A student at CU Boulder invented musical gloves that bring an entire orchestra to life, with a few simple movements of his fingers!
Kristof Klipfel, a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, is a composer and has been playing instruments since he was 12 years old. He became enthralled with composing in high school. He created the musical gloves in an attempt to combat the frustration of having to switch between his computer and keyboard while composing music. Essentially, the gloves allow for a more streamlined approach to composing, making it not only easier but faster to create music. Klipfel is on his way to Japan, where he will be showing off not only the new musical gloves tech, but also other technology he has had a hand in developing at a student design competition; Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interactions conference in Yokohama. [gallery size="large" columns="2" ids="11481,11482"] The musical gloves were created after over 150 hours of work. They originally started as a project for a Wearable Technologies course and have continued on to something more. "Pretty much all of my free time was going into trying to make this work. I didn't have a job at the time. This was my job," said Klipfel of the gloves. "Once you start making music, it's very cool to tactically just bend your finger and hear the music change." He can create a loop of a certain instrument, then switch over to another instrument, and soon a melody is born. With a few simple movements of his fingers, Klipfel is able to create an entire song within minutes. He can change the tune of the song by adding layers of instruments without removing the gloves or having to log-on to his laptop in order to do so.
Other frustrated composers will have to wait a little bit longer until they can get their own musical gloves. "I would love to put more time into this and create a stable version," he said. The gloves are being put on the back burner temporarily as he continues school and eventually lands a job where he will earn enough money to get these moving forward.
He shares that once the musical gloves go into production, they will be a great tool for people who "don't want to understand everything about music but still want to make something that sounds good". These gloves are perfect for those of us who have little to no experience (or talent) when it comes to musical instruments, but have an aching desire to learn!
What do you think? Will we be seeing these musical gloves in production soon? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
