The future has arrived: you can finally play a banana piano

A Raspberry Pi project has crossed over the line of innovative idea and into the forest of weird. Thanks to a recent addition to the accessory line for Raspberry Pi that Adafruit offers, one man has turned a bowl full of fruit into a MIDI keyboard, complete with multiple sound effects and adjustable tones.

With the Capacitive Touch HAT from Adafruit, turning practically anything into a sound machine seems fairly easy. The board is attached to the top of a Raspberry Pi unit. The HAT adds 12 channels of capacitive touch sensing. Connect an Alligator clip to the board with the other end clipped to a conductive object, like a piece of metal.

Then, by telling Python on Raspberry Pi to talk to the sensor you will know when someone has touched the object.

Conductive materials cover a wide range of objects, which is where José Federico Ramos Ortega’s Instructables [Via Google Translate] project comes in. He connected 12 pieces of fruit to the 12 channels on the Capacitive Touch HAT.

Nine of the fruits are the sound channels, which playback the programmed MIDI effects when touched, and three control the tones and change the instruments. The result is a truly unique food experience.

I imagine that everyone one of us has, at least once in our lives, has picked up a melon and given it a good slap or two, pretending it is a drum. What if you thumped on a cantaloupe and it actually made a real drum sound?

It may not be practical, but is sure is interesting. Plus, once you’ve played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, you can make a delicious fruit salad to share with the audience.

via Raspberry Pi