We’re trialling workshops for older people and people with dementia at the moment. So the main software has been going through some changes as I figure out what will work best. The needs, skills and attitudes of older people are turning out to be _very different than those of SEN children, which perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise. I think one doesn’t really appreciate what it’s like to work with a certain group of people until one is actually there. I know that that was the case for me when I started working with SEN.And of course, whatever their mental state, a lot of older people will have had little exposure to computers, let alone computer controlled music.

So far, IR sensors seem to be comprehensible to most of the people I’ve worked with, though comprehension improved enormously once I’d added images related to the instruments to a tv screen projection. That is to say, if the sound being controlled by a particular sensor was a violin, then there’s an image of a violin moving up and down on the tv along with hand movement over the sensor. (There are 4 channels, and so 4 images, which switch dynamically with preset changes). It’s interesting to note that a much higher proportion of the SEN children I’ve worked with picked up the relationship between movement and playing sound much more quickly than the older people did.
I found that using wii controllers made very little sense to the groups I worked with, and I obviously didn’t bother with the dance mats at all.
I did put together an iPad interface (using TouchOSC) which worked for some people more than the sensors did (interestingly, the ones who got on with the IR sensors didn’t get on with the iPad, and vice versa).
I’m thinking of making an even more obvious interface using large sensor switches, but that’s waiting on funding, and doing more work on the iPad interface.
I’ve also been working on a sort of pitch quantising module that produces more melodious output, which involves the sensors playing the notes/bass/chords of old melodies one bar at a time. The sensors can play back and forth through the notes for one bar, and the bars are switched either by a clock in the software, or by using a wii controller as a conductor’s baton. It functions pretty well, but needs a bit more work. It also needs a bit more cognitive ability than I realised, so I’m going to have to put a bit more thought into that, or figure out how to explain it more effectively. It’s a question of finding the sweet spot being something too simple like triggering melodic fragments, and complete freeform playing.

For more severe dementia patients, I’m developing a kind of mobile Colourscape environment. Peter Jones (the Colourscape artist) is creating the mobile screens and framework that we’ll need, and I’m developing a new piece of software drawing on the SEN (Groovit) app, and the interactive sensory space we created for a junior school in Cleethorpes. I’ve built a tonal generative patch that controls music and lights, and I’m currently applying my mind to what would be meaningful ways to add interactivity using IR sensors. We’re trialling the system next week at a junior school, and at a care home at the end of the month, so I need to put something together in the next few days!

Brendan