W9 REDEFINE AND EXPERT RESEARCH

This week I had the tutorial with my tutors, visited few music stores and had an interview with two musicians.

• Tutorial

I used Xmind organized the conclusions and thoughts I had by research so far. After gurus' day, I got confused on my target user. After consideration, I decided to stick in my first design position. Design a musical instrument for impoverished kids, try to reduce the cost and the difficulty to play it so they can learn themselves. Although it's still hard for me to get in touch with my target users, I'll try to understand them indirectly. I settled the age of my target user by 11 to 14 due to my previous research and discussion with my tutor and gurus. I believe children in this age is capable of learning basic music themselves.

• Interview with Jessica

Jessica was a clarinet player in the orchestra of University she had been studying clarinet for ten years. I talked to her through Skype. The aim of this interview is to understand

1. How the wind instruments work and how to play them 2. The structure of wind instruments 3. The Notation 4. The Daily maintenance

She showed me her clarinet through Skype. I learned that:

1. The player needs to adjust the length of columns of air to produce a different tone. The player changes the tone by blocking or realizing different holes on the pipe. The range of this instrument can reach eight octaves. They need to recite different fingering of these octaves.

2. Three parts join the clarinet. At the start, they need to learn how to play it one part at a time. After learning all three pieces, they can start to play it as a whole clarinet.

3. They use the staff (or stave), but clarinet can only produce one sound at a time, it can't make chords.

4. Toning takes ten mins on average of every practice. The reeds need replacement regularly.

She told me other aerophone instruments were more or less like the same.Aerophone instruments include woodwinds instruments like the oboe, saxophone and the clarinet, brass instrument like french horn and trumpet which will take more effort to learn.

The most important are the wind instrument depends on the skill of the player a lot. It took her weeks to make a sound at the beginning of her study.

• interview with RUNE MAN

RUNE MAN has played jazz drums for six years; he has been in a rock band as a drummer for years. I also talked to him through Skype. The aim of this interview is also to understand:

1. How percussion instruments work and how to play them 2. The structure of percussion 3. The Notation 4. The Daily maintenance

I learned that:

1.There are percussions have multiple pitches and percussions only have a single tone. 2. For percussions have multiple pitches they can also use staff as notation. different relaxation of drumhead gives different tones. 3. They need to use a drum key to adjust the easing of the drumhead to tone regularly.

• To sum:

1. Wind instruments

I also looked up traditional instruments in China like Ocarina and bamboo flute and other wind instruments' price on the online shop. Surprisingly you can get a harmonica or a pipe under 1 pound. There is little space for me to develop the design. The facts that it takes much more effort to learn, and most of all it can't make chords, make it less fun to play. Regardless it can be portability I don't think wind instruments will be the best match for my project.

2. Percussion instruments

Multiple pitches percussions are usually a set (like jazz drums); it won't be portable. A single percussion with pitches like hang drum is extremely costly to produce.

I'll keep doing research and trying to define my project.