Yuugen is a simple musical toy created for SCR, a creative label for screen media from Japan’s THA.
The idea of creating a very simple musical toy came about when I watched my two year old niece Elena play with the lovely Bloom iPhone app from Brian Eno. I loved the fact that she just bashed the screen to create music sequences. As she prodded with her little fingers, lovely calming sounds, together with simple visuals were created on the screen. And it made her smile. And that is a good thing.
So I wanted to make something as simple as this. A sonic piece of whimsy that would amuse my little niece. As I started to sketch out a few ideas, around the idea of simple note sequencers and the like, my mind naturally wounded up thinking about machines like the Player Piano. And then I thought I wonder if I could actually make a rotating cylinder that you could add “holes” to that would in turn trigger musical notes. After a few days of playing around with stuff in Processing, I put together this little proof of concept.
It sounded awful, but the principle worked. So then it was a case of making it sound pleasant and making it look good too.
For the sound I wanted to use a Japanese instrument so I chose the Koto. I then used a very simple pentatonic scale so no matter what you did the sound would always sound musical - rather like a wind chime. Erica Sakai at THA really helped me develop the project, suggesting a more visual reward for when the notes got triggered and the ability to have more than one trigger point. Erica also inspired the name after mentioning the feeling it gave of Japanese Noh theatre. After doing some research I found the term Yuugen which means “that which lies beneath”. Perfect.
You can download Yuugen from SCR.
Ripping people off?
Isn’t this just a rip-off of Amit Pitaru’s wire sculpture from a few years ago?
No. It isn’t. My inspiration came from my niece and machines such as the Piano Player. The fact that it’s a rotating cylinder in a 3D space is just the nature of how I executed it. Contrary to what Amit Pitaru accused me of, he doesn’t own the idea of a musical toy rotating in 3D. It’s been done many times before. Long before Amit’s wire sculpture. His wire sculpture is a much more sophisticated musical instrument. It’s brilliant. My toy is literally “a toy”. To be played with, enjoyed and then discarded. Nothing more.