MSI donates Wind U100 netbooks to help create laptop orchestra
MSI recently announced that it has donated a number of MSI Wind U100 netbooks to the Virginia Tech Music Department to help create the first ever Linux-based laptop orchestra. Laptops in orchestra? Well, when iPhone and iPod Touch can be used as DJing instruments then why can’t netbooks be used as orchestra instruments?
The unique orchestra group is made up of theater arts, political science, engineering, biology and math majors and is called the L2Ork, in honor of the open source software used by the group.
Each member of the orchestra follows directional cues and observes their “scores” on the Wind screens and plays virtual instruments with Wiimotes and nunchucks. The students can control their instrument’s loudness, pitch, sound color, and about any other direction given by the composer. The orchestra members are also all networked together so each member knows exactly what every other member is doing.
“We place a great value on education and understand the important role computers play in the classroom,” said Andy Tung , Director of Sales for MSI North America. ”It was an honor to have the opportunity to help the students at Virginia Tech create their orchestra.”
