“CubeHarmonic: A New Musical Instrument Based on Rubik’s Cube with Embedded Motion Sensor” by Mannone, Kitamura, Huang, Chiu, Sugawara, et al. …
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Entry Number: 53
Title:
- CubeHarmonic: A New Musical Instrument Based on Rubik’s Cube with Embedded Motion Sensor
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Abstract:
A contemporary challenge involves scientific education and the connection between new technologies and the heritage of the past. CubeHarmonic (CH) joins novelty and tradition, creativity and education, science and art. It takes shape as a novel musical instrument where magnetic 3D motion tracking technology meets musical performance and composition. CH is a Rubik’s cube with a note on each facet, and a chord or chord sequence on each face. The position of each facet is detected through magnetic 3D motion tracking. While scrambling the cube, the performer gets new chords and new chord sequences. CH can be used to compose, improvise,1 and teach music and mathematics (group theory, permutations) with colors and physical manipulation supporting abstract thinking. Furthermore, CH allows visually impaired people to enjoy Rubik’s cube manipulation by using sounds instead of colors.
References:
- Huang, T. Mori, K. Takashima, S. Hashi, and Y. Kitamura. 2015. IM6D: Magnetic Tracking System with 6-DOF Passive Markers for Dexterous 3D Interaction and Motion. ACM Trans. Graph. 34, 6 (2015).
- Huang, K. Takashima, S. Hashi, and Y. Kitamura. 2014. IM3D: Magnetic Motion Tracking System for Dexterous 3D Interactions. In SIGGRAPH 2014 Emerging Technologies.
- Hutchings. 2011. The Mathematics of Rubik’s Cube. https://math.berkeley.edu/ ~hutching/rubik.pdf. (2011).
- Mannone, E. Kitamura, J. Huang, R. Sugawara, and Y. Kitamura. 2018. CubeHarmonic: A New Interface from a Magnetic 3D Motion Tracking System to Music Performance. In NIME 2018. 350–351.
- Mazzola, M. Mannone, and Y. Pang. 2016. Cool Math for Hot Music. Springer.
- Richard Polfreman and Benjamin Oliver. 2017. Rubik’s Cube, Music’s Cube. In NIME 2017.
- Tymoczko. 2006. The Geometry of Musical Chords. Science 313 (2006), 72–74.
- Zassenhaus. 1982. Rubik’s Cube: a Toy, a Galois tool, Group Theory for Everybody. Physica 114, A (1982), 629–637.
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Acknowledgements:
This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18H04103 and the Cooperative Research Project Program of the Research Institute for Electrical Communication, Tohoku University.
