Pâte à Son

2004

Frédéric Durieu (BE)
Kristine Malden (US)
Jean-Jacques Birgé (FR)
Thierry Laval (FR)

“La Pâte à Son” is a “tonal mélange” that lets any music lover become a composer. An extremely easy-to-use set-up makes it possible for anyone—even those with no training or previous experience—to create a melodious piece of music.

LeCielEstBleu faced the challenge of developing a tool to teach music to children. They decided on a playful approach in which the basic idea was to dissolve a highly ordered structure.

To get things started, the user is presented with a perfectly ordered series of musical notes—scales or simple melodies—and the computer screen displays a chessboard and two containers that give off well-structured tonal ingredients. The user can now intervene in this production by means of pipes from which notes are streaming; repositioning them in any way influences the direction of the music that flows out of them.

Eleven instruments are provided to give expression to the silent musical notation. In addition, X-shaped and T-shaped switches distribute the tonal ingredients in a variety of different directions, and circuits make the simple melodies more complex. Aesthetically appealing circuits create a musically advanced composition, whereby graphic and compositional beauty gives rise to melodious music.