Musical Sudoku

March 22, 2009 • Quotidian • 0 • Previous | Next

Miss Mussel hasn’t to date discovered what all the fuss is about in Sudoku-land. Crosswords are enjoyable way to pass a bus journey but the pleasure of unlocking Sudoku patterns has remained a rather mysterious one. Until today, that is.

Thanks to the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held on 27th and 28th February at Georgia Tech, Miss Mussel’s ambivalence towards Soduku has been transformed into a raging curiosity. Entries to the competition had to comform to the following requirements:

Instruments may generate sound acoustically or electronically, they may exist in physical or virtual manifestations, and they may be played by humans, robots, or computers. They may modify, improve, or extend existing instruments â€” including the human voice â€” or they may offer entirely new design paradigms. New instruments which cross over these categories or which defy any such categorization are also welcome.

So basically anything goes. There were quite a few interesting ideas in the pool of 25 finalists although there weren’t any Miss Mussel would call instruments as such…except for maybe the Radio Zither. Most relied on samples and patches and with their main differences wrapped up in the means by which the samples were activated.

The Sorisu, as the Sudoku instrument is called, was created by Korean Hye Ki Min. In its present form it is rather simplistic but there is real possibility here to make something more interesting a la In C/Music For 18 Musicians/I Ching good times. Failing that, puzzles that play music would certainly make them more enticing for children. And certain bivalvate bus passengers.