From Push Buttons to Notes: A Hardware/Software Ecosystem for Inclusive Music Education

This paper explores several ways to drive a music-oriented computer system by push-button controls, with a particular focus on music education for young children and individuals with disabilities. The research investigates a range of interaction paradigms where heterogeneous push-button actions can be mapped onto musical functions, such as triggering Note-On/Note-Off events, dynamically controlling other musical parameters, or playing and stopping pre-recorded sequences. The ultimate goal is to propose a hardware/software ecosystem that utilizes button-based human-computer interfaces that are not specialized for music (e.g., joypads or colored computer keyboards). These paradigms are designed to lower the barrier to entry for engaging with music, making it accessible even to those with limited motor skills or no prior musical training. To this end, we propose an implementation where multiple push-button devices can be connected to a hub that communicates with a computer, and the role of the latter is to associate a customizable musical meaning to button events in the framework of inclusive music education.