Design of an Educational Environment with a Computer-Controlled Organ

The primary objective of this project was to design a responsive environment using a computer-controlled organ for children to learn music principles. Three secondary objectives set in the development of this environment were to create the means for: 1) entering, storing, and replaying complex music; 2) viewing the time-space relationships inherent in music; 3) controlling and manipulating music. A computer-controlled electronic concert organ was programmed to enable a wide variety of musical composition manipulation from changing key to synthesizing musical parts. Line drawings on a graphics scope displayed music information that could be redrawn at will. Music manipulation was accomplished with keyboard, computer terminal, and lightpen buttons. Response from 13 children ages 4-12 and a few adults was very favorable--the graphics scope being especially successful for grasping correlation of parts of a score. The developmental basis of the system shows great potential for generating data to compare with data gathered from traditional teaching methods. (JH)