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.
![the chordion software system](https://www.asterics-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/musicinterface_01.jpg)
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.
![MusicInstrument FreakyTricky](https://www.asterics-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MusicInstrument-1.jpg)
The Pure Data files for "Chordion" and "FreakyTricky" can be dowloaded here: Chordion & FreakyTricky