FlueBricks: A Construction Kit of Flute-like Instruments for Acoustic Reasoning

TL;DR

FlueBricks is a modular construction kit enabling users to build and customize flute-like instruments for hands-on acoustic reasoning and learning.

Contribution

Introducing a novel modular system that facilitates embodied acoustic reasoning through interactive instrument design and experimentation.

Findings

Participants engaged in designing and playing, enhancing their understanding of acoustic properties.

Users reinterpreted modules creatively, beyond their original functions.

The system demonstrated potential as a pedagogical tool for acoustic education.

Abstract

We present FlueBricks, a construction kit for acoustic reasoning via building and customizing flute-like instruments. By assembling generator, resonator, and connector modules that embody various aeroacoustic properties, users gain deeper understanding of how blowhole, tube length, and tone-hole placement alter onset, pitch, and timbre through hands-on experimentation. This forms a designer-player loop of configuring and playing to form, test, and refine acoustic behaviors-acoustic reasoning-shifting acoustic instruments from static artifacts to dynamic systems. To understand how users engage with this system, we conducted an exploratory study with 12 participants ranging from novices to professional musicians. During their explorations, we observed participants fluently switching between designer and player roles, scaffolding designs from familiar instruments, forming and refining their acoustic understanding of length, tone holes, and generator geometry, reinterpreting modules beyond their intended functions, and using their creations for performative acts such as pedagogical showing and musical expression. These collectively demonstrated FlueBricks's potential as a pedagogical tool for embodied acoustic reasoning.