[Testing] Tam Tam on the XO-3

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Scott,
>
> I would love to know more about the Simple Piano Activity. Unfortunately, I
> don't know how to get to it.  Gonzalo's notes say it is to use with Tam Tam.
>  It is hard to see how that would work. Is it a divided screen? You really
> should have access to the controls on the Tam Tam main screen while playing.
> Can you send me a screenshot?
>
> Did you see my email about the Tam Tam FLOSS manual I have been working on?
> It has links so you can go take a look at it.  I'll forward a copy to all of
> you in a separate email.  It shows some of the things that can be done with
> Tam Tam.  I tried most of them with students at the Montana school where
> there is a small CP project and with a group of adults in a workshop at the
> SF Summit.
>
> The main difficulty with Tam Tam is actually the use of the XO keyboard with
> the letters on it that don't match up with the note names. People with no
> musical experience have little difficulty. Musicians, even with just a few
> piano lessons, get very confused.
>
> This is the reason I haven't moved the FLOSS manual to the "publish" status
> yet.  My granddaughter (a 13-year-old violinist) suggested I add an Appendix
> with all of the musical examples written out in standard notation for people
> who already read music. I will have to wait until after SCaLE 10X to find
> time to do it.
>

I find this interesting. I learned to play sitar, tabla and bansuri
(Indian bamboo flute) in the Hindustani tradition, but never learned
to read music. Hindustani music relies on frameworks (raga), and a
good bit of improvisation within frameworks, so reading and playing
doesn't work much. In fact, a raga rendered by one artist may be
different from another artist's rendition (btw, here's a good intro to
the tradition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQ3kfBLn54 where the
Rajan Mishra demonstrates (at 3:02) the difference between two ragas
with similar notes).

So, I still can't read a printed notation (I don't even know what its
called, but it sure looks like a bunch of birds on telephone wires!),
but can play by ear or read Sa Re Ga Ma... (=Do Re Me Fa...). When I
have to play on the XO, I don't look at the letters. I look (and
remember) to location of the keys and the notes they make.

Also keep in mind that the keyboard can change from one script to the
next, so a correlation of notes with letters becomes moot.

cheers,
Sameer

> There is also a free CC copyright class right after SCaLE on Moodle for
> Wikieducators  that I thought would be useful to take before working on the
> musical examples.
>
> Keep me posted on what you decide to do with Tam Tam and other musical
> Activities. I am very interested!
>
> Thanks,
> Caryl
>
>> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 22:55:34 -0500
>> Subject: Re: Tam Tam on the XO-3
>> From: cscott at laptop.org
>> To: cbigenho at hotmail.com
>> CC: cjb at laptop.org; testing at lists.laptop.org
>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 11:35 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Folks,
>> >
>> > I don't know exactly who to send this to, so maybe someone who reads it
>> > will
>> > know and pass it along.  While working on materials for playing songs on
>> > the
>> > XO-1 using Tam Tam Mini and Tam Tam Jam for a Contributors Program
>> > project I
>> > am helping,  it occurred to me that it should be fairly easy to provide
>> > a
>> > standard black and white piano-type keyboard screen image to use on the
>> > new
>> > XO-3.  This would eliminate the frustrating process of translating
>> > musical
>> > notes from their normal letter names (eg cdefgabc) to the names of the
>> > corresponding keys on the xo keyboard (eg zxcvbnm).
>> >
>> > So my question is... will the Tam Tam suite of Activities be included in
>> > the
>> > Sugar build for the XO-3?  Have you programmed a musical keyboard screen
>> > image yet?  If not, I strongly suggest one be included in your plans.
>>
>> I'm hacking on http://git.sugarlabs.org/simplepiano at the moment, but
>> I agree that Tam Tam is a better long term solution.
>> --scott
>>
>> --
>>       ( http://cscott.net )
>
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