Ten minutes. Four or five kids (or adults). Make a song. Go.

That’s the idea behind the Youth Music Box, developed by Silent Studios and Chris O’Shea. (Our friend Chris you may recall from various interactive projects and the blog pixelsumo; he sends this project our way.) The software is build in openFrameworks, the C++-based creative coding environment for artists.

With keys, drums, and yes, even a scratching DJ-style interface, the music box brings together kids for quick music making, inspired by the phenomenon of musical games. The experience is guided by genre, with some effort to make sure whatever they do sounds good, but it’s extraordinary how effective it is at conveying the experience of the successful jam. It’s a bit of a confidence builder, in other words, for a group musical experience, perhaps more so than those ear-splitting, cheap plastic recorder consorts I recall from my youth.

And oh yeah, those kids look super cute once they get rocking out. (See video below.)

Youth Music Box Experience from Silent Studios | Resonate on Vimeo.

All of this raises some fascinating questions, and not always with the answers you might expect. In a normal musical ensemble, you begin sounding like crap, amp up difficulty, and eventually sound something like this – at least as far as coherence goes, assuming you’re not aiming for experimental free jazz. But with the addition of technology, whether musical games or the presets on our favorite synths or the quantization and beat-synced loops of our sequencers, it goes something in reverse. You start out sounding like this, pull apart the mechanisms that make you sound a certain way, and eventually find your way to your own personal approach. (And at some point, you get some of the readers on this site, writing code to produce their own sounds and musical structures line by line.) In fact, one could imagine scaling difficulty of even this particular setup, gradually adding greater musical freedom and taking away the “training wheels” of all the rules-based restrictions that make the results sound a particular way.

Skeptical about the connection of music-based games and actual music making? Think again – even as music education unravels worldwide, games are actually encouraging real music. That revelation was the impetus of the music box project:

Research commissioned by Youth Music found that up to 2.5 million young people in the UK – or 1 million aged between 12 and 18 – have been inspired to progress into ‘real’ music-making because they have played music-based console games.

You got it – they hit those plastic buttons, got inspired, got bored, then decided to go to the real thing. And otherwise, they might have remained passive musical consumers: the game was a gateway drug. Of course, that means that any such interactive experience has to stand up to polished Guitar Hero and Rock Band-style games. But anyone who believes the music games genre has peaked and is on its way out may be dead wrong on many, many levels. On the contrary, this may only be getting started – and the real growth could come in music beyond the realm of games, as people graduate to the unlimited set of possible music experiences.

Chris sends lots more documentation of this project, if you’d like to learn more:

by silent studios and me for uk charity youth music to get kids turned on to music
http://www.vimeo.com/6210259

watch some bbc coverage here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8160000/newsid_8168800/8168881.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8154449.stm

Ed.: The video at top doesn’t play outside the UK, because we don’t pay BBC license fees. What, all those Doctor Who videos I bought in the 80s and 90s didn’t make up for it?

here is a press release from roland. the box is ‘powered by roland’
http://www.audioprointernational.com/news/1329/Roland-unveils-Music-Box-for-Youth-Music

some launch pics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelsumo/sets/72157621466657993/

making of pics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelsumo/sets/72157621404410234/

this goes into some of the ideas and details about the musical kit
http://musicispower.youthmusic.org.uk/blog/24/youthmusicboxlaunchesatlondonssouthbankcentre/

on the website there is a very simplified flash version you can try out on a mini timeline, just click play online :)

its quite funny to read these comments on it
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/07/youth-music-box-democratizes-music-creation.html

And yes, you can try this yourself and play online! The official site:

http://musicispower.youthmusic.org.uk/youth_music_box/

The production company:

http://www.silentstudios.co.uk/

And Chris’ own site:

http://www.chrisoshea.org/

Roland is involved, and donated an E-09 Interactive Music Arranger to give kids some toys to explore.

And yes, I did notice a certain kindred spirit in the form of Moldover’s Octamasher. The underlying technology and its results are different, but to me what’s most interesting isn’t the superficial similarity of these projects, but the fact that they array the instruments in a circle. Computer production often simply orients a single person to a screen – not so ideal for collaboration. And even Rock Band and Guitar Hero, like an onstage band, line up artists for a (now nonexitent) audience. Perhaps the circle is about to make a comeback as music restores its social aspect.

Curious to hear other thoughts on these projects as they evolve.

Wired has a great mini-documentary on the score for the videogame Infamous. It’s chock full of sound design ear candy, not only served by the chops of composer Amon Tobin but the team at Sony Music and Sony’s entertainment division, as well. Curiously, Jonathan Mayer, Music Manager at SCEA, says explicitly that he doesn’t want composers writing interactive music. He’d prefer to have them write a conventional score and then adapt it to the interactive engine. Now, of course, around these parts we like the idea of composers finding ways to write genuinely generative and interactive scores. But in this case, Mayer is acting as a kind of remix artist for the game realm, sampling Tobin’s compositions and reconceiving them in the game world. That kind of collaboration could be powerful.

Chuck Doug, SCEA music director, overstates things a bit by claiming this game has a unique aesthetic. The visuals are a burnt-out, post apocalyptic city – yeah, been there quite a few times. The music involves lots of ethnic percussion-y instruments and bowed metal and deep booming sounds. (Let me get this straight: we’ll hear a plucky stringy thing, then a bowedy metally thing, then there will be a big boom!) So, generally, not some radical new departure from game and motion soundtracks. But regardless of its novelty, I’d be an utter killjoy to complain: it sounds utterly gorgeous.

Previously:

I got to listen in on a lot of gems regarding sound design from composer Troels Folmann. He doesn’t just bow metal instruments – he boils them.

GDC: Boiling Waterphones and Other Sonic Inspirations from Composer Troels Folmann

And on the subject of getting composers to write interactively, Matt Ganucheau has been teaching that way:

Teaching Adaptive Music with Games: Unity + Max/MSP, Meet Space Invaders!

Eno had Music for Airports. It’s fitting that Monolake would do Music for Jet Lag. Robert Henke writes about this month’s free download:

Since I also have been flying a lot recently, I named it after one of the most annoying side effects of modern transportation and mixed it in a way that reflects that dizzy feeling of being hyper active and totally asleep at the same time. ( "Last call for mister Robert Henke, flying to Berlin, please come to gate B 154 IMMEDIATELY or we will unload your luggage !!!!!!!!!" )

I am myself recovering from jetlag on the way to Portugal, so the timing is perfect. In a way, I have to say I sometimes oddly enjoy the disorienting feeling. I don’t think it’d be terribly addictive, but it’s a physical, profound reminder of traveling a great distance, something you could otherwise ignore in the age of absurdly-fast jet travel.

Grab the download here:

Free Downloads of the Month [yetlag, May 2009 – should be archived if you’re catching this late]

Installation details:

http://monolake.de/installations/lufthansa.html

The installation is fascinating in itself: a Max/MSP-powered, interactive sound score for a giant flight simulator, a model of the presence of jets, travel, and air traffic control. Robert did the sound; Christopher Bauder of white void was the concept and very elegant visual design. (See also Aaron Koblin’s striking Processing-based visual piece Flight Patterns, which seems to have embedded itself on a certain airborne digital zeitgeist. The United States becomes a feathery web of connections and flying traffic. You can imagine how this might continue to be mined in sound.)

As we work to keep our creative process flowing, I especially love the idea of focusing on a feeling to get a production started, as Monolake did here. So often, it’s too easy to get caught up in something technical or some very particular idea, then lose that in the process. By focusing on a feeling or deeper sentiment, it’s possible to remain connected to the ethos of what the track really means to us.

Of course, travel too much, and that may just wind up being … well, jet lag.

Meanwhile, as I listen to more music piped through airport terminals and even Metro stations, I wish Eno’s original idea had caught on.

In the thrilling conclusion of our chat with Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, Matt Ganucheau and I explore deep thoughts about the roles of interactivity and adaptivity in music and game design — then attempt to dance in giants Katamari Damacy hats. (Note the use of the word attempt — those things were more than a bit tricky to move in. Hilarity ensues.)

Prior to leading a dance dance Revolución, we talk a bit about the ways in which game design relate to gesture in musical interface and how musical scores could become non-linear. The gesture issue really goes well beyond games to the fundamental question of how to relate to music physically — and, in a way, awkwardly-dancing musicians may be a fitting metaphor. Or parable. Or something or other.

We do it all for you.

I really did find this a fascinating way to promote discussion, so if you’ve got suggestions for future broadcasts, I’d love to hear them. You can even think of new silly things for us / guests to do.

See also, related:
Troels Folmann on the boiled waterphone-style instrument, sound design inspiration
Troels on “micro-scoring” adaptive music

For part the first:
GDC: Music, Video Games, and Interactivity – Chat with Boing Boing Video

Game Audio: Selected Student Works from Matt Ganucheau on Vimeo.

In the early days of game sound, musical soundtracks were all largely adaptive and interactive, fused with the sound effects of the game and the logic of gameplay. Scores were less Alfred Newman or John Williams, more Spike Jones. Today, game music has the potential to reinvent composition itself, to help us reimagine what makes a musical score as on-screen user action drives musical ideas. But with a few, notable exceptions, most modern titles have opted for big, Hollywood-style soundtracks – and the linear composition that goes with them, as though someone just took a film score CD and hit play.

It’s one thing to talk about that in theory. Better yet: give it a shot yourself. So why not teach game music as its own discipline?

Matt Ganucheau, a composer, sound designer, and interactive developer/artist, is teaching just that, working with students at Expression College in Emeryville, California. The accelerated course works with the elegant Unity game engine and a clone of the legendary Space Invaders arcade game, adding music built in Max/MSP. If Max seems an unlikely choice, its open source cousin Pure Data (Pd) is actually integrated with the game engine for Electronic Arts’ Spore, with music by Brian Eno working with EA’s Kent Jolly and contributor Aaron McLeran. So, this could be the wave of the future. The first problem: figuring out how to actually compose.

The results are astonishing, given that the students were just learning Max and had extremely limited amounts of time. I asked Matt to write up for CDM how the coursework evolved; he shares his process and what he learned as a teacher. We’re also working on open sourcing the coursework content and the patches, which we’ll soon provide both for Pd and Max/MSP. I’m doing some work on the game side so that you can play with game mechanics in Processing. Stay tuned for more on that.

We spoke a bit about this process – and interactive music in general – with Xeni Jardin and Boing Boing in their Game Developer Conference livecast a week ago Friday. Edited video of that coming soon.

Here’s Matt on the coursework itself:

When faced with the challenge of updating our Game Audio course at Expression College, we wanted to create a course that reflected the increase of interest in adaptive and interactive audio in the current game industry. To do this successfully, we had to make sure our students had an understanding of how audio engines have evolved in the past eight years. Since our terms are only five weeks and our student body is comprised of non-programmers, this seemed like quite a daunting task. But having carefully fine-tuned the details, we feel we have a good recipe.

First, we begin by having the students build simple environments and place audio emitters inside the Unreal 2k environment. This shows them the restrictions of audio functionality in a proprietary engine. After a few labs with Unreal, the students are then introduced to the concepts of a middleware platform, using Audiokinetic’s WWise connected to the game Cube. Here, they are able to explore more interactive audio such as real-time control parameters and dynamic music changes. Finally, the students are introduced to Max/MSP. Lead through labs comprised of synthesis, sampling, basic programming concepts and sound design, we are able to arm the students will all of the information needed to create their own generative audio engine inside Max/MSP. By hacking away at a recreation of Space Invaders posted to the Unity3d forums (thank you, Eric Haines), we are able to pipe all of the real-time game data to Max/MSP via the UDP transport (with help from Bjerre).

Inside Max/MSP, the game data is received in our Unity2Max patch. With this initial infrastructure in place, the students are able to use the real-time events to remix the classic arcade game with their own audio engine. Piece by piece, we recreate the original audio engine through tasks such as creating the alternating pitched footsteps for the invaders, and a UFO spaceship noise with a flanger and a sine-wave, as well as mapping invader’s proximity to the music’s speed. For their final project, the students are allowed to use these tools to go in any stylistic direction they wish, as long as the music is adaptive.

We did not give students access to all of the game events because we didn’t want them to become overwhelmed with options. To our surprise, these restrictions created the opposite reaction. Students were frustrated by not having a message saying that the “UFO was destroyed”, so they hacked their own ways to find this out by deducing the change in points. In another example a student wanted the missile explosion to sound when the bunker was hit, so he placed a threshold on the missile flight time to be able to see if a bunker was hit. Hacks like these began to appear all over the students projects. This may seem like basic programming techniques to some, but to see this development come from a class of audio engineers is quite amazing.

Although this new course design has only been active for 4 months, we have seen a dramatic increase of interest from our students. Once a cultural standard like Space Invaders is deconstructed, the students become extremely excited to explore a new direction for the classic game. It still amazes me just how far students can go with only 3 weeks of Max/MSP instruction.

Unity Game Engine (recently updated to 2.5, and now both on Mac and Windows)

Cycling ‘74, Makers of Max/MSP

Expression College for Digital Arts

And the bits for this game, specifically:

Unity Invaders on the Unity Community Forum (the Space Invaders game used in the class)
Unity Invaders Site with downloadable, playable versions of the game
Discussion of UDP communication between Max and Unity, with the patch solution by Bjerre

Also, don’t miss the fantastic Pd-based book Designing Sound (well worth a read for Max users, as well). It’s an entire textbook built on the idea of doing interactive sound design in Pd, useful for games but other live and interactive sound, too – and while the emphasis is sound design rather than music per se, it remains a great reference on learning to patch and learning about audio synthesis.

Andy Farnell

AudioMulch isn’t just a sequel or a new episode. This is AudioMulch: The Next Generation. We have holodecks in this one.

That’s the claim of the developer, anyway, and looking at the features, I have to agree. AudioMulch has long been a cult favorite for people wanting to patch together unusual sonic tools and performance rigs. That puts it in a category with apps like Reaktor or Max/MSP, but unlike those tools, AudioMulch has a lot of stuff built for you already. Those buildings blocks also have an idiosyncratic personality of their own, but remain flexible enough that you can make them a comfortable part of your own setup.

Oh, yeah, and this formerly Windows-only app now works on the Mac. Mac users can even open 1.0 patches. (Check the screenshots; you may not really be aware or care which OS you’re on.)

New in version 2.0:

• An all-new UI, built from the ground up, with drag-and-drop patching and faster MIDI control and parameter access
• Gray is out; black is in.
• Dockable windows stretch across multiple screens.
• Up to 2X performance efficiency increase
• Patchable MIDI routing, finally – so MIDI matches up with the power of audio in the first version
• Metasurface, tempo, and transport can now be controlled by MIDI and automated
• Complex time signature support, automated time signature changes, additive meters
• Improved support for consumer multichannel audio (see note below)
• Startup enabling of audio, MIDI, networking

I was curious about audio support. Here’s the answer:

I’ve made some changes to the DirectSound and WMME driver interfaces so they can output to surround outputs (ie on soundblaster etc), without needing ASIO4ALL or similar. No WaveRT at this stage. Previously the multichannel support in AudioMulch only worked well with ASIO or with some older WMME drivers for pro cards.

Of course, WaveRT support would be even better from what I can tell, though I don’t know how much (ahem) fun it is to develop that support.

The only bad news is that the cost has increased to US$189. But if you have 1.0, an upgrade is $89, and once you buy a license it’s portable across Windows and Mac. That’s especially nice; for me – as for a lot of us these days – the Mac is my backup to my Windows machine, and visa versa.

It’s funny, I always liked Audiomulch but could never quite get into it; I always felt there was a certain level of polish and functionality that wasn’t there. It looks like it might be there now.

We’ll have a closer look at this as it ships, which should happen very soon.

Availability: May 1, just in time to use AudioMulch to play your Kentucky Derby party

AudioMulch 2.0 Preliminary Information

Surprisingly-detailed AudioMulch Wikipedia page

Previously:
Gig Rigs: Girl Talk – PC, Plastic Wrap, and AudioMulch

Who needs NAMM? Well, sure, you could wait 48 hours for the mind-bogglingly awesome announcements I’m sure we’ll be scooping on this site know absolutely nothing about. But that’s 48 hours you could be spending right now, coding your own sequencer. And unless Ableton and Steinberg and Apple and Digidesign and all are reading your thoughts, it may just do something they haven’t imagined yet.

Ah, you say, but wouldn’t that mean learning something ancient and arcane like C?

No, I’d say. You can do it Ruby, and impress that cute Web developer at the local indie coffee shop with the hip, new programming languages you’re using. (The Ruby developers in this crowd, I’m sure, have already skipped to the juicy bits, so let’s continue with this absurd role play.)

Ah, you say, but I need to learn to play an instrument and I’ve never coded before.

Fine, I say. But you can still rest easy at night knowing Giles Bowkett is doing it for you.

Giles Bowkett was seen, well, earlier today on this site using Ruby to create his own callbacks in the hexagonal grid generative sequencer Elysium. But he has a project of his own, coding something called Archaeopteryx. Coded in Ruby, which aside from being hip really does do a lot in a tiny amount of code, Archaeopteryx creates systems for “auto-generating, self modifying music.” Using inter-app MIDI on the Mac (possible via other methods on Linux and Windows), he drives traditional sound sources like Reason. That means the really ugly work of coding your own DSP is left to the professionals, while the compositional and creative work of figuring out which notes to play is entirely in his hands. And he evidently plans to open source the whole thing – giving entertaining talks on Ruby coding along the way at events like RubyFringe.

I think this is fantastic, and it demonstrates that making programming more accessible helps people who otherwise would never try coding their own projects do just that. That should inject more creativity and difference into the world of computer music-making, which is good for even the people who don’t ever touch this stuff. And if you’re learning Ruby as your day job, it gives you something really cool to do with it at night – provided you can stand at looking at still more code until you quit your day job, of course.

More on the topic:

Drive Propellerhead Reason With Ruby

Archaeopteryx: A Ruby MIDI Generator

And a full RubyFringe presentation with slides and all (can’t embed it, but worth a look if you’re into Ruby):

Archaeopteryx: A Ruby MIDI Generator [InfoQ]

Archaeopteryx Activating/Deactivating Clips In Live from giles goat boy on Vimeo.

He also goes into some thoughts about open source, business models, funding, and why Sasha should have open sourced the commissioned controller project. I stay out of things involving money or business models, though, because money sees me and goes off to cry itself to sleep in a corner.

Great stuff, Giles! I’m still partial to Java because I think it’s a more versatile platform overall – and I’m looking into ways of using Groovy to avoid the fingers-falling-off amount of code Java tends to require. But this gives me still more incentive to keep working. Thanks to composer Ted Pallas for the tip!

And I still think there’s a great argument for having simple scripting capabilities in tools like Ableton Live. Sometimes writing out code is better than assembling graphical patches. As code becomes more prevalent in our society, I expect it will pop up – and as Giles proves, there’s nothing stopping you from making it happen yourself. Even Giles took a space of a couple of years to get his project along. Spare time, no matter how tiny and fragmented, can be a powerful thing.

For one area in which forward-thinking digital music types are doing innovative work in game and interactive audio, look no further than the Interactive Audio SIG. They’re doing really interesting stuff in looking at how tools can support future interactive music. And if you are going to GDC, this is another one you’ll want to catch. It’s worth noting that the “interactive” in their title really is just that: this is about all forms of interactive music, not just games per se. Given what we’ve seen with generative music apps on desktops and mobiles alike over the past year, that really brings this point home. In fact, unconstrained by the harsh business realities of big-budget game development, individual composers and small teams experimenting with the future of music is really where I expect to see progress.

That doesn’t make the challenge any less for formats like IASIG’s iXMF interactive spec – if game developers are primarily interested in keeping their proprietary engines humming and focus on fairly non-interactive assets, iXMF may not really catch on. But then, I like a good challenge, and anyone who knows the game and interactive space knows that sometimes real innovation takes time.

Watch CDM for more coverage and even some tutorials on these topics all year long – think we’ve got some good stuff coming.

Brad Fuller of IASIG writes: “I didn’t see a mention of the IASIG on your blog. Maybe I missed it.”

Well, Brad, sometimes I just think things and forget to write about them, which admittedly makes it hard to read. So here’s what Brad sends along on the IASIG meeting:

Each year at GDC we have our annual IASIG Town Hall meeting where we gather to discuss progress in our working groups and also allow others to discuss what they would like the IASIG to address in an open mic session.

We also have an annual mixer where we share drinks and a raffle of great audio prizes from sponsors such as: Creative Labs, Garritan, Numark, MixMeister, O’Reilly Media and Wave Arts. IASIG members and those in the audio business are welcome (a business card, or other identification is recommended.)

Here’s a recap of last year’s party and Town hall meeting:

http://iasig.org/gdc/2008gdc.shtml

This year will be no different, a mixer and a town meeting will be held at GDC. Check your bag for a flyer that will indicate the time and location.

Hope to see you there!

More info: http://iasig.org/

The IASIG exists to allow developers of audio software, hardware, and content to freely exchange ideas about improving the performance of interactive applications by influencing hardware, software, and tool design. The IASIG provides resources in the form of standards creation and maintenance, research reports, and recommended practices. Anyone with a commercial interest in audio for interactive entertainment is encouraged to become a member <http://iasig.org/join.shtml> of the IASIG.

Thanks, Brad! I’m working on getting out there myself, so maybe see you there.

It’s got some impressive capabilities going for it, too:

• Mic input
• 3D audio
• DSP effects
• Compressed samples, MOD, and MIDI

And, in good news for indie studios, it’ll cost just US$500 per title to license.

Of course, you can add this to Pure Data (Pd), which found its way to the mobile platform via the (partially open-source) RjDj project. RjDj is a music platform, not a game platform, but Pd has some powerful audio processing capabilities of its own, and I’d count them both in the category of interactive music. The RjDj gang will be having their next “sprint” – a developer intensive to build interactive scenes for the platform – in Berlin, with New York to follow in January. (I’ll be at the New York event, naturally.)

December is the time for the next RjDj sprint: The Reality Jockeys would like to invite you to the Scene composing session on 12-14 December 2008 in Berlin at this nice location:

Here’s the RjDj event, via the Pd list:

moviepilot

Bluecherstrasse 22

10961 Berlin (Kreuzberg)

The action starts on Friday, 12.12. at 12 am and spans the whole weekend. We’ll post further details/timetable etc. briefly before the actual sprint happens.

What is a RjDj sprint?

RjDj sprints bring together musicians and artists interested in working on reactive, algorithmic music ("Scenes") for mobile devices and do other mad things with sound. Currently supported devices are the iPhone and in an yet unreleased version the iPod Touch.

The goal is to create, test and enjoy many new scenes for the RjDj application. We know that many musisicans don’t have iPhones, so we will provide some devices for development during the sprint. Prior sprints happened in Bizau, Barcelona and Vienna. Check out http://rjdj.me/sprints to see how much fun we generally spread!

Attending the sprint is free, but we kindly ask you to register on our website: http://rjdj.me or via info@rjdj.me

Please forward this invitation to anyone you think might be interested.

And here’s the news on FMOD. So, Firelight, I wonder – will other mobile platforms follow? (And mobile platform makers, this clearly demonstrates the need to have lower-level development capabilities, cough, Android.)

Firelight Technologies today released its popular FMOD Music and Sound Effects System for the iPhone platform. With this release, iPhone developers can now use the same high quality FMOD audio engine that is widely used throughout the games industry.

Brett Paterson, CEO says "We’re proud to bring FMOD to this exciting platform. FMOD is a natural fit for the iPhone with its support for sequenced music formats such as mod and midi, compressed samples and small code size. Users can keep it small, or scale right up to take full advantage of the microphone, 3D audio and suite of DSP effects that FMOD natively supports. Being conscious of the budget nature of iPhone development we are also releasing the API at a special iPhone price of $500 per title. This includes the use of FMOD Designer. By combining the power of the iPhone and FMOD we hope to see some really creative programs and hear some great sounding games."

FMOD Ex download / free evaluation

It’s official: we had heard rumblings that game maker Harmonix was about to announce something, and it’s here. It’s a collaboration directly with the Beatles to make something that isn’t Rock Band or Guitar Hero — something completely new. And something completely new is exactly what’s needed.

Before Guitar Hero and Rock Band, before being purchased by MTV/Viacom, game developer Harmonix were a very different creative house. Co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy were MIT friends whose first project was an application that let you play guitar with a joystick. (Sounds like a research project you might read about here.) Their interactive music games were influenced by the explosion of Japanese titles like PaRappa the Rapper and Beatmania, to be sure. But part of what made FreQuency and Amplitude so important was that they offered more than just a simplified music experience. They were digitally-powered acid trips, with VJ-style video clips playing up buildings and surprisingly sophisticated interfaces that remixed the music as you played.

Make no mistake about it: Guitar Hero and Rock Band are brilliant titles with a fair dose of musical integrity in the way they abstract playing experiences for broader audiences. But there’s no question some of the original creativity — the sense that the game experience was unlike any other experience — is missing. And in this pumped-up HD age, in which surreal game experiences like intra-dimensional navigation in Portal or ambient floating cartoon paramecia in Spore, it’s hard to wonder if gamers who weren’t ready to snap up FreQuency a few years ago might be ready now.

So while rival Activision bakes a watered-down GarageBand-style app into another iteration of Guitar Hero, it’s intriguing, at least, that Harmonix is working with the Beatles. And they really are working with surviving Beatles and Beatles Significant Others: Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison. (Okay, I’d like to see a special Yoko-inspired game on Xbox Live Arcade.) Most interesting, producer Giles Martin, heir to production legend Sir George Martin
and producer of the Love project with Cirque due Soleil, twice a Grammy winner, and the man behind The Beatles Anthology is involved, too. (See a great story on him in Sound on Sound.)

Let’s get straight to the point: for the band that made virtual acid trips mainstream decades ago, it’s time for a new, digital trip. (They do describe it as a “journey” through the Beatles’ work, after all.) I think the Beatles make a perfect choice. I can’t count the number of people I know in music composition who were addicted to Beatles records as kids — not the Beatles’ generation, but their offspring in the 80s and 90s.

And despite the intervening decades, Yellow Submarine still looks imaginative and bizarre. If gaming can do anything, it can take music we’ve heard a zillion times and make it new. It can make our regular experience, the reality around us feel a little different. Rock Band has proven to be a trojan horse: it’s literally driven up sales of real instruments. That’s proof that making something palatable to a mass market can help get them hooked on new kinds of experiences. Can a Beatles game feel less like interactive documentary or re-hashed Guitar Hero, and more like a groovy, retro journey into the strange imagination that turned a lot of us on to recording, music, visuals, and … uh … animations of strange creatures? I think so. Can’t wait to see what comes out.

PS — I want to play as George.