Chorus
The Project: Capstone project aimed to design a product for pre-teens to explore music production.
Chorus is a music making product that helps children around ages 9-13 bridge the gap between toy and professional tool in music production. With modules tailored towards specific instruments and audio effects, Chorus loops through sound sequences created by the user to help understand the building blocks of a song.
10 weeks
With mentorship from Loud Audio
Problem Space
Music producers go through the stages of developing, creating,and refining recorded music. In early learning stages, exploring music production is about understanding how different sounds layer and interact with one another in a musical piece.
User Group
“I didn’t want to go out and buy a separate drum machine...Playing drums, strings, like that just has a separate feel than banging on a keyboard.”
Children ages 9-13 with existing musical interests and music education. Though music education is seen as important, pre-teens rarely have tools fit for their age to explore these skills.
Research Insights
Children explore the world primarily through their senses of sight, sound, and touch.
Children's toys are too simple (preset melodies, singular instruments, etc.), while professional tools are
too complex.
The best way to learn music production is to learn by doing.
How might we design a tangible product that bridges the gap between toy and professional tool for children to explore music production?
Design Principles
Initial Ideation
Initial concepts explored a variety of user interactions and ways that the product could live in a variety of spaces for the user. Concepts were chosen and combined moving forward based on interesting interactions that were easiest to understand upon initial introduction and encouraged exploration.
Refinement
Refined ideation explored user workflow and additional interactions for each concept. Final concept was chosen based on what would be more appealing initially to the user group and which concept returned to heart of having fun in making music.
Chorus
Chorus is a music making product that helps children around ages 9-13 bridge the gap between toy and professional tool in music production. With modules tailored towards specific instruments and audio effects, Chorus loops through sound sequences created by the user to help understand the building blocks of a created song.
