand 44.
Natascha Mörs
REHACARE.de
our website www.mybreathmymusic.com
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Esther plays the Magic Fluteby Audiorhoon5,168 views
Hi , the pressure pad acts like a switch. I you would like to understand this better then you could best visit my website mybreathmymusic com
There is a section "other instruments" that explains how you can make music with switches.
kind regards Ruud
mybreathmymusic 1 year ago
Very neat...
duchennemom 2 years ago
Thank you!
mybreathmymusic 2 years ago