“It is this experience of control and emersion in sound, which can be such a powerful tool.” – Welcome to Soundbeam Video

Soundbeam

The most amazing thing about Soundbeam is that is over 20 years old. It was first created in 1989 and has continued to be developed and improved since.

The Facts…

Soundbeam is a interactive Midi system, which picks up movement and translates it to sound. It use’s a sensor to pick up movement and also has the option of foot-pedals to add extra sounds. The current version of Soundbeam offers, an in built sampler, inbuilt synth, inbuilt amplifier and inbuilt mini keyboard and offers a variety of samples.

Soundbeam was originally created to be used in dance as it would pick up on the movements taking place and translate them into the appropriate sounds and tempo. However it has since been developed to be used in schools and music and dance therapies.

 

 

The Implications…

What remains fascinating to me is that Soundbeam has existed for 23 years, granted it has not been used in music therapy for that amount of time but is has been in the area for some substantial time, and yet the further development of technology in Music Therapy still seems relatively unexplored.

For me this is extremely surprising, I’m not knocking Music Therapy as it stands, it is a powerful and life changing thing and theres no denying that the traditional techniques used work extremely well, however using technology’s available to us today we may be able to develop those techniques further or even create new techniques.

It almost seems to be that Music Therapy is afraid to move forward with technology incase these old techniques are replaced, well yes perhaps these techniques may be more effective or perhaps they will not, we will not know until we try them, and surely the main priority should be the development of Music Therapy to help people more, and if technology can help us to do that then great!

I will restate i am not disregarding Music Therapy as it stands, we have needed these traditional techniques and research to get to where are today, however now i think is the time to move forward. Think of it this way, Electronic music is now seen as the future of the Music Business however no one is say that to get to this conclusion we didn’t need The Beatles, The Beatles were crucial to this development. It is important to remember although music has been seen to have the power to heal since Ancient  Greek times, however it has only been a recognised profession for the past 50 years.

To go back to my initial point, Soundbeam shows the start of a exciting future for Music Therapy, Community Music and in fact any type of Interactive Music. With the inbuilt sampler people are now able to record their own sounds, whether it be their voice or them tapping on a table and then manipulate it using the sensors and foot pedals. The enables people who may have never been able to consider making music, the chance to be a music maker. Going back again to one of my favourite points, anyone can be a musician, and it is developments such as this which are helping this to become true.

 

 

Some things that interest me is whether programs such as Logic and Ableton Live could be used with The Soundbeam to enable more manipulation of sounds and perhaps usage of more samples.

I hope that the development of Soundbeam will help to further the use of technology within Music Therapy, but it is clear that it is a step in the right direction!

For more information on Soundbeam visit their website: Soundbeam.co.uk