22 AMERICANWAY
JANUARY 15 2009
T E C H N O L O G Y
Manufacturing
Greatness
Can technologymake us the people
we’ve always dreamedwe couldbe?
By LindaRodriguez
By the time Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart was five
years old, he could read and
write music. Chances are, your
kindergartner isn’t blessed with
the same natural abilities. But is it
possible—with thehelpof some in-
novative technologies — that he or
she couldbeaminiMozart anyway?
Tod Machover, a composer and
professorofmusicandmediaat theMas-
sachusetts Institute of TechnologyMedia
Lab,hascreatedaprogram thatallowsfive-
year-olds— andpeople of any age, for that
matter— to sidestep the difficult processes
of learning to readmusic and understand-
ing tone, pitch, harmony, andmelody, and
go straight to the fun part of creatingmu-
sic. The software, calledHyperscore, uses a
mouse-based visual interface that employs
a visual language of lines and colors to al-
lowusers todrawandpaintmusic.Thepro-
gram is already available commercially and
in schools across theglobe.
“It’sanattempt tocreateanenvironment
where people start from scratch andmake
their own music,” Machover explains. No,
he says, kidsusingHyperscoredon’tusually
become prodigies overnight. But he insists
that’snot really thepoint.
If the last century isanymeasure, theup-
per limit of humanachievement is continu-
ally rising, blowingpast the previousworld
record in a Usain Bolt–shaped blur. And
to some degree, it seems to be technology
like Hyperscore that’s fostering this jump
inhuman ability. So as these kinds of tech-
nologyhelp individuals surpasswhat talent
andhardworkalone canaccomplish, could
someone become great without ever really
being that good?
The answer, Machover says, is not ex-
actly. “I think most people, given the op-
portunity and the right context andmaybe
the right tools, have farmore ability to ex-
press themselves and to do original things
than (1) they’regivencredit forand (2) than
they realize themselves,” he says. “One goal
shouldbe tohelpanyonewhohas anatural
inclination to a certain kind of thing go as
far as they can.”
And that’sexactlywhatMachoverandhis
graduate researchers at MIT are trying to
do.Machover’s lab is litteredwithdissected
parts of instruments, things that oncewere
instruments, and things that are on their
way to becoming instruments. Near the
front door stands an upright piano of sorts
— the entire underside of the keyboard is
a thicket of copperwiring attached towhat
looks like a battery — that was created as
part of a thesis byCraigLewiston, a former
