Boy, just substitute my 28-year old friend Aaron for your son, and that's
exactly how Aaron reacted when he first got to "play" with my modular ;)
Hopefully we'll get him in the fold soon.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tkacs, Ken [mailto:ken.tkacs@...]
> Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 8:16 PM
> To: 'motm@egroups.com'
> Subject: [motm] Saturday Night Modular Musings
>
>
>
> I did something yesterday that, while perhaps wasn't the smartest
> thing I've
> done all week, really intrigued me.
>
> Normally my ten-month-old son is locked out of my studio, for obvious
> reasons, if you've seen the thing's he's stuffed down AC registers and so
> on...
>
> Yesterday I let him crawl in, and he went straight to my cluster of MOTM
> modules (still wired as they appear in this month's EM, by the
> way). I mean,
> who wouldn't, right?
>
> I sat him in my lap and let him touch it. He started spinning knobs, then
> flicking switches. He was bouncing up and down as happy as I've ever seen
> him. I mean, he was squealing. Turning the Coarse knob on the VCO's really
> got him excited.
>
> My first thought was, "Ahh, we're going to get along just fine, son."
> Followed by, "You know? I feel exactly the same way when ∗I'm∗
> playing with
> my modular."
>
> I also thought about what a fantastic tool this would be for schools.
>
> But then the big one hit me.
>
> This is exactly why modular synthesizers are so wonderful. Seriously. When
> even a 10-month-old child can get this happy over the user interface of a
> "reality-shaping" device, you know that there's something 'right'
> about it.
> We can debate about the ergonomics of a 1" diameter bakelite knob over
> increment/decrement buttons on a digital GUI... but when you watch a child
> with only 5 syllables in his vocabulary hopping up and down gleefully
> because he can turn a knob and change a switch with instant feedback over
> what change he has caused, what power over his environment he
> has... I mean,
> that's ∗it!∗ You know? That's why we have the big knobs, the sealed pots,
> the quarter-inch jacks, the big LEDs.
>
> There's something "right" about it!!!
>
>
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