Accessible Musical Instruments
In a cooperation with Harry Hötzinger and the Toilers of Tune, we created an accessible musical instrument by combining the FLipMouse with a Tobii EyeX eyetracker and a dedicated graphical user interface. This allows a very efficient selection of musical chords which are played by a synthesitzer. Harry could participate in the band "The Toilers of Tune" as a fully-enabled keyboard artist - see video below:
For this purpose, two special user interfaces called "Freaky Tricky" and "Chordion" were developed by the musician Georg Schmelzer Ziringer. Both interfaces build upon the Open Source Software Pure Data - which must be downloaded and installed before they can be used. "Freaky Tricky" and "Chordion" can also be combined with other special input solutions - for example the AsTeRICS-based 'FaceTracker-Mouse'.
Freaky Tricky is a step-sequenzer for triggering sound samples in defined order - to create rhythms. You can choose between two default sample sets, a basic drumset and a set of bongos. The default instruments can be changed by loading own sound samples.
With the "Chordion" system, the user can play harmonic chords and send them to the internal sound card or a synthesizer via Midi format. The Open Source synthesizer "ZynAddSubFX" is recommended as a good alternative to the (limited) standard Midi instruments of the computer's sound card. To route the Midi signals from "Chordion" into "ZynAddSubFx", a midi routing tool is needed, we recommend the free version of LoopBe virtual midi driver.
The Pure Data files for "Chordion" and "FreakyTricky" can be dowloaded here: Chordion & FreakyTricky