Music: Beat Bearing

Peter Bennett designs interactive musical instruments that do not require any musical training in order to become a virtuoso. His "Beat Bearing" rhythm sequencer uses ball bearings to trigger electronic percussive sounds. Just throw in a few chords and viola, you are a synthpop artist.

What was the motivation for creating the Beat Bearing? Bennett is a PhD student at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queens University Belfast. His thesis title is "Interaction-design Techniques for Multimodal Digital Musical Instruments". He created the sequencer after a fellow student left a handful of ball bearings in a class room. The final result is a gadget that looks more addictive than a Wii. Where's my glow stick?