Trentham Gardens Sound Wall back on line

The sound wall at Trentham Gardens  was powered down in January 2011 to allow software update and the development of new sensors. This work is now finished and the sound wall is now playing once again. Four of the eight sensors are responsive at the moment and we are awaiting  delivery of recently developed sensors to be configured into the wall.

For those of you not aware of the sound wall garden it was originally built as a show garden for the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show 2010, it was designed as a music therapy garden which would equally be at home in a school for special needs education or a health-care centre.

One of the unique aspects of the garden is that is houses an interactive sound installation. This is controlled by our own software running in a computer behind a curved wall. Sensors in the wall relay information to the software, which creates music based on a combination of the sensor inputs and its own real-time generative soundscape engine. Triggering a sensor twice may or may not produce the same note, or even the same sound, but the installation is configured to always produce music within a certain context rather than random notes or noises (although it could be configured to do that too, if necessary). The soundscapes produced by the software are always self-consistent, but they never actually repeat, creating an interactive and ephemeral experience. When people interacted with the wall they were really playing an instrument, although it didn't require any musical skill.'

The software powering the Sound Garden was developed by Shaun Bailey of MonkeyTrial.

Click here for an example of the soundscapes produced. MonkeyTrial release music on the Magnatune label , which is available on iTunes, Amazon and other online stores.'