Our collective passion for music and interaction led to the creation of TouchTones, a multi-user collaborative music sequencer that doesn’t require any musical knowledge in order to make something beautiful. TouchTones was the first third-party freeware application for the Microsoft PixelSense interactive table. The application was created in order to demonstrate best practices for designing for this unique platform.
Up to four people can make music together on four instruments distributed across four octaves, all playing to a master tempo. Each color represents a different instrument. Instead of the typical 16-note grid, we created a free-form set of rotatable “mirrors” – sounds travel in a straight line until they are reflected and bounce off in a new direction. Each time they hit a mirror, a note is played.
We also created a mobile version of the application for sequencing on the go.
