Gem is the outcome of a the project Adap-tive/able music by Meis Suker and Pieter Overgoor. It is a keyboard extension for Nienke, our user who miss- es part of her left arm. With Gem Nienke can play piano while using her right hand as well as her left arm. By using a gesture sensor, this extension ads a whole new dimension to playing piano. For the first time Nienke found her interaction with the piano not frustrating, but actually stimulating and practical.

 

This project focuses on the development of new musical instruments for mentally and/or motorically impaired people. The challenge in this project is to combine the notion of new ways of controlling music with the extra challenge of designing for specific groups, which in turn may lead to a very innovative controller.