The goal of MoveMusic is to provide musicians a tool for creating and performing digital music which allows for interaction using large body movements for expressive control and for communicating with an audience through movement. A quote from Brian Eno in 1999 very much informs the mission of this product: “”” Years ago I realized that the recording studio was becoming a musical instrument. I even lectured about it, proclaiming that “by turning sound into malleable material, studios invite you to construct new worlds of sounds as painters construct worlds of form and color.” I was thrilled at how people were using studios to make music that otherwise simply could not exist. Studios opened up possibilities. But now I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. This transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse. Musicians enjoy drawing on that finesse (and audiences respond to its exercise), so when muscular activity is rendered useless, the creative process is frustrated. “”” We hope MoveMusic allows electronic musicians to perform and create in new ways which are inspired by the body-involved interactions required by many acoustic instruments. There are few VR apps similar to MoveMusic Control, a dedicated MIDI controller product with a simple, yet powerful control building system. The app provides the user with the basic building blocks to create a wide range of controller layouts. While MoveMusic takes advantage of VR technology at the moment, we are looking towards the future where AR glasses and robust full-body 3D tracking will allow people to dance to create and perform music!
