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The University of Southampton
MusicPart of Humanities

Touching sound at the Create Your Campus launch

Published: 31 October 2011
A screenshot of the Music software

On 30th September Vice Chancellor Don Nutbeam opened the new Piccolo Room on Level 5 of the Hartley Library. The space was designed by student team 'Team fgConcept', winners of the University's Create Your Campus competition in 2010. A small number of demonstrations were presented at the launch event, including one developed by Music lecturer Dr Richard Polfreman, which allows students to explore sound synthesis using a large multi-touch screen.

The new learning space includes two large 32-point multi-touch screens, allowing several people to interact with a single screen at once. The music demonstration by students, including 2011 BA Music graduate Steven Troughton, showed them controlling sound by drawing waveforms and filter graphs with their fingers, as well as using a number of sliders to modulate the process in real-time. The results of their efforts could be seen on waveform and spectral displays as well as heard over loudspeakers, while Dr Polfreman explained the technology involved and how this might be used in the development of future Music learning experiences.

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