Can’t Play the Glockenspiel? Let Your Twitch Friends Play for You

You may not realize, if you’ve only listened to pop music from the last 50 years, that more instruments exist than just drums, guitars, and keyboards. The world is full of fascinating instruments designed to create all manner of delightful sounds. The rich notes of an oboe can create an unmistakable melancholy, while the three strings of a Japanese shamisen are perfect for making music that is simultaneously exciting and haunting. One instrument, however, probably takes the cake for producing a sound that is unabashedly jaunty: the glockenspiel.

The glockenspiel, in it’s mostly modern form, first came into popularity in the 17th century. The instrument resembles a xylophone, and sounds quite a bit like one too. The metal plates of the glockenspiel, however, give it a brighter sound that makes it undeniably cheery to listen to. You may recognize it from Rush’s hit Spirit of the Radio, as Neil Peart kept one on his famously elaborate drum kit. But, if you’re not Neil Peart and don’t know how to play a glockenspiel, there’s no reason to worry.

MIT students have created a Twitch-playable glockenspiel as their final project for an embedded systems class. The project takes commands from a Twitch chat (or a Python script), and sends them to an ESP8266 connected to a Teensy. The Teensy is then able to actuate solenoids mounted on the instrument. The Teensy’s outpit pins are expanded using decoders, allowing all 25 keys on the glockenspiel to be used. The code along with fairly detailed build instructions are available on Hunter Gatewood’s website.