Culture Online/ABRSM - SoundJunction

The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, funded by the DCMS Culture Online scheme, asked Atticmedia to design and build an interactive website aimed primarily at 13-18 year olds. The site was to allow users to explore music and find out how music is composed, performed and produced. Another objective was to allow users to discover music and instruments from different traditions and continents.

We responded with SoundJunction, a multi-award winning, vast site featuring over 40 hours of audio and video, and over 1,000 specially written articles. At the centre of the site are three inspiring new pieces by composers from different musical traditions (West African, Western classical, and Jazz) and a series of specially commissioned remixes that cover a wide range of contemporary styles. The site uses pioneering new tools and technologies to allow users to create their own music by remixing elements of the three SoundJunction pieces with other ‘sound bites’ from the comprehensive SoundJunction library.

Atticmedia used cutting edge technology, not least our own content management system, AtticExpress to manage and continually update the audio, video and text-based content. The content management system allows the ABRSM to add in multiple pieces of music, and to provide sample tracks to introduce and explain content. We also built bespoke musical software to create a site that provides a unique visual and audio experience.

A vast array of design templates were created to allow the ABRSM great flexibility in organising the content. The site operates on the principle of re-usability: re-usability of music clips within the user’s “composer” tool and re-usability of content within the user’s own personalised journeys through the site. In addition the site features different browsing techniques including a visual ‘mind map’ format, teacher created “learning trails”, a wealth of dynamically produced suggested links as well as standard site navigation. This allows the user to explore in a way that suits their own learning style. Users can also generate their own trails throughout the website, saving these and sharing with others.

The user has access to a wealth of video and audio performance material. These are embedded within the content and provide active illustrations of the written content. Users can break open the music and see the many sub-tracks that make up a composition. Users are able to view individual video clips for individual tracks – i.e. a single instrument or a singer. Each track has embedded links that take the user to other content areas within the website. In addition the user is able to copy and paste any of the sound content and re-use within their own composer, and save their own re-mixes of the musical content.