Along with “Woks”, and “Weber Grills”, "Dustbin (trash can) lids" are another of the things that people often associate the appearance of Handpan with. So the concept of turning an actual dustbin lid into a “Hang Drum”, does have an interesting kind of irony to it.
And while as with such things as the iPad Hang, and Handpan alternatives made from PVC tubing, we share the following more for the novelty of it, rather than as a serious alternative to a real hand-tuned steel instrument - this "Trash-Can-Hang", made using a technology named “Mogees”, is still very cool - and is at least moderately more effective, than we were expecting it to be…
Mogees is a technology that combines a vibration sensor, with a real-time gesture-recognition app. And according to the YouTube video description, the following is what is going on: ‘A Mogees sensor attached to the lid is plugged into an iPhone running the new Mogees app. An audio cable then connects the phone to a speaker. Mogees features real-time gesture recognition. Here 5 parts of the lid are associated to 5 different notes. With the Muon sound engine in the app, the raw audio from the sensor is used as the input to a physical modelling re-synthesiser, meaning all of the nuances of the performance can be heard.’ And with “play your world”, being the Mogees slogan, the device can essentially turn anything at all, into a musical instrument.
Actively seeking funding over at Kickstarter (at time of posting), the Mogees campaign has far exceeded its initial goal of £20,000 - raising more than £80,000 in investment, with six days still left to go. And to get more information (and/or to sign up as a backer - if you hit this page within the next six days), you can visit the Mogees Kickstarter campaign: HERE.
Alternatively, you can visit the Mogees website: HERE, for more information.