Ride N' Rhythm, Bike as an Embodied Musical Instrument to Improve Music Perception for Young Children
This addresses the problem of enhancing music perception for young children through embodied interaction, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing theories and pedagogy.
The paper tackles the lack of interactive systems for young children by designing a bike that maps body position to music volume and speed to tempo, resulting in a prototype aimed at improving music perception skills for children aged 2-5.
Music plays a crucial role in young children's development. Current research lacks the design of an interactive system for younger children that could generate dynamic music change in response to the children's body movement. In this paper, we present the design of bike as an embodied musical instrument for young children 2-5 years old to improve their music perception skills. In the Ride N' Rhythm prototype, the rider's body position maps to the music volume; and the speed of the bike maps to the tempo. The design of the prototype incorporates the Embodied Music Cognition theory and Dalcroze Eurhythmics pedagogy, and aims to internalize the 'intuitive' knowing and musical understanding via the combination of music and body movement.