Youth Music Box is a hit with users
It’s official, Youth Music Box - our free interactive music experience - has made quite an impact on users across the country.
Youth Music Box was launched back in July 2009 as part of our 10th birthday celebrations. The state-of-the-art installation developed by music and graphics experts Silent Studios with interactive artist Chris O’Shea enables people of any age to create their own music track and video using cutting-edge technology, all in under 10 minutes.
The Box was first installed at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank over the Summer holidays before pitching up at Bristol’s Colston Hall in October and at The Sage Gateshead in November.
To see Youth Music Box in action check out the video below:
Youth Music Box Experience from Silent Studios | Resonate on Vimeo.
As Youth Music Box toured the nation we conducted our own research to find out what users made of their experience. So far just under 2,200 videos have been created by a whole variety of visitors.
Youth Music Box users ranged from babies to older people, professional musicians to people who had never made music before, and from those that had a lot of experience of using technology in their music making to those for whom it was a completely new experience.
Our research discovered that overall people loved the Youth Music Box experience, frequently using words like ‘wicked’, ‘sick’, ‘fun’, and ‘excellent’ to describe their session.
One music leader said that young people she saw coming out of the Box looked “like they’d been in some funfair, like it’s the best thing they’d ever done. People come out really ‘smiley’, like it had been a great experience.”
So what did people think was so great about the Box?
1) ‘The Box feels like a real recording session’
Being in the Box was an experience that users compared to being in a ‘real’ recording studio. They liked how professional the Box seemed and that it gave them an opportunity to know what it really feels like to be in a band, recording their own track. A primary school teacher noted “it was like a different world for them… it was quite sophisticated, they liked that it was the same as an adult's version of things and not dumbed down."
Both young people and adults described it as something they would not normally have the opportunity to experience, and that they had not seen anywhere else.
2) Being allowed to do our own thing
Children and young people liked the independence the Box gave them in making their own track. There were three elements to this. First was that they got to choose which musical genre they would use, which instrument they would play and how they would play it- as if they were “in a real band” (girl, primary school age).
Second, and linked to the first point, was that they got to create their own original track and got the chance to listen back to it.
Third was that they could use the Box without an adult present. This appeared to strengthen their sense of ownership over what they created - “you get to do it the way you want” (boy, Year 6).
3) Playing as a collective
Creating a track in a group added to the experience. It was perceived to be a more fun way of making music compared to doing so alone. It also made them “think about it more” in terms of what they were playing and how it fitted with what the others were doing. This tended to come through where users had second and subsequent turns in the Box.
There was additionally a social element. The Box experience was seen as a way of encouraging users to work together and develop their communication skills.
Youth Music will continue to develop the Box throughout 2010 so watch this space for where it will be visiting next. For more information or to have a go at the online version check out our Youth Music Box section.
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