Pixelboop

Pixelboop is a sequencer in which pitch is color. It maps music theory onto color theory, so harmonies read as gradients and dissonance as contrast, and an arrangement can be painted as well as played.

With the Portland Jazz Composers' Ensemble I use it as a visual conductor. A 12-piece jazz chamber orchestra of Deaf and hearing musicians reads the grid for cues that keep everyone in sync harmonically, regardless of auditory ability. That collaboration is #DeafJazz.

It is also a toy, and that is deliberate. Loops come together through touch gestures rather than stacked menus: four tracks, eight patterns, no wrong notes, and a good-sounding loop inside a minute. The same grid runs in a browser at jam.audiolux.com, where Portland Public School students work with it through a Deaf-led curriculum.

pixelboop.com →