Monokai

Of all new instruments and interfaces created, the Reactable made me drool when it first showed up on Youtube. With this instrument, you can use actual, tangible building blocks to produce music. Blocks influence eachother according to their relative positions. Put me in a room with that thing and I won’t open the door for a month. Probably will forget to eat as well. Throw in a Tenori-On and I’ll leave public society for 10 years, delivering the most avant-garde music album afterwards.

Too bad the Reactable isn’t commercially produced. There are only a few, including one in the Icelandic vaults of Björk. Previously, the Reactable was showcased somewhere in Rotterdam I believe, but I only noticed afterwards. I was thrilled to notice that it was showcased yesterday at Nemo, during the “Amsterdam Museumnacht”.

I finally was going to see The Instrument with my own eyes. And guess what, people were actually allowed to play with this thing! So, Else and I managed to get close to the guy leading the workshop, and were chosen to gave our best shot.

5 Minutes of hardcore virtual generator movements, modulator block rotation and filter knob manipulation made the crowd go wild. Else showed some serious musical skills she herself didn’t even know she possessed. I tried to get a hold on the mechanisms behind this thing, but only mildly understood the various communications between the blocks. All in all, we rocked the place of course. Those 5 minutes completely made my day.

What I noticed was that music produced with the Reactable generally isn’t very subtle. All too easy you put lots of generator and modulator blocks on the table, which doesn’t contribute to a pleasant listening experience. Most music produced was the kind of music that comes from arty underground museum installations of first grade art students. Even the main guy himself didn’t perform any better. It would be great to experiment with the table to actually make music that would be pleasant to listen to. I know it is possible.