Music Technology Rules Of Thumm

The Thummer is a new instrument/controller that was developed in Austin, Texas to address the needs of learning styles that may not have been adequately catered for by previously existing devices…

It is generally acknowledged that different people learn best in different ways; this is the essence of learning styles. The three basic learning styles are auditory (learning through hearing), kinesthetic (learning through touching and doing) and visual (learning through seeing).

When teaching a class of music students, the group will almost certainly include people who favour each one of these learning styles over the others. The Thum Music System claims to solve the problem of successfully teaching such groups by presenting an instrument that appeals to all three styles at once, with each sense reinforcing the information provided by the others.

Thummeister describes the concepts and implementation on his blog:

“…the shape of any given interval – say, the perfect fifth – is the same everywhere on the ThumMusic Keyboard. Auditory learners can hear this interval’s consistency; kinesthetic learners can touch it; visual learners can see it. Each sense reinforces the other, emphasizing the consistency and importance of intervals to the structure of music.”