Last week, Dan Trueman, co-founder of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), stopped by the NY Times to do a guest segment for the paper’s popular NYT Tech Talk podcast.
During his interview with co-host J.D. Biersdorfer, Dan talked about the differences between a traditional orchestra and a laptop orchestra (surprise: they sound nothing alike!), and he also demonstrated one of the first instruments created for PLOrk, “The Droner”. He described the special speakers they use to fill a room with sound and how the orchestra’s members manipulate audio using the computer’s own sensors.
PLOrk, courtesy of princeton.edu
Dan’s segment appears about 6:30 into the program, right after this week’s technology news:
http://podcasts.nytimes.com/podcasts/2009/09/16/17techtalk.mp3?_kip_ipx=52508507-1253133339You may have seen The Princeton Laptop Orchestra profiled on Fox News, but you won’t want to miss Dan Trueman and a chamber-sized, crack team of PLOrkers perform some of their work at the MMiX Festival on October 9th. Perhaps they’ll turn off all the lights and let the music be made by the laptops’ cameras tracking mini-flashlights? Maybe there’ll be a bit of Norwegian fiddle thrown in for some ancient analog ambience?
Probably a little bit of both.
– Jocelyn
The MMiXdown 