Project 1 – Willow Hong

For this project I explored the connection between movement and music, and essentially created my own theremin, which is an instrument that  controls the frequency and amplitude of sounds using hand movement.

I used Leap Motion sensor to read the absolute position of my left hand along the z (vertical) axis, and the range of that data stream is translated into 8 MIDI notes from C3 to C4. The velocities of my right ring finger are normalized and then mapped onto the computer system’s volume scale, so the faster my right hand moves, the higher the volume will be.

I also added a slowly rotating noise point cloud to create some visual atmosphere. The note change will be reflected in the color change of the visualization, and volume change will alter the cloud size.