Brugia Malayi - Clark Science Center - Smith College

ChucK and the Keyboard Instruments Project
Lucy Chikwetu
Gone are the days when one had to wait for a day when thunder strikes, or a day when rain pours in order to record lightning or
rain sounds. Digital music synthesis is enabling us to generate sounds when we need them. It is possible to make brass and clarinet
compositions without touching either of those instruments. For six weeks of my summer, I was part of a team helping Professor
Judy Franklin design a new computer science class that we believe will attract more women into the field. It is a course on digital
sound synthesis using a computer music language called ChucK. We were also looking for other ways ChucK could be used in our
daily lives. “ChucK it to the dac, just ChucK it to the dac!” 1 became the song that we belted every time we wanted to take a break
from programming and research in our laboratory, and ChucK it became a solution to all the problems we did not know. 2
As part of our research, we had to understand the basics of sound, analog and digital sound recording, playing back sound,
and digital sound synthesis methods. We had to synthesize our own sounds, look for ways ChucK has been used so far, and think
of new ways to use it. Through the process came the discovery of using ChucK with keyboards, joysticks, and many other devices.
That was a turning point of our work. I believed we could turn our keyboards into musical instruments. We could have our
computer keyboards play sounds from a wide range of instruments such as the piano, clarinet, or brass. If we could do the project
really well, the software could be distributed to various people, especially those who might not have the financial means to buy
musical instruments, yet love music. The project was named the KINS Project. KINS stands for Keyboard Instruments. The basic
components of our work are now functional, and other student researchers are carrying on this research. Below is the Graphic
User Interface (GUI) of our project. The user simply selects the instrument to play and then types on her computer keyboard.
The mapping is chromatic, using two octaves, and the “qwerty” row as the black keys on the piano.
In parallel we worked on course material that could help students who will take the class, including introductory examples,
and slides shows. It was probably not supposed to be that much fun; but that is what always happens when scientists connect
with their research and see what they do not only as a job, but as a way to make a difference. (Supported by the National Science
Foundation)
Advisor: Judy Franklin
References:
1 A dac is a digital-to-analog converter, used to send sound out to the headphone or speaker port.
2 The ChucK language uses an operator, =>, that is called the “ChucK it” operator.
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