For many, mobile technology and developing for the iPhone and the iPod touch is a fad and a Gold Rush. Good designers, though, take a longer view of how interaction can be expressive. And there are few people with a better sense of the big picture of small devices than Dr. Ge Wang. The co-founder, CTO, and Chief Creative Officer of Smule has a background that goes well beyond the latest Apple platform. Along with Perry Cook at Princeton, Ge Wang is the co-originator of ChucK, a real-time programming language for synthesis so efficient some people use it live onstage. (ChucK, as an open source project, now has a terrific team of people behind it.) ChucK is the sonic engine that powers Smule’s projects. Ge Wang also teaches at Stanford, working with students and fellow researchers to explore new ways of interacting with music technology.

Ge Wang joined me for a lengthy phone conversation recently. He really contextualized why the iPhone is important in the grand scheme of things, but also how the people at Smule and Stanford (and Princeton) can approach technology for musical interaction, focusing on what devices are rather than what they’re not.

(The audio here, believe it or not, is extensively edited – Ge Wang is that easy to talk to. I hope the next time it’s over beers rather than Skype.)

The full interview can be played below, or downloaded directly.

[podcast]http://createdigitalmusic.com/files/media/podcasts/2009/07/gewang.mp3[/podcast]

Download MP3 of the interview

Thanks to KORG and the Nano Series for their support of programming on createdigitalmusic.com.

Lastly: a video of the Smule team headquarters and playing around with Leaf Trombone for a Zelda duet!

More information:
The Mule Chronicles [Smule Blog]
http://smule.com/
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University

Previously, for more on Ge Wang and CCRMA:
Make:TV Meets Stanford Musical Inventors, Feedback Piano

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iPhone users today started downloading the new iPhone OS, 3.0. One interesting feature of the new mobile software is peer-to-peer communication for collaborating in person. If you’re looking for an app that takes advantage of that, and can embarrass you in front of friends / workmates, Smule Trombone could be your answer. The touch-and-breath-controlled social music app/game from synthesis wizard Dr. Ge Wang has a special 3.0-only version. It uses the new iPhone push notification for achievements, but more importantly, features peer-to-peer Bluetooth for in-person “Duet Mode.”

I think these sort of networked features will increasingly become not only a game gimmick, but a necessity in music making. Why shouldn’t music devices instantly recognize the proximity of other music devices, automatically connect, and sync and share data, recordings, clock, and control messages? (One answer why not: because they’re reliving 1980s flashbacks by running MIDI. But that’s no reason software and DIY devices can’t lead the way.)

Meanwhile, whether you care about iPhone ocarinas or not, Smule are on a roll. The Leaf Trombone collaboration features have been racking up stats, with nearly a million sessions judged by other users in six weeks. They aren’t all covers of Nintendo game songs, fun as those may be: over 4,000 original songs from the composer mode have been contributed to the community. There’s cash involved in game achievements, too; you can win US$500 for being “loved” in a new contest.

I also find it interesting that “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is the top melody with nearly 20,000 performances. It’s proof that some of the innocent joys of music may sometimes get overrated. (Although, let’s see, I still have an hour left to try to bang out a Stravinsky cover on his birthday.)

Go check out the Smule apps here – and here’s hoping we see smart networking in more music apps in general. (Ableton’s Share is one feature we’ll be looking at soon, though open communication standards would be great, too.)

http://www.smule.com/

By the way, on the Android side, it appears Google is planning to re-release the Bluetooth API, so we could get features there, too – and perhaps even Androids talking to iPhones. More on that soon, now that I have some time to get back to coding.

Updated – Bonus Video: Inside the “mind of Smule,” a duet from Legend of Zelda’s Underworld. Can your Computer Music teacher do this? Dr. Ge Wang can: