Stickies Music

Listen to the music that sounds like your life.

Stickies Music is an interactive sound installation that reflects a personal schedule represented by a set of stickies. The goal was to design a musical interface for a novice user. To make an interface accessible to novice-users, I hoped to get rid of the notion of performing instruments. Most of the time, an instrument generates sound when a musician applies physical gestures(bowing, plucking, blowing, or pressing). The sound varies by the gesture itself and the position where the gesture is applied in the interface. Instead, in Stickies Music, what makes music are not the gesture of making notes nor the position where the notes are. It makes music by the notes you make to remember things you have to do in your life, for example, “homework”, “laundry”, “paint my room” or “call back my mom”.

The color of each sticky note indicates the urgency and the importance of the task. By detecting the color and number of stickies with mounted camera, Stickies Music will play music that sounds like your life. If you are busy, it will sounds busy. If you are hectic with lots of urgent schedule, it will sounds alarming. Lastly, If your to-do list does not change for a long time, which means you are not being productive, it will ruin the music.

Stickies Music is implemented using C++/OpenCV for computer vision, Max/MSP for generative algorithmic composition, and Logic for the sound synth.