 Well, hello everyone. My name is Martin. Last Tuesday, I finished my master thesis at the TU. The study program is called Audio Communication and Technology. And the project I'm going to talk about today was, well, it was that master thesis. So it's kind of fresh, and that's the first presentation I do about that, yeah, since we finished it. And what we did is we created an ensemble of three electronic music instruments, virtual music instruments in pure data. And these instruments, they are to be used to learn or to teach electronic music, basics of audio technology and, well, basically digital media and its music in schools. And, well, like I said, it's built in PD. So the ensemble is open source. And that's why the instruments can be described as open educational resources, OER. You might have heard of that, but I'll get into that later because I think it's a pretty interesting aspect of the project. Yeah, what I want to do today is presented like 20 or 30 minutes max. And after that, the instruments can be tried out. And I would be very happy if I could get some, like, constructive criticism concerning the structure of the code and, well, every other aspect of the ensemble. Because, well, I'm talking about we all the time, my colleague who did the master thesis with me. He's a sick and bad right now, has a bad headache. And that's why I have to improvise a little bit concerning his part. Yeah. Okay, let's have a look at the content. We did the project within the 3DMIN research project. That's why I'm going to talk about that at first. Then I'm going to talk a little bit about the background and the ideas and the motivations behind the whole project. Then I'm going to go into OER and why this is relevant for our project. And then I'm going to present the ensemble itself. Okay, first of all, the 3DMIN project. 3DMIN stands for design development and dissemination of new musical instruments. And it's an interdisciplinary research project between the UDK Berlin and the TU Berlin. It's been running for, I don't know, three years now and it will finish in October. Yeah, and it's basically, like the name says, they're designing and building new musical instruments there. Well, and they're concentrated mainly on the interfaces. Maybe a third of the push-pull. That's a big thing that happens there sort of. And at the moment they're playing a lot of concerts with that instrument. Yes, and our project is linked to the aspect of dissemination within the 3DMIN project. Yeah, like I said, what we try to do is to build instruments for music education. There's a nice formulation in the funding application for the Einstein-Stiftung that finances the whole project. And this formulation describes the basic problem of our ensemble pretty good. And there it says that the instruments that are to be developed within the 3DMIN project are supposed to realize an intuitive access to the world of electronic and computer music in the context of music education. Compared to classical music and its instruments, modern electronic music still is neglected here and thus this innovation is urgently needed. So when we read that, that was our point of departure for starting this project. So this is basically what we did. We built instruments that can do what set in the formulation I just showed. But why did we do it? Okay, I'm gonna start from the very beginning now. It's like, I mean, like you all may know music and technology always have formed the very strong symbiosis. That might sound a little bit trivial, but actually it's, I think it's quite important because when you look at music education, there are a lot of music educators who see music as somewhat natural thing, like very naturalistic. And they see a strong contradiction between music and technology. And they are not able to understand that music as we know it wouldn't exist without technological progress. So in general, technology and music have formed the strong symbiosis. That means that production, performance, storing, processing, and listening to music is always technologically determined. And therefore, technological changes always have an impact on music culture. And most importantly, they affect listeners in their everyday lives. And especially the digitalization, it further intensified the symbiosis. And well, I would say that that digital media sort of defines the current reality of music culture. And so the next step of our argumentation is that technology affects young listeners. And these young listeners that use digital media in their everyday lives to listen to, to make music, to talk about music. The most interesting aspect of digital, new digital music media is that it can be used to actively shape music culture. Like you can make a song and upload it on the internet and then talk about it. So a new aspect of these digital media is that you actually shape music culture by using it. But in doing so, you are always endangered. And especially young people can be endangered to somehow get lost in the complexity of that all. That means you, I mean, your own contribution to that music culture that you give via digital media can seem somehow unimportant when you are confronted with the vast mass of musical information on the internet. Well, and most of all, for many young people, they use digital media all the time, but they have no idea how it works. For them, it's like a black box. And well, what I'm trying to say is that many people, especially young people, lack a certain ability to understand technology with this, like in the literature and in research, it's called media literacy. That might be a solution for this problem. But the problem here in Germany is, and I think it can be, it might be the same in other countries, at least that's what the literature says. The problem here is that German music education is pretty conservative. Traditionally, German music education favors the preservation of cultural traditions. And it sort of refuses to integrate cultural changes. And especially if they concern technological aspects of music. Like I said before, one reason for that is that a lot of music educators see music as a really naturalistic thing and see a strong contradiction between music and technology. Yeah. And this is why, like before the year 2000, there was a very ideological debate within music education. And there were, on the one hand, there were the critics and they always were talking about alienation from music by using digital media to make music. And then on the other side, there were the supporters who always dressed the cultural importance of digital media and its music. And yeah, these two sides were stuck in a really ideological fundamental debate. And there were hardly any consequences in the practice. And then around the year 2000, suddenly this, well, this debate stopped because everybody was kind of frustrated with the status quo. And a very pragmatic handling was developed. And then music education was able to send impulses towards like educational policy and academic training at the universities and the did a didactical practice within the classroom. But, and these changes, they happen at the moment, but not at all everywhere and very often very hesitantly. Finally, well, German digital music culture still is, still is not a crucial part of German music education. It never was and it isn't. There might be exceptions. Sure. But yeah, I'm talking in general here. Yeah. And the main obstacles that a lot of music teachers regularly talk about are the high costs and the complexity of music software. And also, teachers often lack the skills or the experience dealing with digital music media. That means, say, well, basically they lack media literacy. And finally, educationally appropriate software for the use of music classrooms is very rare. And so, yeah, that's motivation behind our project. And that's why we decided to construct software that can be used in music education and schools. Okay, I'm gonna, like I said, before these instruments we build can be described as OER. Yeah. And like I said, I think it's a pretty interesting aspect because actually we just realized at the end of our project when we just finished the master thesis that what we are doing there is an OER and is then sort of part of a bigger context. Yeah. And so what are OERs? The OECD defines OER as digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research. OER includes learning content, software tools to develop, use and distribute content and implementation resources such as open licenses. So basically it's open source materials within education. I think it's pretty interesting to look at the idea behind OERs and according to the ULIT Foundation, it's a pretty big organization that supports OER culture internationally. Well, I'm not gonna read everything now. It's just, well, I think at that sentence this presents the ideology behind the whole movement, pretty good. At the heart of the movement what OER is a simple and powerful idea that the world's knowledge is a public good and that technology is in general and the World Wide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share use and reuse knowledge. So that's basically the bigger content, the bigger context or ensemble is set in. Just a few examples for OER projects in Germany. There's Sealo, that's an online network for students and it only contains open education material for many, I don't know, for what's called chemistry, math, German literature. Well, yeah, for a lot of different study fields. And then another example is a book of teaching and learning with technology. It's a free access book that's free accessible and it was released in February 2011 under a Creative Common license and it's free, can be accessed freely on the web. It's a really good book with a lot of really good contributions. And then there's our project, the loop ensemble, which is released under the GNU general public license. And there are many more that just a few examples. Okay, the ensemble itself. Like I said, it consists of three instruments. They are named Ed, Drumbo and Jerry. Yeah, one thing I have to set straight at first is they're in German because they're made for German music education. We want to translate them. There's a lot of text within the instruments and I'm going to talk about that soon. Yeah, but at the moment it's still in German, which shows the name Ed because mainly it's about additive synthesis. Then Drumbo is a drum machine and it works with frequency modulation and amplitude modulation. Well, and Jerry is basically fizz or noise, so it's kind of a subtractive synthesis. Yeah, Ed is like a bass synths basically and Drumbo is like a drum machine and then we have Jerry, which, well, it's a pad synths and an elite synths. But these instruments, they are, well, they are not limited to these musical roles. So they can do, well, like every other electronic instruments, you can do noise sound experiments with them. But I think that what we tried is to design them that way, so it's easy to experiment with them. Okay, the basic formula, the instruments were designed after is the famous low threshold high ceiling. You may have heard it before. Yeah, but on the one hand, the instruments should offer an easy access to understanding electronic music and they allow beginners or even non musicians to express themselves musically. I believe that electronic instruments are pretty easy to learn compared to other instruments. For example, the guitar, there's a lot of haptic stuff with the hand you have to learn and an electronic instrument that works with a sequencer. It's compared to other instruments, it's easier to have, well, to have early success when you make music with it. And then on the other hand, that the high ceiling, we wanted the instruments to be capable of complex musical actions. And we wanted them to offer a deep insight about the way electronic instruments work. So for example, due to the character of PD, you could have a very deep look into the code of the instruments and explore it. Before I show the instruments, some central aspects. First of all, there was a problem of flexibility. I mean, there are a lot of teaching styles in music education. For example, there's action-oriented music education where people actually do something and try to learn by doing that. Then there's self-learning is another big thing where the individual learners are supposed to find their own way to learn. And then there's a classical talk and talk teaching style where a teacher is standing in front of the class like I do now. And talking all the time while the audience has to listen and be quiet and focus their attention. And this talk and talk teaching style is still pretty dominant, very common in schools. And that's why we had to consider all these different teaching styles in the design of the instruments. Yeah. And this idea of flexibility, it's also important when you look at the character of some instruments as musical instruments. Because like I said before, we wanted them to be able to do loop-based electronic dance music, like this every club music, let's call it club music. And on the other hand, we wanted them to be able to do abstract sound art. I'm not sure if I mentioned it yet, but the instruments can be synced via network. So yeah, that makes it very easy to do like sing music together, like electronic dance music, for example. And from a didactical point of view, it's pretty good for group sessions within the classroom when groups are supposed to make music together. Yeah, I think I already mentioned the interactivity and the self... Well, no, I didn't. Another aspect that's very important is interactivity. Basically, you use the instruments and every module of the instruments, I'll show that later, can be... There's a little what button be near beside and you can activate another patch and open another patch. And then the module, for example, additive synth of this is explained then. And so you can by interactively play the instrument or play... You can try to understand it and that makes itself explanatory. Yeah, I mentioned the network connection that makes it suitable for group lessons. And then there's this extra presentation version that makes it suitable for chalk-and-talk teaching style. That means you have an extra version of the instrument that... Well, you connect your laptop to your Beamer and then just present it. And well, you can talk about it like you would use a blackboard. Yeah, maybe one last point before I show the instruments. Yeah, to give them... To strengthen the character of musical instruments, we try to give them external controllers. And that's the NanoControl 2 and the PD8. And the last instrument it's supposed to... It can be controlled via mouse and laptop. And the basic ideas behind this simply that the controller's attribute should be sheep. Well, so that everybody can afford it. But they're not necessary. You can control the whole instruments completely only with mouse and keyboard. I guess I don't have to explain what pure data is, do I? I think everybody knows it, right? Yeah, here's a download link. It's on the pure data website. Yeah, but maybe let's have a look at the instruments themselves. And I'm trying... Yeah, it's made in PD, like I said. Do we have sound? Yeah, sorry. I think I have to activate PD here. I have to do this. Yes, well, that's the main GUI. I think Drumbo, the drum machine is the most complex instrument. Yeah. What can I say? Yeah, the basic principle, like I said before, is that you have this GUI and there are other modules. And the main idea is that the students are then able to click here on what? What is this? Now it opens in the other screen. And then these patches open. And, for example, let's do frequency modulation. Yeah, it's a lot of text. But frequency modulation, it's not always like this. Frequency modulation is a pretty complex thing, as you may know. Yeah, and then you can hear it is explained. What is it? Like with examples, and here are examples too. You can then listen to it and try to understand it step by step. For example, here this would be a next step. And then you can open another example. And suddenly a complex sound is resulting. And you can try to understand it. Yeah, maybe let's have a look at... No, let's have a look at this. Yeah, here you have ADSR envelopes. And now you could, for example, choose an example here and activate it. And then you see how these envelopes are made and how they work. And in the text you have everything explained. And that's basically the way everything works. Every module of the instruments can be interactively explored. Yeah, and then you can try to understand electronic music and sound into this by doing so. But they can also be used as like... And then when you understood this, you could use this knowledge to make music. I prefer to... Like I said, it could be used as a normal drum machine. Maybe I start with that. Let's... I like this sound. And then you have a sequencer built in there, like a very standard sequencer. And here are some examples too. Like everything is filled with presets to make it more explorable. And let's activate a preset here. And then you could... A really simple drum machine in the end. Like the other instruments too. There are simple bass synths and simple ethens. But the main idea is to explain these background of these traditional instruments within electronic music. Okay. Yeah, here we see the network connection. You can connect them via cable connection or wireless connection. And then play together. Okay, so it's basically a thing. I hope I could get the basic ideas across. So any questions? No, it's pretty extended. Yeah, I know. There's... Yeah, I know. I already talked about that problem today. No, no, no. Yeah, I mean, there's no support anymore. That's true. I mean, I think that what you are talking... Okay. Yeah, we did. As part of our master thesis, we gave three workshops and we used it. Well, and it's more as a like an explorative evaluation. We did interviews after that. Well, and was pretty successful, I would say in the end. Like, well, there was a strong interest from the participants of the workshops. And well, most of them, they... I think the main problem is there that most of the students we had in the workshops, they see their music class at school as really, really boring. And that's why they are grateful for everything new, basically. But on the other hand, still, there was this phenomenon that they started playing these instruments and heard these sounds. And then they were reminded of sounds they knew from... They know from the music they listen to every day. Yeah, and then that's where the interest started, sort of. And then they started digging deeper and trying to understand how a complex sound is built. And, yeah, and there were problems too. I don't want to sound too euphoric. For example, the whole text thing is a big problem because like I said before, there are a lot of... It's hard to explain something that's quite complex, like frequency modulation without a lot of text. And that was a problem that most of the students are pretty lazy when it comes to reading. But still, I mean, there are different characters. For example, there were some students who were like reading all the time and were really fascinated by what they read. And then there were those that only wanted to play and only tried to connect the instruments and play together, even though they had no idea what electronic music is all about. But that's what I was trying to say before, that there are a lot of different styles of learning and a lot of different styles of teaching. And what I like about these instruments is that there are many ways to use them. So, yes. I think I didn't really answer your question. Yeah, the problem is my colleague did that. Yeah, and he's like I said, he's sick and bad. But basically, he just imported like gift pictures. I mean this... Just a picture behind each one. Yeah, exactly. That's just like a gift picture behind it. And well, and the rest, that's part of PD extended like these. What are they called again in English? Arbeitsflächen? Anyone? Yeah, the panels, panels, exactly. Yeah, like these panels. Yeah, but that's something we... Sorry? Yeah, and the knobs are part of PD2. It's just like all around the knobs is a gift. And then the knobs are part of PD extended and they are just put into the gift sort of. Yeah, but it's true. That's... As far as I know, there's a way in PD extended to import them. Just making part of your GUI. It would be theoretically, it would be possible to, well, to do even more complex GUIs where everything is part of just these pads and these knobs are just put onto the gift picture. Doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, but we heard that a lot. That the GUI is the most interesting thing about working with PD extended. Yeah. Okay, so if you're interested, you can just... I'm gonna show you the download link again. And if you're interested, you can just try them out. And like I said, at the beginning of the presentation, I would be really grateful for a critic. That's because we are not... Me and my colleague, we aren't really experts. That was pretty new for us, everything. And for example, well, the whole code behind the instruments, that was basically trial and error for us. I mean, we learned a lot while doing it. Yeah, and for us, it would be pretty helpful to get some critique concerning those. So if you want to download them, have a look at them, and I'll be here for some more time. And if you want to, you can criticize me. Okay. Thanks.